The Stepsister's Triumph

by Darcie Wilde

  He’d turned from her. He’d run away from her. By the time she realized what was happening, she’d lost him in the crowd. She’d had to find Miss Sewell and beg for the carriage to go after him. Her chaperone wanted to come along but relented reluctantly in the face of Madelene’s pleading. She said she would wait a half hour before she told Helene and Adele what had happened.

  Helene might never forgive either of them for their conduct. Madelene would deal with that when she had to. Right now all that mattered was finding Benedict and finding some way to explain.

  The studio door was open, just a crack.

  “Benedict?” Madelene pushed it far enough so that she could slip inside.

  The room was entirely dark except for the glow of the moon that streamed in through the windows. Darkness robbed the furnishings, the tables, and the canvases of the familiar shapes and made them all blurred and strange. The only thing she recognized was Benedict himself.

  He stood facing the painting of Selene in her chariot. The moonlight washed out the subtle details that Benedict had labored so diligently over, changing it into a canvas filled with ghosts.

  “I’m surprised your friends let you come,” he said without turning around. “Surely they want you to stay with your new beaus.”

  “Benedict, please look at me. That was nothing. You saw how crowded that room was. They bumped me by accident. I think they were drunk. I . . .”

  But then he did turn, and she saw the twisted anger in his face.

  “How could you let them do this to you, Madelene!”

  “Who are you talking about?” she demanded. “What do you think has been done?”

  “Lady Helene! Lady Adele!” He stabbed a finger toward the door. “And may God forgive me, Miss Sewell! I thought she was trustworthy, but now I see I was wrong! They’ve taken you and turned you into one of them.”

  “Benedict, you are talking nonsense. No one has turned me into anything.”

  “And yet there you were, drinking champagne from another man’s glass and laughing about it.”

  “I was not laughing! I fell! And I didn’t want the drink. I . . .” Madelene stopped. She sounded ridiculous. She shouldn’t have to be explaining this to him. He should trust her. He did trust her, as she trusted him.

  But if he trusted her, where had this shattered look on his face come from?

  “I never should have let you go,” Benedict whispered. “I should have kept you here.”

  “I beg your pardon?” she cried. No, said the terrified voice in the back of her mind. No, no, this is not happening. Benedict is not . . . he cannot be . . .

  “I could tell where this season was leading you,” he said, and his voice was flat and dead. “Or I would have been able to tell if I’d been willing to look. The new clothes, the new ways of acting and talking . . .”

  “I was getting over my bashfulness! You should be pleased!”

  “I should be murdering Lady Helene for taking the sweetest, most perfect girl, the girl I loved, and turning her into a lightskirt!”

  The words and the insult rang through the air. Madelene took one step back, stumbling against her train. Benedict made no move to come to her. He just stood where he was, his arms dangling loose at his sides.

  His words played themselves over in her mind. They rearranged and they reformed until their meaning became clear and the slow horror of understanding seeped into her veins.

  “You only loved Madelene the mouse,” she said. “You want to keep me that little shy creature.”

  Now Benedict did move. He was across the room in three long strides to seize her wrists. The severity of his grip pressed the chain of her bracelet into her glove and her skin underneath.

  “I want you to be who you are, Madelene! Kind and thoughtful and natural! A true beauty, not this!” He pulled her arms wide, showing her to herself and to him. “Not paint and bangles and artifice!”

  It was too much. It was not to be endured. Madelene wrenched her hands free of him. How could he say these things? After all their time together, after all they had done and shared, how could he have heard and understood so little?

  “And what if this is what I want?” she demanded, drawing herself up. “What if I want artifice?”

  “You don’t, Madelene.” He was trying to change his tone. He was trying to be gentle. A wave of revulsion swept her. “You’ve just been told that you do, that’s all.”

  As if I was a child with no understanding! “How do you know?”

  “I know you!”

  “Do you?” she shot back. “This is your deep artist’s sensitivity divining the true nature of Madelene Valmeyer? Did you ever once consider asking me what I want?”

  He closed his mouth.

  “No, you didn’t,” she sneered. “Because you are just like all the rest!”

  “I only want to protect you!”

  “Yes, protect me! Protect me so that I’m what you want, not what I want! Everyone wants me to be this . . . this vision they see in their heads of a daughter, a sister, a debutante a . . . a . . . lover. But none of them ever bother to ask me what I want to be! As if because I’m shy I can’t possibly know!”

  “But you don’t know,” he insisted. “You’re too sheltered. I’ve seen what society does, Madelene. It changes people, women especially. You can’t mean to let yourself be changed like that . . .”

  Madelene was shaking. He was reaching out, opening his arms, waiting for her to run to him. To say he was right, that she was wrong.

  The worst part was, she wanted to. She looked at him and she saw the man she loved and she wanted to give into him. She wanted desperately to be his Madelene, the girl he loved. She wanted to do anything and everything so that he would hold her and look at her with love and desire in his eyes. So he would shield her, and hide her.

  But she could not. She would not.

  “I am not letting anyone change me!” she shouted. “I am changing myself so I don’t have to be scared of my own shadow anymore! I’d have told you all about what I was doing if you’d asked! But you didn’t. You just wanted to put me on a windowsill like . . . like . . . like your pot of primroses! Keep me indoors and make sure I had just enough sun and just enough water and just enough . . . just enough . . .”

  She couldn’t finish. She turned and she ran, stumbling down the stairs like she was drunk or blind. She couldn’t think. She could barely breathe. All she could think to do was get away. To hide.

  * * *

  Madelene.

  Benedict stared as she turned and stumbled down the stairs. He knew in some distant part of himself he should go after her. Something had gone horribly wrong. He’d been so sure of what he’d seen, of what he knew. It had all been exactly as Mrs. Darington had described to him.

  But now . . . now . . .

  Madelene was running away from him, out into the street, and all he could do was stand and stare at the chalk she’d scuffed and blurred with her careless slippers.

  And, it seemed, very slowly, crumple to his knees.

  XXI

  “I’ve lost him, Helene! I’ve lost him forever!”

  Madelene curled up in the old-fashioned curtained bed in Miss Sewell’s spare room, her head in Helene’s lap and her tears staining Helene’s muslin skirt.

  Helene laid a gentle hand on Madelene’s disordered curls. “Maybe.”

  “Oh, that was helpful.” Adele sat beside them with a stack of handkerchiefs, a fair number of which she was using herself.

  “She’s the one who knows him, and she was there,” Helene said pointedly. “We weren’t. It could be true.”

  “Oh, stop talking, would you?” Adele took the soaked handkerchief out of Madelene’s fist and supplied a fresh one. “Madelene, please, let’s sit you up so you can take a little tea.”

  Madelene had no idea how long sh
e’d been like this, curled up and sobbing. It must have been quite a while. Helene and Adele and even Miss Sewell had come and gone several times. She’d been changed out of her ball gown at some point, and so had they. The room was brighter than it had been. But all this had passed behind a blur of tears. Nothing seemed real except the pain in her chest, the storm in her mind, and the memory of Benedict’s furious shouts. And hers. Especially hers as she flung all those terrible accusations at him.

  “I won’t stop talking,” Helene was saying over her head. “Because this is true as well. If Madelene lost Lord Benedict because he got a look at a part of her that didn’t suit the painting he’s made in his head, then Lord Benedict was never worth having.” Helene lifted Madelene into a sitting position so she could look into her friends’ faces. To her surprise, Madelene saw the tears in Helene’s own bright eyes. “Nothing, nothing, is worth sacrificing the chance to become your true self.”

  “But what if I’m wrong! What if my true self is . . . dreadful!”

  “Then at least you’ll know,” Helene answered. “And you can set about becoming not dreadful.”

  “You are a deeply strange person,” Adele muttered.

  “It’s part of who I am, and I know that.” Helene took another handkerchief off Adele’s stack and began methodically wiping at Madelene’s eyes and cheeks.

  “But I love him,” Madelene whispered.

  She waited for Helene to tell her she was silly. “If he loves you, he’ll find his way back.” Helene took the fresh kerchief Adele handed her.

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “Then you grieve and you survive,” Helene said flatly. “And tomorrow you will know what to do.”

  “I’m not like you, Helene.”

  “No,” she agreed. “You’re better.” She glanced back at Adele, and for a moment something both uncomfortable and unfamiliar clouded her confident expression. “You both are.”

  Abruptly, Helene got to her feet and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  “What really happened to her?” Adele asked. “It had to have been worse than simply not liking her fiancé.”

  “She’s never told me.” Madelene stared at the used handkerchiefs spread over the quilts. She felt drained, hollow. If the window had been opened, she was sure the lightest breeze would have blown her away. “What do I do, Adele?”

  Adele took both her hands and held them tightly. “What do you want to do?”

  What did she want to do? Finally, someone was asking her the one question she longed to hear, and Madelene found she had no answer at all. She wanted to die. She wanted to run all the way back to Benedict’s studio and beg him to forgive her. She would swear to do whatever he wanted, be whoever he wanted, if only he would take her in his arms and make her feel . . . everything all over again.

  She wanted to never leave this room again. She wanted to never be seen, never be touched, never be hurt, ever.

  But then she would miss Cousin Henry’s premiere tonight, and Helene and Adele would have to explain her absence, and it might look strange. It might look like things were falling apart, just when people were deciding whether to accept their invitations or not.

  Madelene groped for her handkerchief. Adele had another out and ready and put it into her hand. Madelene wiped at the remainder of her tears and her streaming nose.

  I will take control of myself. I will hold the space around me.

  She straightened her shoulders. “What I want is to wash my face. And then I want a cup of that tea and a light supper. Then I want to dress for the theater. We cannot miss Henry’s premiere.”

  * * *

  Somewhere, someone was pounding at the door. It hurt.

  Benedict raised his aching head. He was sprawled across the bed in his studio. His hand hurt, and he realized he was clutching an empty bottle of brandy. Twilight deepened across the roofs, sending fingers of red and orange light stretching across the floor.

  Someone was still pounding at the door.

  With a groan, Benedict sat up and shoved his hair back from his face. He stared at the carved screens that had been knocked flat on the floor. He remembered doing that. He remembered sweeping them aside with a shout that left his throat raw. Or maybe that was the brandy.

  He remembered Madelene was gone.

  She’d left him for the false glitter of society. Just like Gabriella. She’d turned on him. She’d laughed at him.

  He stared at the empty bottle. No. Madelene hadn’t laughed. She’d wept, she’d shouted. She’d said . . . she’d said he didn’t know her. Which was true. He’d been horribly, criminally mistaken in his perception of her, and in his belief that she could ever want his protection, or his love.

  “Lord Benedict!” boomed a man’s voice on the other side of the door. “I know that you are in there, and either you will open this door, or it will be broken down!”

  Benedict staggered to his feet. He knew that voice, but he couldn’t think from where. He lurched a few steps before he got his feet under him.

  “Break it down, Martin,” the man said.

  “Stop, damn you!” Benedict shouted, and he flung open the door.

  On the other side stood not one man, but two. The first was tall, redheaded, and imposing. He was also incongruously dressed in an Elizabethan costume, complete with a ruff around his neck and a sword at his side. The other man wore only a plain smock and trousers. He also happened to be a giant, with a square head and square fists and bright little eyes.

  The costumed man pushed into the studio with the giant at his heels. Benedict reeled backward. The man placed himself squarely in the center of the studio, his feet set broad apart and his hands planted on his hips, so like an actor taking the stage that Benedict’s blurred brain finally realized who this must be.

  “Henry Cross,” he blurted out.

  “Lord Benedict,” Mr. Cross answered. The giant moved behind him and picked up the chair that had been knocked over at some point. He dusted off the seat with his hand and gestured for Mr. Cross to sit.

  “Thank you,” Mr. Cross said. The giant bobbed his head. He also took up a position at the actor’s shoulder and grinned, showing a wealth of gray and crooked teeth.

  “Don’t mind Martin,” Cross said to Benedict. “Martin, stand over there by the window, there’s a good fellow. You’re distracting Lord Benedict.”

  Martin did as he was told. The red sunset turned his skin scarlet and gold.

  “Doesn’t he talk?” Benedict croaked.

  “No, as it happens.” Cross settled himself onto the chair. He also pulled his sword out of its scabbard and laid it across his knees. Benedict wished he wasn’t so very hungover. The twilight and the remains of the brandy fumes in his head made what had to be a theater prop look very real.

  “Martin’s a mute,” Cross went on. “But he’s very strong. Helps out at the Theatre Royal shifting scenery and so on, and occasionally dealing with . . . gentlemen who might want to get overly familiar with our actresses. Isn’t that right, Martin?”

  Martin nodded and pressed one fist into his palm.

  Benedict felt himself blanch.

  “Now, Lord Benedict, we are going to have a talk you and I,” Cross said. “Stop staring at Martin. Stare at me. I’ve had a letter from Miss Sewell. You know her, of course?” Benedict nodded. “She writes that my dear cousin Madelene came home last night in a storm of tears that it is safe to say was unprecedented. There’s some fear for her health, in fact.” He leveled a stare at Benedict that had been known to make grown men back up a full yard. “This was right after she fled your very commanding and apparently very loud presence.”

  Martin ground his fist into his palm again.

  “Now, you, sir, are a gentleman and a peer of the realm. I, rather famously, am not. If I find out you have harmed Cousin Madelene in any way, I w
ill not challenge you to a duel nor will I follow that ridiculous custom of insisting you marry her to preserve appearances. I will, however, give Martin certain very explicit instructions as to how your person is to be dealt with, an instance I think we would both find ultimately regrettable.”

  Benedict swallowed. Martin grinned.

  “Is there anything you wish to say in your own defense, Lord Benedict?”

  Was there anything he wished to say? Benedict finally set the brandy bottle down. He shoved his loose hair back with both hands and stared about the twilight and the ruin he’d made of his studio. His first instinct was to holler; to throw this man and his bullyboy out and tell them he’d said nothing to Madelene that she did not deserve. That he hoped he never saw her again.

  Except that was not true. None of it. He had not gotten drunk and raged because he did not want to see her again, but because he could not bear the idea he’d lost her. It was the knowledge that he’d been unable to stand against the memory of that old pain and see clearly that had so devastated him. He was a painter, but his eyes and imagination had utterly failed him. After all these years, Gabriella had still blinded him.

  “I have not hurt her,” Benedict whispered.

  Cross nodded. “That is an excellent beginning.”

  “I would never hurt her.” Except I have. With every careless word. By playing to her fears and my own.

  “Better and better.”

  “I love her.”

  “Ah. The plot turns.”

  Benedict licked his lips. “Do you . . . Has she said if . . .” Cross arched one professionally eloquent brow. “No,” Benedict said hastily. “I should not have asked that of you. I apologize.”

  Cross waved this away.

  Benedict swallowed hard. “What I have done . . . I have . . .”

  What had he done? He only wanted to protect her, to cherish her, to keep her safe from the knife that was society, to . . .

  To put her on a windowsill in a pot. To make sure she got just enough sun and just enough water and just enough . . .