"He glanced at the woman in purple, who was smirking fondly at Jack's father in a way that filled Jack with darkest foreboding. "We wanted to surprise you." Jack looked from his father to the woman in purple. He thought he knew what was coming and he didn't like it. "We?" His father slid his arm through that of the woman in purple. He cleared his throat. "Jack, may I present my wife, your new--" "Felicitations." If his father thought he was going to call this woman mother, he had to be mad. But then, that was his father, wasn't it? He always saw the world as he wished it to be. It was stupid, at Jack's age, to feel disappointment. Jack nodded crisply to his new stepmother. "Congratulations, madam. Had I been informed, I would have sent a gift." "That didn't sound terribly celebratory," whispered Lady Henrietta to her husband."