• The Painted Lady

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    (Part 1)
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    Lorene stared at the painting in a sort of trance. The face staring solemnly back at her was jarringly familiar; the contours of the lady's eyes and cheekbones a distorted reflection of hers.

    But that was only to be expected. She was yet another Castaneda ancestor, Lorene supposed; formerly a Leblanc (judging by the stunning green of her eyes), by now a charming pile of dust in the family crypt.

    Strange, that they should be so similar, when three centuries of diluted blood stretched between them. If Lorene were one to put stock in such things as fate and reincarnation...but no, she had a proper education, one she scraped and begged and bled for all her life, a dream she coaxed into brilliant existence through pure stubbornness.

    Lorene's mother raised her by example to be sensible and exact. She was a modern girl, a smarter kind of fool. An educated fool, her neighbours often sneered, only succeeding in fanning the warmth of her satisfaction. She worked hard to be here today - alive, healthy and with the skills to live a comfortable life.

    Her parents would be proud of her achievements, if they had lived to see them. They would tell her to believe in herself, to work hard for the things she wanted, to never be ashamed of what she had, how she lived or what she believed. Lorene knew about the world, about how the familiarity of small towns bred contempt, how people hated those who dared to rise above them, about how hard and bright and brilliant life could be in the cities.

    She knew what it felt like to be devoured every day by blinding hunger, and what it felt like to eat yourself sick. She knew how it felt to be invisible among beautiful people with jaded eyes, and how it felt to be the centre of one man's entire world. She knew people who should be sainted, and people who should be shot, point blank.

    Why should she go looking for monsters under the bed when people everywhere lived to tear each other apart? Superstition was for the ignorant unwashed.

    At the sound of echoing footsteps down the hallway, Lorene stepped away from the mantle, already lamenting the loss of heat. Surprisingly she had failed to notice it before, fixating immediately on the painting in pride of place on entering the room. Or perhaps she was simply tired.

    The journey had been long, cold and blustery, with many unnecessary delays that extended it by almost a fortnight. Most of those were invented by her guide, she was sure, as he was paid quite handsomely by the day. Being an unattached young woman had never been so frustrating; he was next to useless, but society demanded that Lorene could not travel without a guide, and she did not know the area well enough to thumb her nose at the rules. A tragedy, really, to be subjected to his dull company and poorly-disguised greed.

    She may not be any great beauty, not with her mother's common features and her father's dishwater blond hair, but she was often told her cleverness quite excused it. And of course her recent windfall - an unexpected fortune and a manor in the country - was quite tempting, to be sure.

    Maybe too tempting...once in the country, she was forced to discard her guide at a wayside inn and make her own way on foot. This was due to a truly unfortunate conflict of interest.

    Namely, he was interested in her fortune and the removal of her travel clothing. She was not.

    He was stupidly bewildered in his intoxication, lying stunned in the trench where Lorene had forcefully upended him. The look he gave her was truly pitiful. It might have moved her to hand him the last of his promised payment - if only he had kept his sweaty, wandering hands to himself.

    At times she almost regretted it, before she reminded herself that Lorene Gabriella Edwardson reveled in her freedom and regretted nothing. Trudging through the dark in the stinging winds rising off the lake would not deter her. Swollen feet and bone-deep chill would never slow her down. It was a hard, barren land out here, with nothing for reprieve but shepherds' homesteads and a small town filled with frigid faces. But that hardly fazed her either. They were all about as interesting as the sheep they used for trade.

    Small wonder she was so tired already.

    By the time the footsteps stopped outside the study door she was seated as before, in an old leather armchair facing the fire: her back to one soft padded armrest, her legs thrown indolently over the other, socked feet crossed at the ankles with a toe exposed to the cold. Her billowy travelling pants had caused quite a stir today, men frowning at her openly and women gasping with comical looks of outrage.

    What a quaint, backwards little town she had found herself in! No wonder her father had beat a hasty retreat as soon as he had the money.

    A quiet displacement of air alerted her to the opening of the door. The hinges were too well-tended to creak a protest, which suggested a lot of a**l retentiveness on the caretaker's part. She had expected more dust and grime, whole colonies of mice, barren flowerbeds, rooms badly in need of new floorboards and a fresh coat of paint.

    It was a centuries-old manor casually furnished with antiques that would fetch a pretty penny, with miles of land attached that included a huge greenhouse and a private cemetery. And it was all tended by Harley, a stick-in-the-mud with a bad limp and heartburn. Even her agent had advised her to sell the place to someone willing to do extensive repairs.

    Yet on her tour this afternoon she had seen for herself that everything was pristine. Not a shingle out of place.

    Lorene frowned at the cackling flames. She had always despised mysteries. Too often they involved a whole lot of build-up, a whole lot of withholding information, tensions running high and relationships coming under strain - all for an unsatisfactory reveal. Secrets destroyed lives. Hadn't she seen it happen with her own parents?

    Neither had ever treated her as anything less than a beloved child, but with each other - oh, the way they would carry on! They were volatile, rubbing each other wrong over half the time, each of them convinced the other was wrong and stupid to boot. Her mother clawed at her father's insecurities, only to have him snarl at her, attacking her weak spots. The constant, brutish fighting drove Lorene from the house at all hours of the night.

    By the end they were living separate lives, even though they slept five feet from each other, and would only talk to each other through her...it disgusted Lorene as much as it scared her. She vowed to never be that vulnerable, to never offer herself to a man fully. After all, familiarity breeds contempt.

    Only that hadn't worked out so well later on. She fell in love and life was beautiful. Jeremy was sweet and fun and lived with abandon, and he said he understood when she told him she wanted to take things easy. They were invincible together, a happy couple - or so she thought, until he started making noises about becoming a permanent fixture in the community. About settling down and belonging.

    Lorene Gabriella Edwardson belonged to no man. She belonged to no one but herself, she had said, and that was the way she liked it. Marriage was for suckers. Jeremy had called her damaged, with that wry twist to his mouth she was so enamored of. He said he would change that, would love her for always, and wouldn't she make an honest man out of him?

    She had only laughed, had slipped her fingers through his and told him to perish the thought. They were young and alive and the whole world was free; what more did they need? Why be discontent with what they had?

    Unfortunately, Jeremy was no better at listening than her father was at staying sober.

    The following month he proposed to her. She left the next day.

    But she could never stop thinking about it. Seven years later, she was older, wiser, her eyes more jaded, and she couldn't help wondering...what would it have been like? Being tied to one place in the rat-hole of domesticity was her personal hell but...there was always that 'but'.

    Nowadays she would dearly like a place to call home. A place where she fit seamlessly into someone's life, where someone cared to know and love her, no matter how damaged.

    She wasn't bitter, no. She still had freedom, and now she had money.

    Lorene idly raised the goblet held loosely in her hand, turning it this way and that, eyes focusing on the lustrous shine of the rubies inlaid below the rim.

    The other day she had gone back to that city. Her fortune had come as a shock, and she longed for the comfort of a familiar face, to confide in someone she trusted. So the third day she went to a party Jeremy was sure to be at.

    Only Jeremy was decidedly unavailable for comment. He was too busy showing off his fiancée - a pretty little thing, with pretty blond curls and pretty pale eyes and a big shiny rock on her finger. Alicia - or was it Alexandra? - was a chatty socialite with a stuffed bank account and hopes of being a 'proper' wife and mother.

    She had never worked a day in her life, had never had freckled skin or calloused fingers or chapped lips or a gaping pit in her belly.

    She abhorred travel, saw gambling as base and dirty, would as soon cut off her own hand as throw a punch, frothed at the mouth over the latest fashions and shivered at the mere mention of guns or ghettos or dancing in the rain. Lorene was at a complete loss.

    They had absolutely nothing in common, and it made her wonder.

    She had been subjected to Amelia's mindless chatter and bragging for almost twenty minutes, while those who knew about her past with Jeremy tittered at each other and made sly digs at her expense. Quite subtle, really, that lovely bunch of gossips.

    When Jeremy's mother inserted herself into the conversation, her face all puckered at Lorene, she had decided to find better entertainment.

    There was no love lost between her and that woman. Lorene was just petty enough to enjoy the old crone's offended look as she up and left in the middle of her scathing diatribe.

    She had even managed to congratulate Jeremy as he helped her into her coat. He had answered her with just that achingly familiar wry smile. And she had hated him, just for that moment, as much as she had ever hated anything. Enough to silently vow to forget him, his mother, the socialite (Ariana? Adele? What was her name?), and the entire year that he had been hers alone.

    When she leaned up to kiss his cheek, he had wished her goodbye. Good riddance, more like. She made arrangements to leave the next day, to this backwater town where no one would ever dream of visiting her. When the mail came today she tore the engraved wedding invitation into fifty pieces and built a fire to burn them on.

    It was possible she was a little bit bitter.

    She resurfaced from her thoughts when Harley cleared his throat at her—quite rudely, she might add. Lorene twisted around to fix him with a cool stare. Harley hadn't even the decency to look intimidated, only fixing a pointed sneer at the way she was slouching.

    Lorene sighed, her black mood not improved by his passive-aggressive behaviour. She wiggled her toes at him mulishly.

    “Is there something you need, servant?”

    A portly man of many years, his whitening hair was peppered with red and grey, but his face was as doughy as a young child's. He couldn't hide his emotions to save his life—and by the flash in those wide blue eyes she knew he was affronted. A smile touched her lips but didn't bloom. Not quite. She wasn't ready to feel.

    “Supper, Miss, ” he stiffly announced, and set an ornate silver tray down on the table before her, hard enough to jolt its contents around.

    Oh, the upper crust and their delicate sensibilities! Lorene's lips twitched. She stretched just enough to set the goblet down as well, precariously balanced on the table's edge. How many toes had she tread on by this point? Just by existing, she had usurped the right to this musty old behemoth of a house and a tidy fortune.

    Her inheriting was a great outrage, never as obvious anywhere but in the nearby town of Clearwater where everyone and their grandmother knew all about the Castanedas. Such dissension and discord had not been seen since her great-great-grandfather, then the future heir, took up with a woman of pleasure—which, consequently, resulted in her existence. The child went unclaimed, an unwanted, undeserving b*****d who lived in the seedy part of town and was never acknowledged by his father or half-brothers.

    Or so her estranged relatives claimed, spitting and frothing at the mouth with hate in their eyes.

    Lorene herself had no knowledge of any of this until that faithful phone call three months ago, naming her the closest surviving family member.

    Oh, could you imagine - her, an insolent, worthless, dirt poor, unladylike scoundrel! She was from the b*****d's line, she had no claim to the family fortune at all!

    But the law was the law still, the carefully maintained genealogy records were clear, and blood was thicker than water, to their utmost dismay. They made their contempt for her clear as day, their hearts so full of envy they were fit to burst.

    She relished it.

    While Lorene was again lost in her musings, Harley - who she had learned was a very distant cousin from the main family branch - had busied himself with setting out her supper. There were slightly charred, oddly green sausages and a bowl of what looked like fresh coleslaw made from what was definitely not lettuce, and another with some kind of soup - she recognized beans and chunks of potato, at least.

    On the side was a plate with fresh bread, a pitcher of warm milk, and a dark red tea with strange tiny leaves and petals swirling in the fragrant, almost spicy liquid. Pixie-flowers, Harley had called them, when Lorene had pointed out the plant in the lot behind the kitchen.

    It was an honest to god herb garden. How quaint.

    “Ah, many thanks Harley,” Lorene said as pompously as she could manage. “You may leave now.”

    She limply waved a hand towards the general vicinity of the door. A huff of air was her only reply as he turned sharply on his heel and strode away, lips tightly pursed. She waited until he was almost at the threshold, then called out.

    “Wait.”

    Reluctantly, he turned.

    “Miss Edwardson?”

    “Draw me a bath, why don't you? I've had just about enough wandering around in these dusty old rags. Oh—make up the bed as well. Don't forget to put the hot water bottle between the sheets, thank you.”

    His jaw ticking, Harley nodded jerkily with a “Yes, Miss” and all but ran from the room.

    As the study door shut behind him a choked laugh bubbled from her lips. Well who knew—resentful relatives were just as fun to rile up as anyone else. She was petty enough to enjoy it with her whole heart. Not that it would change the price of eggs; she was still as alone as she ever was.

    A depressing thought, that.

    With a sigh, Lorene lifted her eyes to those of the woman in the painting.

    Her beauty was exquisite, though not in the conventional way. Her features were too strong and her colouring too dramatic for convention: eyes set slightly too wide apart, the sharp green of spring leaves, with an intensity that was surely intimidating in real life; dark hair spilling over her shoulders in riotous curls; thin as a rake with a sharp chin; skin much too pale, translucent in places like her arms and temples, where blue veins stood out. Her thin mouth was turned down, her expression melancholy.

    Granted, her misery could come from being made to sit and sit and sit for hours, while some perfectionist recreated the exact fan of her eyelashes. But she didn't think so. No one had eyes that haunted from an easy life. Lorene should know; she saw that expression every time she looked in a mirror.

    Poor doll. Lorene badly wished she knew the secrets lurking behind those eyes.

    But for now, all she could manage was her dinner. The delicious scents were tempting enough to brave the strange local food. She supposed she should get used to it, lest she hurt someone's feelings—Harley's most likely.

    Later she would solve the mystery for her own peace of mind. If they were dangerous secrets, she would be prepared; if they weren't, well, it couldn't hurt to know her own history.

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    (Part 1 End)
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