Three Weeks With Lady X(31)

"I shall throw on some decent clothes tomorrow. At the last minute."  When Thorn was amused, his voice dropped and took on a rough edge that  made him sound even less gentlemanly.

"Rose looks much better," India said, changing the topic to something less provocative. "Less drawn and less frightened."

"I force her to eat apple tart for breakfast," Thorn said. "Though what she really likes are Gunter's ices. Every afternoon."

India smiled at him.

"What did I do to deserve that?" Thorn asked, looking both quizzical and completely unmoved.

"Anyone would be happy to see how well you care for your ward," India  said. "Your mother would be-" She broke off, realizing she had no idea  who Thorn's mother was or what she would like.

"Never met her," Thorn said promptly. "She was an opera singer, and  presumably not maternal by nature, given that she left me behind with  Villiers-clearly not a model father."

"Oh."

"What was your mother like?" he asked.

An image of the marchioness flashed through India's mind, her hair long  and free, dancing naked under the moon. What was there to say? "She was  quite original."

"From what I've heard, she was mad as a March hare."

"An unkind assessment," India said. She raised her chin defiantly.

"I investigated your background after I knew you would be around Rose,"  he explained. "Before that, I had decided that anyone calling herself  Lady Xenobia was obviously a crook, so I didn't bother to inquire about  your antecedents."

"You're not the first to have deduced that from my name," India conceded.

"What father names his child Xenobia, instead of Margery or Blanche?"

She hesitated.

"I'm guessing that madmen are not as parental as one might wish," he said, leaping into the silence.

"My mother had a tendency to forget I existed," India heard herself  saying. She'd never told anyone that uncomfortable truth. It wasn't just  that people would feel sorry for her; keeping silent made it feel less  real. "But she did love me," she added. She always told herself that.

"My mother did not feel the same toward me," Thorn said easily.  "According to my father, she thought I was a pretty baby, though. I  looked better in those days, or she had a temporary flash of maternal  feeling."

"She left you in a warm, safe place where you would be cared for."

"There is that."

He had his arms stretched across the back of the sofa, and he was so  good-looking that India's heart skipped a beat. It was stupid, but there  was something wonderful about the way he had made himself into Rose's  father. He would never leave behind a child of his.

"My parents died in London," she went on. "But I didn't know they were  there or why they had left home. They had neglected to tell me they were  leaving."

His eyes darkened. "Did you think that they had abandoned you altogether?"

"I wasn't sure." It was a relief to put it into words. "Sometimes they  would leave home, but they generally told me where they were going, and  they'd never been gone for three whole days."

"You never found out what they were doing in London?"

She shook her head. "No one knows. My father was driving the curricle  because we didn't have a coachman, and he went off Blackfriars Bridge.  From what they told me, he tried to rescue my mother."

"Neither of them survived?"

She swallowed, feeling the same old lump of grief going down her throat  again. "He wouldn't have wanted to live without her." It was stupid,  stupid, stupid, to feel that her father should have wanted to live for  her. Half the time he didn't even remember she was alive.

Thorn reached out and grabbed her wrist. Then he pulled her forward, and she toppled onto his lap.

"What are you doing?"

He wound his arms around her, and India stopped thinking about her parents.

"Your father and mother should have told you they were leaving," he said  into her ear. "They should have wanted to make sure you were safe. I  can see that they weren't wonderful parents. But I am absolutely sure  that they loved you."

"How can you know?" India said, her voice cracking.                       
       
           



       

"I've been in the Thames a thousand times," he said. "The water is murky  at the best of times, and it would have been stirred up by the carriage  and horses. A person gets turned around trying to swim in the muck, and  there's a wicked current slashing around the curve just past that  bridge. Boys would dive down and never come up, and we never knew what  had happened to them."

India's eyes were prickling, and she turned her cheek against his  shoulder. "I-I think they might have been leaving home for good."

"Why do you think that?"

"We had no money, but my mother did have some jewelry."

"You implied once that you had been hungry as a child. They allowed you  to go without food, although they had jewelry they could have sold?" His  voice was incredulous.

"The set was given to my mother by her grandmother," India explained. "She couldn't sell it."

"She could," Thorn said bluntly. "She should have."

India's mouth wobbled. She had thought that sometimes, but it was  terribly disloyal. "She planned to give them to me. Except she must have  changed her mind, because they took them to London, and obviously they  were going to sell them. I realized later that they must have decided to  go to the Barbados. They always talked of it."

His arms tightened around her, and he asked, "Where was Lady Adelaide during your childhood?"

"She was married and living in London. She had no idea what it was like  in the country." India used to dream that a fairy godmother would  arrive, bringing beautiful gowns, or perhaps just a clutch of eggs . . .  but it never happened. One day rolled into another, and when one was  worrying about food and the coming winter, anxiety made the days blur  together. There were whole years of her childhood that she couldn't  quite remember.

Anguish tightened in her chest. Thorn must have realized, because he  dropped a kiss on her hair just as the first sob struggled out of her  mouth.

"I n-never cry," she gasped five minutes later.

"It's all right," he whispered, his deep voice as soothing as the caress  of his hand on her back. "There are parents who make terrible  decisions, India, but that doesn't mean they don't love their children. I  do not believe for a moment that your parents scooped up those jewels,  planning to leave you behind."

"Father loved the idea of sailing for Barbados," India whispered.

"They would not have left without you."

"Why did they take the jewels? They were kept behind a loose stone in  the fireplace. When Adelaide came to take me away, I went to retrieve  them. And-and they were gone."

"Perhaps they were stolen," Thorn suggested.

"No, Father had taken their leather bag as well. It wouldn't fit behind  the brick, so it was always left in a drawer in the side table. No thief  would have known that." She drew in a ragged breath. "For some reason,  they took the jewels and left before daybreak without saying goodbye.  But I'm-I'm used to it now."

Thorn didn't believe she was. He had never known his mother, and even  so, the fact that she'd abandoned him had left a sting. India's parents  sounded even more irresponsible. "They loved you, and they wouldn't have  left the country without you," he repeated.

"How can you possibly say that with such certainty?" She was starting to  sound a little cross, which he took to mean that she was coming back to  herself.

He'd bet his fortune that her parents fell in love with her the moment  they saw her. But love alone didn't make people good parents. He had a  shrewd sense that Vander's mother had loved him, but you couldn't  convince Vander of it.

"Because you are who you are," he said, smiling even though she had her  cheek pressed to his shoulder and couldn't see his face. India hadn't  the faintest idea how many people loved her, from her parents to  Adelaide, to her workmen, to all those men who had asked her to marry  them. . . .

"They shouldn't have!" she snapped, sounding more like herself. "They should have woken me and told me where they were going."

"Very true."

"I cannot believe I told you all that," she said, sighing and  straightening up. "I've never mentioned it before. It seems disloyal to  their memory."

"Given what is already known about your father, I doubt that anyone  would offer praise of his parenting skills," Thorn said dryly. "I take  it the jewels were not found on their bodies or in the carriage?"