“She was my company and why I had to take a bath. It was cold, too. She would pet me and tell me that she had great plans for me and that I was going to make her a very rich woman. She said Searle was a fool and let her buy me from him for pennies when I was worth thousands. I did not understand what she meant. I just wanted Papa to come and find me.”
“We will see to that for you, lad.”
Olympia looked at Brant and inwardly sighed. He looked ill. It made her want to go and beat Lady Mallam until she lost the last of her cold beauty and then chain her to a bed as she had left this child to be chained. Such thoughts were useless, however. Nor did she have the time to indulge that dream. She had several carriage loads of children who needed to be cared for and a man who needed to be made to see that he was not at fault for the evil his mother did. Olympia had the feeling the former was going to be far easier to accomplish than the latter.
Chapter 9
Olympia was exhausted by the time all the children had been settled down for the night. She could only hope none of them tried to slip away, that she had gained enough trust from them that they would stay long enough for her to help them. Smoothing down the skirts of the gown she had changed into, she made her way to the library to sit quietly for a while and sip some wine before she sought out her own bed.
The first thing she saw when she entered the room was Brant. He sat in a chair facing the low-burning fireplace, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, and staring intently into a half-filled glass of brandy. Olympia quietly shut the door behind her, got the glass of wine she was thirsting for, and sat down in a chair facing Brant. He still looked pale but no longer as if he was about to empty his belly.
“My mother is truly evil,” Brant said quietly, never taking his gaze from the glass of brandy.
“What she does is evil, but I believe she is ill or deranged in some way,” said Olympia. “Perhaps she was even born with something missing. There is a cold emptiness in her eyes that I found quite difficult to look at.”
“Henry said I have her eyes.” Brant finally looked at Olympia and found none of the disgust or fear in her eyes that he had worried about. “You changed your clothes,” he murmured, realizing he had enjoyed seeing her dressed as a man a bit too much.
“The men’s clothes smelled of the city and I wished to be fresh, to try to remove the stench of that horrible place. Now, about your eyes.” She narrowed her eyes at him when he smiled faintly at her abrupt change of subject. “You have the same color of eyes as your mother, which is hardly a surprise, but yours are nothing like hers. When I looked into her eyes I saw no emotion, no depth, just the cold, hard determination to make me believe the lies she was telling about you. There is even a coldness in her voice no matter how hard she tries to behave in a correct, sociable way.” Olympia looked straight into his eyes. “You do not have that coldness inside of you.”
“How can you be so certain of that?”
“I would know. I may not have the sensitivity of some of my family, like Artemis, as that is not my gift, but I would know something like that. Artemis would most certainly know and he has not seen it in you. He had a small confrontation with your mother about a year ago, in the park where he had taken the children to play. She did not appreciate the presence of so many boisterous children as she was taking her afternoon stroll, with that rather large footman of hers. Artemis said that standing next to her felt much akin to hurling oneself into an icy pond.”
“And you do not believe that I possess this coldness; that it does not lurk inside me somewhere?”
“Not at all. In truth, I believe you take things to heart too often, too deeply, and for too long.” She smiled faintly and sipped her wine when he scowled at her, obviously trying to decide if her summation of his character was a criticism or not.
“What am I to do about her?” he asked, shrugging aside what Olympia had said. “She needs to be stopped yet how do I do that without destroying my entire family, putting a stain upon the name of Mallam that would remain for a very long time?”
“I am sure we can think of some way to do it.”
“There is that we again.”
“Aye, there it is. Thus far, all we have is her word against the word of children and people found using or running a house that sells children. Evil, certainly something that could possibly destroy her reputation and standing with some members of society, but not enough to end her reign and steal all her power. She has established herself as a well-respected power amongst the members of society.”
“And established me as her profligate, evil son who indulges in every sin known to man.”
“Well, not every sin. I do not believe she has mentioned sheep yet.”
Brant nearly choked on the brandy he had just taken a sip of. Once he calmed the need to cough, he grinned at her. “Scandalous, Olympia.”