To Be a Lady by Jessie Clever

Author:Jessie Clever [Clever, Jessie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780990702474
Publisher: Someday Lady Publishing, LLC

Jane watched her granddaughter’s mouth fall open rather indelicately but waved off the show of surprise with a flip of her wrist.

“Do not be so condescending, my dear,” Jane said. “I knew he would ask one of the grandchildren, and I’m not entirely surprised he asked you.”

Young Jane blinked at her, her soft brown eyes so innocent and open. Jane sighed, feeling every one of her eighty-two years. Her granddaughter was so impossibly young. Her complexion so clear and pale, like precious ivory. Her mannerisms so untouched by the world around her. Jane wondered if she had ever been so naive and thought perhaps once she had. But it would have been long ago, before her first marriage.

Jane closed her eyes on the memories, a whole lifetime sweeping before her like a spooked horse. So many unexpected things, so many things she had never planned for, and still, so many more to come. She opened her eyes, seeing her granddaughter unchanged.

“I knew he wouldn’t leave me to my own accord,” she said, hoping to ease the look of panic dancing across Young Jane’s features. “Even from the grave, he’s trying to protect me.”

She gave a smile, but she felt how weak it was, hardly lifting the corners of her mouth. It wasn’t Richard’s death that so weighed on her. It was the absence left by his death that gave her pause. The innumerable times she turned, a question poised on her lips, expecting to find him sitting across from her. The emptiness beside her in the bed at night, the lack of warmth from his body. The nothingness that consumed her now that her husband was gone.

Once before she had mourned him. Once before she had thought him gone from this world only to find sweet relief in being proven wrong. But that had been long ago, and this time, she had had his body there to confirm her worst fears. She had always known she would wake up one morning to find him gone from her. Why it was that she had felt so certain he would go before her she wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was because he had always taken care of her in his own quiet way, and why should he not go forth in death to prepare the way for her? Another small smile played at her lips at the thought. It would be so like Richard to do just so.

But that did not help with the problem of Young Jane before her. “What did he make you promise exactly?”

Young Jane blinked at her before moving her mouth with no sound emerging. Jane rolled her eyes.

“Oh, for the love of King William, out with it,” she said. “It’s not as if his ghost will haunt you if you tell me what it is he said.”

“I fear that is precisely what will happen,” Young Jane nearly whispered.

Jane laughed then, the sound unexpected and abrupt in the close space of the carriage. “I suppose you are right, my dear,” she said.

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