The Light in the Darkness (7 page)

The girl nodded.

“Then that is the name we will use. With your hair done up properly, and in a decent gown, you may perhaps be presentable. But appearances are not all that being a lady entails. You must be able to read and speak intelligently. You should be able to embroider, to paint, to play the harpsichord.…”

Jennifer glanced up, and for the first time interest gleamed in the dark depths of her eyes. “Th’arpsichord? I need ter learn somethin’ about music?”

“That is part of being a lady, yes. And, perhaps most importantly, you must learn to comport yourself in company. We will start immediately. Tonight you will join Grey and myself at dinner.”

“Oh,” Jenny began, “I would rather—”

Catherine cut her off sharply. “What you want is irrelevant. You will do what I tell you to do. I fully intend to transform you into a credit to yourself and to the Greyson name—whether you like it or not.”

A few hours later Jennifer’s hair, long and thick though it was, had dried in front of the fire. Having found a dark green silk gown that could be pinned up hastily, Catherine laced Jennifer into it, using a long, slender, silver bodkin to lace the stays, then stood back and admired her handiwork.

“ ’Tis too tight,” Jennifer objected, the discomfort of having her stomach and ribs pressed in overcoming her normal reticence. She had never had to wear stays or hoops before, and they felt terribly confining.

“Ladies wear stays,” Catherine replied in a voice that brooked no argument. She walked around the girl and nodded, looking pleased with herself. “Your hoops are too wide, of course, since narrower hoops have come into fashion since this gown was made. But no matter, we will
get you new gowns. You will do very well, after all. You may have none of the appropriate social graces, but those can be learned, and I expect you to learn them. But you already have something that cannot be learned.”

Jennifer seemed surprised to discover that she actually possessed something of value. “I do?”

Catherine nodded, and for the first time her stern features relaxed into a smile. “You do,” she affirmed. “You have beauty.”

She was startled when the girl turned her back and walked away. Following the girl to the window, she inquired, more gently than was her wont, “What is the matter?”

“Yer laughin’ at me,” Jennifer said. There was no bitterness in her voice, no rancor, only a flat statement of fact. It occurred to Catherine that she fully expected to be laughed at, that she accepted it as a normal part of life, and that it would never occur to her to resent it.

Nonetheless, she hastened to reassure the girl. “Of course I am not laughing at you, Jennifer. I’m laughing at Grey.”

Now the girl turned, her eyebrows lifted questioningly. Knowing that she would not verbalize her curiosity, Catherine explained, “You must have realized by now that Grey brought you here only because you were the most inappropriate woman he could find to wed.”

Jennifer nodded slowly, her cheeks flushing. She had come to understand Grey’s motives over the past few hours, but to hear it stated so baldly was nevertheless humiliating.

“What Grey did not realize,” Catherine went on, “was that underneath the dirt and homespun gown, you are actually quite lovely.” At Jennifer’s expression of disbelief, she pulled the younger woman across to the looking glass atop the twilight.

“Look at yourself,” she commanded.

Jennifer stared at her reflection doubtfully. Certainly the gown improved her appearance, despite its poor fit.
The stays did a good deal to give her a semblance of a figure, and the low-cut, square neckline emphasized what little cleavage she had. But her face, although cleaner, seemed much the same to her. She lifted her hands in a gesture of confusion.

“How can you not see it?” Catherine said in exasperation. Scrubbed and coiffed and laced into a decent gown, the girl was more than beautiful, she was stunning. Incredibly dark green eyes stared out from beneath arching golden eyebrows. Her face was a perfect oval, and her nose was small and straight, the nose that Catherine had always dreamed of having. Her hair, a shimmering amber rather than the mousy brown it had appeared when unwashed, was arranged simply but elegantly. She was small and slender, but far from shapeless.

Jennifer gave her an apologetic look. “I am not pretty, mistress.” She smiled shyly, and added, “Not th’ way ye are.”

If any other woman so lovely had made that statement, Catherine would have dismissed it as false modesty. But it was apparent that Jennifer had meant it quite honestly. Evidently the girl had no self-regard whatsoever. Catherine wondered idly what such beauty paired with such astonishing lack of guile and vanity might do to the heart of an unsuspecting man.

A man such as Edward Greyson.

Struck by the thought, she considered for the first time the possibility that Grey’s heart, frozen into ice on the day of Diana’s death, could be melted. What if Grey only needed a companion, a young, lovely girl to lift him out of the misery in which he had been mired for seven long years? After all, Grey was only thirty. Like Jennifer, like Catherine herself, like all humans everywhere, he must sometimes long for love and happiness.

Perhaps, Catherine mused, she could use the girl to turn the tables on Grey once again. Twice now he had dared to supplant her as mistress of Greyhaven, the first time with
an arrogant, haughty woman who had despised her, the second time with an utterly unworthy child. She had resented the intrusion both times, for she and Grey had been close since childhood, and she despised having to share him. But she loved him unreservedly despite his infuriating ways. Catherine looked down at the frightened child.

A plan began to form in her mind. Perhaps she could mold this girl into something other than a credit to the Greyson name. Perhaps, using Jennifer’s beauty as a weapon, they could bring Grey out of his morass of self-pity. She was devoted to her brother, despite the arguments they seemed to have constantly nowadays, and she was willing to try anything, anything at all, that might bring him happiness.

Of course, given a choice, she would not have brought the girl here. No matter how bad the girl’s circumstances had been, they could hardly have been as miserable as life with a drunken stranger would be. But now that Jennifer was here, Catherine could see no reason not to use her startling beauty to tempt Grey into living again.

It didn’t matter, she thought, whether or not the girl had the intelligence of a peahen. Diana had hardly been capable of adding two and two, yet Grey had adored her. Catherine knew from observation that men did not insist on intelligence in a beautiful woman. If only the girl could lose her timidity and be taught to flirt, to smile, to flutter her eyelashes …

Her plan fully formed, Catherine smiled as she considered Jennifer, who was still staring at her reflection, trying to see her own beauty. The girl, she thought, might turn out to be a blessing in disguise, after all.

Dinner was as dreadful as Jennifer had feared. Her husband sat at the opposite end of the mahogany gateleg table, glowering at her, quite obviously almost too drunk to stand, yet Catherine made small talk as calmly as though this were an everyday occurrence. Perhaps, Jennifer
thought fearfully, it was. Perhaps she would have to face Grey, drunken and angry and bitter, across the dinner table every night for the rest of her life.

To take her mind off that disturbing thought, she looked around at her surroundings. The dining room was as opulently furnished as the rest of the house. The shining surface of the table was covered with a white linen tablecloth, and over it hung a brass chandelier. The flickering light from the candles illuminated the fine Chelsea porcelain, beautifully painted with flowers, birds, and butterflies. A portrait of a hawk-nosed man in a powdered wig, whom Jennifer assumed was Grey’s father due to the unmistakably strong resemblance, hung over the fireplace. The gentleman depicted in the painting wore a dour expression that seemed common in this household.

Near the fireplace stood a marble-topped serving table. On it stood several silver columnar candlesticks bearing long thin tapers, which served to illuminate the chamber further. The beeswax candles produced less smoke and a less acrid scent than the tallow candles Jennifer was accustomed to. She had never imagined such profligate use of candles. After all, she had been responsible for making candles at the tavern, and it had taken her an entire day of hot and difficult labor to pour tallow into molds and make scarcely a month’s supply.

The paneled walls of the dining chamber were painted a gold color, and the seats of the chairs were upholstered with golden wool to match. The chairs themselves were remarkable, being heavily carved in the Chippendale style. The arms of the chairs terminated in snarling dogs’ heads, the mahogany faces of which reminded her uncomfortably of the savage, dark face of her husband.

Amidst all this splendor, Jennifer felt far out of her element, even clad as she was in the hastily pinned-up yet remarkably elegant silk gown. Lifting her eyes from the wonders that surrounded her, she found Grey’s hard silver gaze slashing across her face like a blade. She winced under the impact of his stare.

“She has wretched table manners,” Grey said to his sister with something like satisfaction. Jennifer’s eyes leaped to Catherine in a mute appeal for help, as these were virtually the first words he had spoken all evening. She was painfully aware, even without Grey’s cruel reminder, that she did not belong here, eating salty Virginia ham and succulent wild duck off china and silver. For an instant she wished that she were back in the ordinary, clad in her familiar homespun gown, eating plain fare from pewter plates and utensils, as she had been born to do.

Catherine glanced swiftly at the girl, and Jennifer thought she saw a trace of pity on the other woman’s stern features. “Pay him no mind, Jennifer,” she said gently. “We’ll teach you better manners quickly enough. After all, no one is born knowing the correct way to hold a fork.”

“She doesn’t belong here,” Grey grunted irritably. His oddly metallic eyes were still fixed on Jennifer, displaying a strange expression that made her exceedingly uncomfortable. “She should be in the stable, dining with the horses.”

Catherine smiled slightly. Unlike Jennifer, she had no difficulty in reading the expression on Grey’s face. He was bewildered—bewildered that the plain little caterpillar he had brought home had been transformed so easily into a butterfly. He had had no real idea what Jennifer’s face and form might look like, hidden as they had been by grime and that shapeless homespun gown. And now, facing a lovely woman across the dinner table, his thoughts were all too obvious. Grey found Jennifer attractive, and this annoyed him.

Men, Catherine thought with amusement, were remarkably predictable. Her plan was going quite well so far. She had known that Grey could not be indifferent to Jennifer’s beauty, even if he was indifferent to the girl herself. In an attempt to make him even more uncomfortably aware of Jennifer’s charms, she said lightly, “I hope you agree that Jennifer looks every bit the lady. Emerald green is a lovely color on her, don’t you agree?”

Grey did not answer. A muscle jumped in his taut jaw as
he continued his perusal of the girl. Catherine went on calmly, “I chose not to powder her hair. I thought its color too lovely to hide.” She had never before seen hair of that particular shade, a dark blond the color of late afternoon sunlight. She had chosen to draw it up in a simple arrangement atop Jennifer’s head, loosely plaiting it into a knot, which displayed the long graceful line of the girl’s throat.

Grey’s eyes lingered upon Jennifer a moment more, then, not without effort, he tore his gaze away and made his sister the object of his stare. “If you plan to turn her into a model of feminine deportment,” he said coldly, “surely you should accustom her to pomading and powdering her hair. Otherwise she might be thought peculiar, as I am, simply because I prefer my own hair to someone else’s. But then, I do not suppose you should concern yourself overmuch, for I imagine she will be considered odd anyway.”

“I hope not,” Catherine responded, unwilling to let him anger her. “For, you see, I do intend to turn her into a ‘model of feminine deportment,’ as you put it. I do not think the task will be too difficult.”

Grey smiled derisively. “I think you’re wrong.”

But Catherine noted with satisfaction that his eyes strayed back to Jennifer repeatedly throughout the rest of the meal.

When at last the last course, a creamy and delicious dessert called syllabub, had been served and the ordeal of dinner was over, Jennifer fled up the stairs to her chamber, which had been dusted and aired out somewhat this afternoon. A slave helped her out of the green gown and banked the fire that had warmed the chilly air in the chamber. Clad only in her shift, she lay on the dark blue coverlet of the big mahogany bed and stared blindly at the canopy.

She was well aware that neither member of the household was pleased by her presence. Despite her kind words and sympathetic gestures, Catherine clearly resented the fact that she was here. She had quite pointedly treated Jennifer as a subordinate. Catherine was obviously determined
to remain the mistress here, to maintain her control over the little world that was Greyhaven.

Jennifer was astute enough to realize that Catherine’s apparent interest in transforming her into a lady was simply an attempt to turn the tables on Grey. Grey had begun a war by bringing home a tavern wench as his wife. He had won the first battle, shocking and scandalizing his sister. But Catherine, like a good general, had already engaged him in another skirmish by announcing her intention of transforming his wife into a lady. Jennifer was nothing more than a pawn in a family game for power and control. Catherine, she was certain, cared nothing for her well-being at all.

And Grey—Grey liked her even less than Catherine did.

She had never realized before that there are different kinds of abuse. Her uncle’s physical abuse had been straightforward enough, and she had dreaded it, but the psychological torture Grey was inflicting upon her was a more insidious sort of abuse. She would almost rather have been beaten than face her husband’s vicious remarks and cold stares every day. And she was beginning to realize that it would be a daily torment. Even if she could avoid him most of the time, she would still have to sit across the table from him each evening at dinner and be on the receiving end of his foul moods.