Page 39 of The Favourite

“Yes, it was.” Though, sadly, her diligent practice had never resulted in a proficiency that could approach Helen’s natural talent. For some reason, her thoughts turned toward Alisander’s relationship with his brother. She could not stop imagining him bereft of his family and delivered into the keeping of a hostile family.

Alisander’s voice broke into her thoughts. “What are you thinking about?” he asked.

“You and your brother,” she confessed.

“Ah. You are drawing parallels betwixt us?”

“Yes. I don’t know that I could have done without my sister at that age. You must have felt”—she hesitated—“terribly alone.”

He gave a short laugh. “At thirteen or thereabouts, most people would agree I was, to all intents and purposes, already a man. What were you doing at thirteen?” he asked curiously.

“At thirteen?” She considered a moment in silence. It was at that point when their uncle had sown the seeds of dissent between herself and her sister. “At thirteen I left my childhood home behind me. My sister and I were sent to my uncle’s house in Aphrany to begin our training for court. Uncle Philip said it was what my late father would have wanted.”

“Your mother let you go with him unattended?”

Jane nodded. “Why should she not? I was thirteen and my sister some twelve years of age. Most folk would have considered us almost full grown.” He gave a huff of laughter, and Jane knew he appreciated that she had turned the tables on him.

“Besides,” she continued, “my mother was always rather intimidated by my father’s family and made a point of never disagreeing with them.” Why was she telling him all this? It was foolish and would only serve to give him further material to tease her with later, but now she had started, she could not seem to stop. “Her father was a country squire who had never ventured outside of his native county of Mertford. Even when my father married her, he never brought her to court or even to the capital.”

“His brother’s argument then, seems rather weak.” She turned an enquiring look on him, not that he could see it in the dark. “That your father would insist his daughters were exposed to such things,” he explained.

“Yes,” she agreed, “but my mother was not the kind to put up a fight.”

“Not like you, then.”

“Me? I am not remotely contentious!”

He ignored this. “Tell me about your time at your uncle’s house.”

“I’d rather not,” Jane admitted uncomfortably. It was a period in her life she did not care to dwell upon.

His eyes narrowed. “You disliked your aunt as much as your uncle, then?” he asked.

“My aunt? Why would you think that?”

“Surely, you would have learned the ways of a fine lady under the aegis of your aunt, rather than your uncle.”

“You would think so, would you not?”

“Now Jane, you are being evasive,” Alisander said sternly. “And you were being so delightfully confiding earlier. Do you not realize how much more it intrigues me when you act so tight-lipped?” When Jane remained stubbornly silent, she could hear the smile in his voice.

“Did I so much as ask you in what direction Mertford lay? Or press you for the name of your maternal grandfather? I did not, because you were artless and open about that part of your life.” He let his point sink in.

Jane plucked at the blankets. “My uncle’s wife was an invalid, and we did not see her much,” she admitted.

“Ah,” he said, and she heard him rustle the blankets as though settling more comfortably for the story. “Go on.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“You surely do not expect me to believe your uncle taught you how to curtsey and dance the galliard.”

“I—no, of course not!” She was getting flustered. “My uncle hired … various tutors and experts for that purpose.”

“Yes?” he murmured. “And it was this point at which he singled out your sister as his better bet?” he prompted when she fell silent. Jane made a noise of agreement. “He informed you both of this fact?”

She nodded again, even though he could not see it. “Yes,” she added softly.

“Of course, he did. Tell me, what did he say to you, this uncle of yours?”