A bit much, perhaps, to rest at the feet of a ten-year-old. She recognized that now in a way she had not as a child. But there was no promise of fairness in life. Her mother had never planned to expire before the age of thirty but that had been her fate nonetheless. Fairness did not apply. Not then. Not now.
Before Mama had died, she had exacted Mercy’s vow. Perhaps her mother had known even then that Bede would be useless when it came to matters of responsibility. He was no Papa, to be sure. No mind for farming or business and no heart for it either.
“We will talk tomorrow. When tempers have cooled.”
“No!” Grace sliced a finger through the air like a sword. “Don’t do that. My temper is perfectly cool,” she said calmly, her eyes still flat and distant. Not at all like the little girl who had once picked flowers and been full of giggles and basked in Mercy’s love. Where had that girl gone? Was she lost forever? Would Mercy ever see her again?
She realized with some wonder that Grace did not recall that girl either. Of course. All those good memories of cheerful days were too far past. She had been too young then. Just a child. Only Mercy remembered those days. Grace would remember this though. These days of strife and discontent. Only the bad. Not the good.
It broke Mercy’s heart. She moistened her lips. “Grace. Let us not argue—”
“But we do it so very well,” she snapped with a bitter edge.
“Aren’t you weary of it? Don’t you want it to stop?”
Grace shrugged, petulant and indifferent. “I don’t see how. It will never change. Not as you are.”
Mercy’s chest clenched. Please, God. It has to change. She wanted her sister back. She wanted an end to the discord. “Of course, it can. Things can always get better—”
“As long as I fall in line like a good little soldier, you mean? Allow me to enlighten you. I don’t want to end up like you—a dried-up spinster wasting my life in this place, worrying about crop rotations and if my orange trees are getting enough sun.”
Mercy flinched anew and inhaled thinly through her nostrils. They might not get along as well as they once did, but this was even too cruel for Grace.
Mercy should not have come here tonight. She should have allowed them both a good night’s sleep before trying to talk. She should take her leave now before worse things were said.
“Good night, Grace. I will see you in the morning.” At the door, she hesitated and looked back over her shoulder, latching onto her sister’s gaze. “I love you, Gracie.”
It seemed the thing to say. The thing to hold on to, to cling to in these most turbulent times. What else could she say?
Grace stared hard at her, unblinking. She was the embodiment of stone, unrecognizable as the girl Mercy knew her to be.
Mercy held her breath, waiting, watching, hoping to hear her say those words back. That could not be so hard.
It should not be.
The words never came though, and that perhaps hurt the most. The absolute silence was deafening . . . and it stung.
Mercy turned and left the room, without ever hearing them.
Chapter Seventeen
Once back in the refuge of her room, Mercy stared at herself in the mirror positioned above her dressing table for a long while. She stared so long and so hard, that her likeness started to blur, but perhaps that was the right of it. It made sense that she was unrecognizable. She did not feel as though she knew herself these days.
She blinked her eyes several times until her vision corrected itself. It had indeed been a long night. The woman with tired eyes, dark hair tamed and pinned atop her head very properly, looked like a worn and faded version of herself. As worn and faded as the wool nightgown she now wore.
Shabby and faded felt like a wholly appropriate description for herself.
She was like an old rug with frayed edges that needed repairing and sprucing up—or perhaps needed to be retired and replaced altogether. However accurate, it was a sobering thought. Presently she was so tired. She felt beaten. Certainly she was too young to feel this way.
Too young to be feeling old.
“How am I going to do this?” she whispered to her reflection staring back at her, as though the answer would return to her.
She was not a mother. Obviously.
Grace had made that abundantly clear. She was not a mother, merely an unwanted and interfering older sister.
Mercy unpinned her hair and let it fall loose down her back. Reaching for her hairbrush, she began dragging it through the long dark strands, sighing from the pleasure of it.
She couldn’t sit in one place. She was too agitated for that. She rose and strolled the space of her bedchamber as she brushed her hair out.
Hopefully Grace would be calmer tomorrow. After a good night’s sleep. Less overwrought. Less hateful. She was young. She always had a flair for the dramatics.
Time.
People said that time was the healer of all. Mercy hoped so.
She and her sister both needed some time. Time for Grace to see reason. Time for Mercy not to feel so hurt. Time for Grace to forgive Mercy for protecting her and realize that her life here was not so very terrible. She simply had to be patient until then.
Too fidgety to fall asleep, Mercy decided to take herself downstairs for a glass of milk and a bite to eat. Despite the abundance of tasty fare provided at the Blankenship ball, Mercy had scarcely eaten. She had been too preoccupied watching after Grace—for all the good that had done.
Except she was not the only one with the inclination to eat. Someone else shared her impulse and he was already in the kitchen, sitting at the table, leaning over a plate of food when Mercy entered the dimly lit room.
“Mr. Masters,” she said, momentarily stopping at the unexpected sight of him as she entered the room.
He looked up from the pie he was enjoying. He quickly worked to swallow a mouthful of the tasty dessert, circling his fork in the air as he did so. “I think we are well past the use of surnames, Mercy.”
It was not the first time he had suggested they use each other’s Christian names, but she had clung to formality, telling herself it was a necessary barrier even if she thought of him as Silas in her mind.
“Yes,” she agreed, inclining her head in acknowledgment as she moved to retrieve a fork. “Of course we are. Silas.”
They definitely could be classified as intimates, and as she felt so very alone in the world right now that did not feel like such a terrible thing. She needed to feel kinship to another soul. Especially beneath her roof. Especially in her own home where she felt estranged from her own family. She felt that need strongly and Silas Masters was here to fulfill it.
She would not examine the wrongness of that too closely. There were things far more wrong in her life at the moment—at least it felt that way.
She settled down at the table beside him and dug a fork into the large wedge of blackberry pie on his plate as only an intimate would do. As friends. He was that. She had told him that tonight, and she had meant it.
He watched her wide-eyed as she carried a heaping bite to her lips.
“Hmm.” She closed her eyes in a long blink of pleasure. “I’m glad Gladys made pie. She must have sensed I was going to need it.” She nodded in approval and went in for another bite. “Some people go for spirits. I go for pie.”
He chuckled. “Help yourself.”