A Perfect Mistress by Barbara Mack

wouldn’t look at her. Sophie put her head on his chest, and his voice rumbled against her cheek.
    “When I was about four, my grandfather died and my uncles kicked my mother and me out of the house. They’d never been happy about taking money from my father, and they didn’t want her around. My mother went to my father, and he put us up in a house in town . He visited once a week and brought us an envelope of money , but he never once spoke to me. He saw to it that I was educated, clothed, and well cared for , but not on ce did he call m e by name or even acknowledge my existence . If he passed me on the street, he looked the other way. I’d see him sometimes with his family, and I’d be so angry. He had two daughters; they were always dressed like little princesses, and he doted on them. I’d follow them sometimes when they were in town, and I’d see the way he acted toward them. He bought them things, and he was always smiling at them. I don’t ever remember him smiling at me, not even once. He always called me ‘the boy’. How is the boy doing in school? The boy’s clothes are looking ragged, you’d better get him some new ones . The boy needs to apply himself. You coddle the boy too much, he needs to learn to be a man. As if he was ever a good example for me.”
    Jackson made a derisive sound, and Sophie rubbed his chest in a soothing manner.
    “ My mother acquiesced to his every wish, and I resented him more and more every day . Everyone knew that I was a bastard. I had no friends, and neither did my mother.”
    He sighed, and brought up a hand to cover his eyes. Sophie rubbed her face in the hair on his chest.
    “What happened then?” she prompted. “That’s not the end of the story, Jackson. You were a boy then. What is it like now?”
    “My father’s w ife died when I was ten, and Mother always believed that he was going to marry her one day. If she was nice enough, and she always did what he wanted…maybe then he’d love her. Maybe then he’d marry her. He had only to say something once , and it was done . I hated that. I hated that she was so subservient. She treated him as if he was a king, and she was just a lowly peasant. If she’d curtsied every time he ordered her to do something, I wouldn’t have been surprised. ”
    Jackson kicked the covers off angrily . He sat up on the edge of the bed with his back to her, and Sophie curled herself around his naked, strong back, stroking his thigh.
    “ I could have told her that he was never going to marry her. He thought of her as a servant, nothing else. She died of the ague when I was 20, and my father didn’t even come to the funeral. I was her only mourner at graveside. My uncles didn’t come, either. I thought I was going to have to move, but I found out that the house we lived in was in my mother’s name . M y father had deeded it to her years ago , and she had left it to me. I was mine to do with as I wished. My father never came back to the house to see me after her death , not even once . H e died six year s later.”
    “I’m so sorry, Jackson,” Sophie murmured. “My father was horrid to me, but at least he spoke to me on occasion.”
    “About a week after his death , I had a visit from my father’s lawyer. He had left his daughters a most generous amount of cash, enough so that they’d never have to worry about anything for the rest of their lives , but the bulk of the estate went to me. I received a proposition from my half-sisters at the same time I was receiving the news – they’d buy the farm from me if I promised to leave the area . It was a generous offer, and I started to take it.”
    “Why didn’t you?”
    Jackson lay back down and Sophie scooted to give him room. He rolled to face her , his face troubled. “I don’t know. I suppose it was because they made me angry. They knew who I was – everyone knew who I was. They wanted to pretend that I didn’t exist, the way that they’d always done. If I’d gone