Any Other Name (The Split Worlds) - By Emma Newman Page 0,12
failed to make you into an accomplished young lady. We are so very lucky that events have transpired to make this marriage happen, otherwise I have no idea what would have become of you.”
Her fists were clenched so tight Cathy feared she’d split her knuckles. She took a breath but he held up a hand.
“I haven’t finished. Your lack of gratitude and your supreme lack of appreciation for the privileges you have enjoyed astound me. I have seen people suffer, Catherine, really suffer in the most unimaginably awful situations, and to see you pouting and refusing to participate and even be courteous when you have such a blessed life quite frankly disgusts me.”
She looked away, feeling a sharp stab of truth in his words.
“I realised last night that one of the other reasons you have infuriated me so is…” He paused, and she looked back to see him searching for the right words in a way she’d never witnessed before. “… is because I believe we’re far more alike than I’ve ever wanted to admit.”
She gawped at him. “Really?”
“You know very little about me. You’ve never expressed any curiosity. I thought it might interest you to know that when I came of age and was presented to the Patroon to make my request, I too did not ask for what my parents expected of me.”
Cathy blinked, unable to imagine even a shred of rebellion in the stilted, repressed rod of a man that was her father. She remembered his rage when she’d asked to go to university instead of the shallow beauty or grace Charm her mother had pressed for. He’d never once let it slip that he’d done the same.
“What did you ask for?”
“To fight in the First World War.”
“But I thought that was a tradition for Rhoeas-Papaver men – to be in the army, I mean.”
“The First World War was seen as too dangerous for active service. It was very different, what with the Gatling guns mowing down the officers in such numbers. Our family has served in many military campaigns over the ages, when our interests were under threat, or when some young blood wanted a taste of glory, but no one was permitted a commission when they saw what was happening in the trenches.”
“But you wanted to go out there?”
“I turned twenty-one in 1916. I was desperate to get out there and give the Hun a damn fine kicking, but the pater said no. So I asked the Patroon, and he had to say yes.”
Cathy saw a spark of something in his eyes that she’d thought impossible: spirit. “Were they angry with you?”
“Furious. Got a beating, but I took it. No doubt something will be said about it today.”
Cathy remembered the wedding. There would be family there, her grandparents right back to her great-great-great-grandparents, possibly older. She didn’t bother to keep track as they’d never shown any signs of being interesting. But having heard her father speak, she wondered if that assessment was correct. Perhaps they all hid their interesting quirks too well. Even though it was intriguing, she still didn’t want to be there.
“If you knew what it’s like to have to ask for something you need to do, even when everyone else says no, why were you so hard on me?”
He frowned as he considered her question. “I wondered that myself, I must confess. I realised it was because you asked for something selfish. I wanted to defend Albion, and England. I wanted to risk my life in a noble cause. You just wanted to rebel.”
“Not for the sake of it!” Cathy realised he saw her as nothing more than a horrible child; he had no idea what it had been like for her. “You say I threw stuff back in your face but every time I tried to explain you hit me. Mother thought I kept messing up my embroidery deliberately but I was just rubbish at it. And then she’d tell you and then you’d beat me again. What was I supposed to do?”
“Take it on the chin,” he replied, as if he were talking about being gently teased. “Try harder. It’s your duty to represent your family in the best way you can.”
Try harder. In the early days she did try so hard to please them but she gave up when she realised there was no way to be the child they wanted. Miss Rainer’s lessons had increased the gulf between them by giving her other things to aspire to and