The Governess Affair (Brothers Sinister #0.5)

“You don’t have to do this, Freddy. Why do you force yourself to it?”


“Don’t call me Freddy. You know I hate that name.” Freddy laid down her work. “You don’t have to do this, either. Serena, you know I love you, but this is not what we were born to do. Why must you bother Clermont? He hurt you once; why give him the chance to do so again?”

An image of a dark room tucked under the eaves darted into Serena’s head. She could see Clermont ducking through the too-short doorway, could hear the sound of the door shutting behind him.

She shivered.

She wanted proof that she wasn’t the sort to cower in the corner, no matter what had happened to her. She wanted to conquer that complex burden of shame and confusion and anger.

Serena set her hand over her still-flat belly. She had enough to contend with as it was.

“I want justice.” The words were flat in her mouth, and yet sharp, so sharp. “I want to show that he can’t win.” Her fingers curled with want. “That he can’t just—”

Freddy sniffed dismissively. “We’ve enough to survive on,” she said as if money were a substitute for fair play. “Stay with me. I always said you should. But no; you had to run off governessing, when we were left with the sort of competence that could see us through our lives, if we economized.”

“We were left fifteen pounds a year,” Serena protested. Enough to avoid starvation; enough to have a roof over their heads. But every year, costs went up. It hadn’t taken much forethought to see that in twenty years, expenses would outrun income.

“But,” Freddy said, continuing with the lecture, “you had to want more. You’ve always wanted more. And see where it’s left you? You can’t eat justice.”

No. But at least she wouldn’t choke on it. Serena unclenched the fist she’d made at her side.

“By the by,” Freddy said more casually, “where has it left you?”

“Without a position,” Serena snapped. “With no hope of a character reference.”

“All your fine plans,” Freddy said, half scolding, half comforting, “and they’ve come to naught. Best not to dream, dear. If you don’t, there’s nothing that can be taken from you.”

Pure cowardice, that. Freddy fretted when she had to cross the street to purchase milk. When she’d gone to meet Serena at the yard where the stagecoach had left her, she’d been white-lipped and trembling. She’d complained of pains in her chest all the way home. Freddy didn’t handle change well, and nothing changed so often as the world outside her door.

There was a reason that Serena had signed away her portion of their father’s bequest. Freddy could not have survived on her half, and she was incapable of making up the shortfall.

“All of your fine plans,” Freddy repeated gently, “and here you are. With nothing. Less than nothing.”

“No,” she said thickly. “Not…not nothing.”

“With nightmares and a babe on the way.”

Serena kept her eyes wide open. Her hands trembled; she forced them to stillness, pushing them against her skirts until they grew steady. She imagined the spark of life growing inside her, gestating next to her bitter fury. Sometimes, she feared that all of that cold, trembling anger would eat her child alive. Not after I win. Then I’ll be safe, and I’ll never be hurt again.

“I told you already,” she said. To her own ear, her voice seemed to come from very far away. “I don’t have nightmares. I don’t have time to be frightened of anything.”

At her last position, the Wolvertons had obtained a microscope for their children’s instruction in the natural world. They’d magnified everything. Sometimes, the memory that played itself through her dreams seemed like those enlarged images. The edges danced, overhung with the chromatic effect of a dark, shadowing halo. She felt as if she were looking at something very small, something very far away. So distant that it almost wasn’t happening.

She had felt so helpless then, so utterly without recourse. She should have screamed. She should have bashed the duke over the head. She should have fought. In her memory of that night, her own silence mocked her most of all.

She hadn’t screamed, and because she hadn’t, she’d felt silent ever since.

Freddy simply sighed. “When you’re ready to give up,” she said, “I’ll be here. But I don’t know what you hope to accomplish, except to bring that horrid wolf-man down on both our heads.”

This, at least, Serena could answer. “I have it on the best of authority,” she said, “that he’s a thickheaded fellow. All brawn and no brains. When it comes down to it, I’ll simply outsmart him.”