Ironskin

Jane was still woozy when Dorie woke from her nap late in the afternoon. Desire made her nerves twitch, made every step rock with the suppressed hope that threatened to explode, to split her apart.

 

She sat on a bench partly concealed by the shrubbery and kept one eye on Dorie while the Misses Davenport petted her and fed her chocolate cakes under the yellow striped canopies on the slope of the lawn. She wondered if they were always so fond of children, or if it was the presence of an eligible suitor that brought out their doting. No, surely she was being catty. Jane sketched Dorie kneeling in the grass, and watched her tears from the morning vanish as the pretty ladies cosseted her. Dorie was blissful as the girls slipped her bites off of thin silver forks.

 

“It’s perfect,” marveled a deep voice over her shoulder. “Chocolate cake without using her hands for anything.”

 

Her heart lurched as she turned.

 

Mr. Rochart stood behind her shoulder, half hidden in the curve of the laurels. He must have finished his appointment with Nina.

 

Seeing him brought back all the agony of a couple hours ago. It was the first time she’d seen him since she thought that he might be planning to help her, the first time since she truly admitted what she hoped, what she could be allowed to desire if only she weren’t who she was.

 

“Perhaps she can get them to feed her breakfast, too,” Jane found herself saying. “That is, if her father’s in the room.” She had not meant to say that, and the blood pounded in her damaged cheek. Flustered, she patted her cheek to make sure the veil was still in place, reminded herself to continue her thoughts of water, calm and cold.

 

“Wicked girl,” growled Mr. Rochart. “Youngsters are not supposed to see so keenly into the faults of mortals.”

 

“And at what age am I allowed to see what’s in front of my nose? I am twenty-one, you know. I hope I shan’t have to feign blindness much longer.” She marveled at the steadiness of her voice.

 

“All of twenty-one?” He considered her for a silent moment. “I thought you were yet two years from that.” His smile was mocking, ironic. “Ah, Jane. How unfortunate that you should be a third my age.”

 

“Your numbers exaggerate, sir.” Calmly, coolly, though her heart beat hard against her chest. “Two-thirds at most, I should say, for there is no grey on your temple, and you do not order stewed prunes at breakfast, like a grandfather in his dotage.”

 

“You are too kind to me,” he said, and he brushed aside her covering hand to view her sketch.

 

Jane willed her embarrassment at her amateur drawing to subside. He was a real artist, with a decade more experience besides. It took all her courage not to snatch the drawing away and close the sketchpad so he couldn’t see it.

 

“The angle of the knees is off,” he said.

 

“I know,” said Jane, looking at that over-erased spot. She clamped her lips closed on a torrent of other inadequacies she could plainly see.

 

“And yet you have captured something of the spirit, which is far more important. It is Dorie to the life. May I?”

 

Jane nodded, let him take her pencil.

 

He studied the girl for a moment, then with firm black strokes corrected the tilt of the waist, the knees, the toes digging into the ground. “Always draw what’s underneath,” he said, “before you get to the folds and lace on top. You should have a life drawing class.”

 

Jane did not say the obvious, that there were very many things that this Jane would have liked to have.

 

Perhaps he saw the stubborn set of her lips, for he returned to a discussion of what he did like. “Yes, something in the chin, the tilt of the head, is just right. Happy only when she is being adored. She is so like…”

 

“Her mother?”

 

“Though it pains me to admit it.”

 

“Because you miss her,” prompted Jane, uncertain why else the thought would pain him.

 

He handed the pencil back to her. It was warm from his hands. She let it lie loosely in her palm.

 

“And now it is expected that I should take a new bride,” he said. “Dorie needs a mother, and the staff need someone else to cosset, someone who does not gruffly lock himself in an attic for weeks at a time. Miss Ingel is their frontrunner, I believe, for she is wealthy and kind and has a decade on those little chits the Misses Davenport. Yet another worry to add to my plate.” His fingers rested lightly on the sketch of Dorie.

 

“Oh,” said Jane. She did not wish to say anything, yet the syllable burst forth anyway. There were so many things she wanted to say, and did not want to say, and letting the “Oh” escape at least stopped the incoherent words of desire for him, for her, from tumbling from her lips.

 

There was silence in that misty air. She was transfixed by those amber eyes, caught, searching their blackening depths. Had he really sculpted her face? And why? Was he as curious as she to know what she might have been?

 

Silence, and him watching her veil flutter. “You’re not wearing your mask,” he said.

 

Jane’s hand flew to her cotton veil. “Does it bother you? Can you feel the curse?”

 

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