A Study In Seduction(30)

“What was riding it like?”

“Like being on a boat about to capsize. It was decidedly one of the oddest things I’ve ever done.”

Jane grinned and turned her attention back to the lions’ den. Lydia and Northwood stopped to watch as the huge felines plodded around their enclosures, pawing at the ground and stretching their sleek muscles.

“Why Paris?” Northwood asked.

Lydia sighed. “You are relentless.”

“All the more reason for you to answer me.”

“This isn’t your concern, my lord.”

“I know. But I am curious. Why Paris?”

“Because we can’t afford to send her to one of the London schools, and Lady Montague has offered Jane a scholarship.”

“And why does your grandmother feel you are not suited to such instruction?”

Lydia gazed at her sister. Jane trailed a stick across the ground as she began walking toward the bear pits. Her long hair glimmered in the sunlight, falling across her shoulders like a swath of silk.

Northwood thought he knew her destiny, did he? He thought he knew what she wanted, what she needed, what kind of life she ought to lead? Perhaps he’d change his perceptions if he knew of her past.

“Because I never received it myself,” she said.

“Not even from your mother?”

Although the question was not unexpected, it caused a sharp pang to spear through Lydia. She stopped, trying to ease her hitched breath.

“Miss Kellaway?” Northwood cupped a hand beneath her elbow. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, glancing in Jane’s direction to ensure the girl was still within sight. “My mother wasn’t capable of taking care of herself, let alone providing etiquette instruction.”

“What happened to her?”

Lydia stilled. His hand remained on her arm, the warmth of his palm burning clear through his glove and her sleeve. He stood close, too close, his gaze on her face as if he sought to solve a complex puzzle. His presence was big, strong, unmoving.

Lydia experienced the sudden and unwelcome thought that a man of his formidable nature could easily withstand whatever truth she flung at him. He could bear without effort whatever confessions she sought to unload from her heart.

“She had… trouble.” Lydia lifted a shaking hand to touch her temple. “Here. She developed a disease of the brain. The strangest veering between melancholia and mania. She started having episodes of rage, of profound darkness. Until I was about five years of age, she’d always seemed fine. But then… later my father told me she’d lost several children through miscarriages and a stillbirth. That… that broke something within her.

“She began locking herself in her bedroom, refusing to come out. She’d become furious with me over the smallest things, like a grass stain on my dress. She’d never done that before. She’d leave the house for days, and no one would know where she was. My grandmother came to live with us to help take care of her. That helped for a time, but then it became too horrific even for her. She convinced my father to send my mother to a sanitarium for proper medical attention.”

His grip tightened on her elbow. “Did it work?”

“At first it seemed to.” Lydia kept her gaze on Jane, who had paused outside the bear pit to study a massive brown bear. “She’d come home for a time; then it would get worse again. So my grandmother would arrange for another institution, another doctor. Another course of treatment. They traveled constantly throughout the Continent. Finally when rumors began to mount, my grandmother requested permission to remove her from London permanently. They went to a place in France she’d heard of through her church. Outside of Lyons. My mother was there for almost three years.”

“Did it help?”

“She seemed content there for a time. My grandmother stayed with her. My father visited when he was able. That was where my mother died.”

An odd emptiness widened within Lydia as she said the words, even as she felt Northwood’s body vibrate with shock.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. She was a prisoner of her own mind for so long that it almost seemed as if she were finally free. But of course it nearly destroyed my grandmother. To lose a child, a daughter, even one as ill as my mother had been…”

She eased her arm from his hold, sensing his mind working, furrowing through all she’d told him. She turned away and began walking toward Jane.