Marchioness Divine | A Regency Romance

Chapter Ten: Porridge

Amelia – or Charity – or both and neither – spent the evening changing between giving comprehensive accounts of her adventures in London and sitting in stony silence refusing to speak for several minutes.

"So," Judy began as her daughter curled into herself, "when will you be seeing your friends in London again?"

"I'm not. I'm staying here," her daughter replied monotonously in a tone so cold it scared Judy. "That was the plan."

"But if they're nice, it would be good for you to have friends."

"They think that I'm family because I stole all of their money."

Judy was struggling to recognise the young girl, the lady, in front of her, and she knew that this wasn't helping her daughter at all. She had spent months lying to everyone, even herself, hellbent on protecting their fortune, but something had happened to make her reconsider her decision.

Being without the real Marchioness, her daughter's closest companion, had been harder on her that she would ever admit. She knew her daughter was listless with nobody to entertain, nobody to care for, nobody to cherish. Judy worried that she believed the money could fill the void, but it never would.

"Come, you do not want to be lonely in this old house."

"I was never happier than when I was lonely in this old house," the girl grumbled into her empty bowl.

Judy removed the bowl and cleaned out the remains of the humble stew that her new Marchioness daughter had greedily swallowed. She peered out of the window above the kitchen sink, watching Paul feed the chickens and pigs. As expected, the moment her eyes found him in the darkness, he turned to smile and wave at her. Judy could always feel when her fifty-three-year-old husband's eyes were on her, and it was an unspoken rule that no matter what, if you felt their eyes, you turned and waved.

After all of her mistakes, Judy had a beautiful home, a caring husband, and a...uniquely brilliant daughter. She wanted the same for her child – this scheme did not have to be a trap.

When she turned back, her daughter was staring vacantly at the spot where the bowl had been. She stepped towards her tentatively. "I know I was...doubtful of this scheme at first-"

Her daughter snorted.

"-but now that I have spent all these months waiting for you, for your letters... I remember when you left me in Saint Peter's church with some apples and bread rolls and you were gone for weeks. I remember feeling so terrified that I would never see you again – I couldn't move for fear that if I did I would miss you and lose you. But this time...knowing you were safe, that you were coming home to me, that you could write to me of everything because I was secure here... I understand what you were so afraid of going back to. What Paul was so afraid of. What I ought to have been so afraid of.

"I will love you forever. And every day I grow prouder and prouder of what you have done to take care of us. No, it is not fair on the Warstones, and we will never be completely safe from the threat, but...everything you did, you did to build us a home."

Finally her daughter smiled. It was not as bright as the one she showed when describing a certain picnic, but it was a smile.

Judy took her daughter's hand and squeezed it twice sharply. "You have a life in London. I saw it in your letters. Do not abandon it."

In spite of her mother's encouragement, she could not go back. Not to London. Not to him. She did not quite know what the 'something truly wicked' was – kissing him, lying to him.

Edward was a passionately determined man on his way to betterment, and she was sure he would be the great man he strove to be. He made her believe that she could improve, that she could be good one day.