If Grandmother were still here, this trip wouldn't have been the disappointment I felt it was. She would have known what I needed. She had raised six children, with the help of the servants, mind you, but still, six children. I had two girls now; I couldn't imagine any more. Grandmother's strength and wisdom were undefeatable in an age that had taxed women in so many ways; I couldn't even begin to imagine how many.

Father didn't want to seem weak in front of us and that itself was a weakness.

Though it was hardly a shock to him, because Father knew well by my sixteenth birthday how unpredictably erratic my temperament had become. His sweet Robert had died many years ago, along with his mother, and was replaced by this wicked little changeling who didn't ever care to temper his tongue. I had earned many a rival, enemy and smack upside the head for the mischievous things I said and did.

His mind betrayed him and now we were all victims of the horrible deception.

You see Alexander was my weakness just as I was his. No one in the world had fought for me as relentlessly as he always had; ever since I was a just baby in the crib. Neither Father nor Mother when she lived, ever made him do it for me. It was entirely of his own volition.