Lover Avenged (Black Dagger Brotherhood #7)(103)

“She’s not old enough.”

“Her life has been far longer than her years.”

The doggen knew well what had gone on in the house during the time Bella’s father had been with them. She had cleaned up broken glass and shattered china. Had bandaged and nursed.

“Verily, I can’t bear for her to go,” the maid said. “I shall be lost without my mistress.”

Rehv put a numb hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. “You don’t know for sure. She hasn’t been to see Havers. Let me go be with her, okay?”

When the doggen nodded, Rehv slowly took the stairs up to the second floor, passing family portraits in oil that he had moved from the old house.

At the top of the landing, he went down to the left and knocked on a set of doors. “Mahmen?”

“In here, my son.”

The response in the Old Language came from behind another door, and he backtracked and went into her dressing room, the familiar scent of Chanel No. 5 calming him.

“Where are you?” he said to the yards and yards of hanging clothes.

“I am in the back, my dearest son.”

As Rehv walked down the rows of blouses and skirts and dresses and ball gowns, he breathed deeply. His mother’s signature perfume was on all of the garments, which were hung by color and type, and the bottle it came from was on the ornate dressing table, among her makeup and lotions and powders.

He found her in front of the three-way full-length mirror. Ironing.

Which was beyond odd and made him take stock of her.

His mother was regal even in her rose-colored dressing gown, her white hair up on her perfectly proportioned head, her posture exquisite as she sat on a high stool, her massive pear-shaped diamond flashing on her hand. The ironing board she sat behind had a woven basket and a can of spray starch on one end and a pile of pressed handkerchiefs on the other. As he watched her, she was in midkerchief, the pale yellow square she was working on halved, the iron she wielded hissing as she swept it up and down.

“Mahmen, what are you doing?” Okay, obvious on one level, but his mother was the chatelaine. He couldn’t remember ever seeing her do housework or laundry or anything of the sort. One had doggen for those things.

Madalina looked up at him, her faded blue eyes tired, her smile more effort than honest joy. “These were my father’s. We found them when we were going through the boxes that had been brought over from the old house’s attic.”

The “old house” was the one they had lived in for almost a century in Caldwell.

“You could get your maid to do that for you.” He came over and kissed her soft cheek. “She would love to help you.”

“She said as much, yes.” After she put her hand on his face, his mother went back to what she was doing, folding the linen square again, picking up the can of starch, misting over the kerchief. “But this is something I must do.”

“May I sit?” he asked, nodding at the chair beside the mirror.

“Oh, of course, where are my manners.” The iron went down and she started to get off the stool. “And we must get you something to—”

He held up his hand. “No, Mahmen, I’ve just eaten.”

She bowed to him and rearranged herself on her perch. “I am grateful for this audience, as I know the busy nature of your—”

“I’m your son. How can you think I wouldn’t come to you?”

The pressed kerchief was placed on top of its orderly brethren, and the last one was taken from the basket.

The iron exhaled steam as she smoothed its hot underbelly over the white square. As she moved slowly, he looked into the mirror. Her shoulder blades were prominent under the silk robe, her spine showing clearly at the back of her neck.

When he refocused on her face, he saw a tear drop from her eye onto the kerchief.

Oh…dearest Virgin Scribe, he thought. I’m not ready.

Rehv plugged his cane into the floor and came over to kneel before her. Turning the stool toward him, he removed the iron from her hand and put it aside, ready to take her to Havers’s, prepared to pay for whatever medicine would buy her more time.

“Mahmen, what ails you?” He took one of her father’s pressed handkerchiefs and dabbed under her eyes. “Speak unto your born son the weight of your heart.”

The tears were without end, and he caught them one by one. She was lovely even in her age and her crying, a fallen Chosen who had lived a hard life and nonetheless remained full of grace.

When she finally spoke, her voice was thin. “I am dying.” She shook her head before he could speak. “No, let us be truthful with each other. My end has arrived.”

We’ll see about that, Rehv thought to himself.

“My father”—she touched the handkerchief Rehv had dried her tears with—“my father…it is odd that I think of him daily and nightly now, but I do. He was the Primale long ago, and he loved his children. His greatest joy was his blood, and though we were many, he had relationships with us all. These handkerchiefs? They were made out of his robes. Verily, the industry of sewing was of favor to me, and he knew this and he gave unto me some of his robes.”

She reached over with a bony hand and smoothed the stack she’d ironed. “When I left the Other Side, he made me take a few of them. I was in love with a Brother and certain my life would be fulfilled only if I were with him. Of course, then…”