We Who Are Jaded

Chapter Seventeen

"I'm forbidden from being in here but I have a spare key. Margaret is a forgetful thing and so I stole her keys and I took them into town instead of going to my piano lesson. There is a key cutter in Oxford, I looked him up in the phone book you see," Roslyn confessed, obviously assuming I wasn't the blabbing sort. "Everyone but my Aunt Sophia underestimate me, even that stupid maid."

Why did the traces of Sophia's influence not cease to amazing me? 

"Are you and your aunt close then?" I asked casually. Roslyn rolled her eyes again and ran a finger across the edge of the desk.

"Well she likes to think so but I know she is up to something devious. I can't prove such a thing but she is suspicious, wouldn't you agree Miss Evans?" 

Well, well, well. 

"Quite." I was prepared to give the blue eyed girl no more and no less. I couldn't quite make her out yet and it vexed me. 

 "Tell me, who exactly are you Miss Evans and why did my uncle choose you? You aren't outwardly anything of the extraordinary and that makes me curious, very curious indeed." She folded her hands on the desk, even though she had to sit on the edge of the seat to do so. I licked my lips and crossed my arms. 

"What would you like to know?" Roslyn tapped her chin with a single finger.

"Your family; I want to know about what it's like."

What exactly had Kieran told her about the sad, irregularity of my family? Was she going to make further judgement on me because of who I happened to share blood with. Maybe she had read too many novels where prejudice had manipulated her judgement. 

"Why?" 

Roslyn paused and looked at me with her undivided attention. 

"Because I'm adopted of course and no one of my chosen acquaintance has a family like you do." 

In some sick and unjustifiable way I was glad that Roslyn had dissipated my worst fears  in her confession. It was wrong but she had given me one less thing to feel betrayed by, by telling me herself that she was not borne of Kieran and all for what?  This tiny little girl had asked something so simple of me not knowing that the realities of my home life were nothing of the normalcy she longed for. 

"It's complicated." Roslyn screwed up her angelic face and huffed.

"Do not sass me. I am seven years old and I can handle complicated," she seethed, banging the table top with her tiny fists. I groaned, leaning my head against a rung. Where did one begin? 

"Well my father and my mother aren't together, they never technically were."

"Society today..," Roslyn interrupted. I inclined my head lazily towards her. Was she for real? Roslyn bit her lip and turned her eyes to the floor before gesturing for me to proceed.

"My dad was in an accident and that's how we were reunited, he lives in a care home now." Normally I was offered pity, in lashings when confessing such a thing but much to my surprise and relief, Roslyn was unmoved.  

"My mum got married when I was about three to a man named Ross and then they had a son together."

"That isn't complicated," Roslyn scoffed, examining her nails. 

Why am I taking this bollocks from a seven year old? 

I stepped down from the ladder and headed for the door. 

"I said it wasn't complicated, I didn't say it wasn't interesting." I paused, my hand gripping the door. Reluctantly, I turned and leant against the door.