Chapter 20 #2
It was one thing for a man like that to desire her. But love, when he might instead have his freedom? Hannah couldn’t understand it.
It was too early for a morning call, and everyone was still at breakfast in their rooms when she arrived at the town house.
“Please don’t disturb everyone on my account, Molly,” she instructed the maid at the door. “I’m only here to see my mother for a few minutes.”
“She hasn’t yet come down, ma’am.”
That’s right. Hannah was a ma’am now, not a miss. It felt strange.
“I’ll see her in her room. I’m sure she won’t mind.” Hannah had walked the path to the guest bedrooms a hundred times since they’d arrived in London. She still felt like a guest, not a visitor. “And could you please bring me up something to eat?”
Mama still had her hair tied in curls beneath her breakfast cap. When she saw Hannah, she sat up straight in her bed, nearly upsetting the tray of food. “What are you doing here? Has something happened?”
“I’m perfectly well,” Hannah assured her. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
“You should be with Mr. Corbyn now,” her mother scolded. “You’re newlyweds. Did you have a quarrel already?”
“No!” Having one’s husband confess his love certainly didn’t qualify as a quarrel, even if it had put Hannah all of a dither. “I need to tell you something, that’s all.”
Molly came in with some hot rolls and marmalade for Hannah, who took a few bites and waited for the servant to leave the room before she continued. “He isn’t going to buy a commission. He never was. He only went along with your suggestion because I asked him to try to impress you.”
Mama’s eyes betrayed her shock first, while her mouth took a little longer to catch up. “Not buy a commission? But he must! You agreed to marry an officer, poppet, not a nobody.”
“He isn’t a nobody,” Hannah protested. “Don’t talk about him that way.”
Mama’s tone softened slightly. “I’ve come to like Mr. Corbyn.
Truly. But he has an obligation to provide you with the best life he’s able, and a commission in the army is the only thing that would restore some respectability to his reputation.
Unless he plans to use the money to buy a living instead?
Does he wish to join the Church?” Her face fell a moment later.
“No, I don’t suppose his education would allow it. ”
“He’s going to Burton upon Trent to start a brewery with his family,” Hannah explained.
“A brewery? Oh, poppet, really, you must make him see reason. Tell him that he owes it to you to find a respectable station. Or if you won’t tell him, then I will.”
“You will do no such thing.” The image of Mama descending on their lodgings in Southwark to complain in front of Corbyn’s brother and cousin filled Hannah with dread. “The matter is already settled; I agreed to it before we married. I only came to tell you so that you wouldn’t be surprised.”
Mama looked hurt. “Why would you keep something like that from me?”
“Because I knew you wouldn’t approve.” Oh dear. Now she was sounding like Corbyn had this morning. “You can be very hard to please, you know. But none of the respectable men that you wanted me to marry cared one whit for me! Mr. Corbyn may not be wealthy or well-to-do, but he—”
He loves me. Hannah stopped before she said the words aloud.
Mama didn’t seem to have noticed the abrupt end to her speech. “But Staffordshire is so far. You always said you wanted to stay close to home. Somewhere in the south.”
“I will be in the south,” Hannah said numbly. “I’ve decided to stay in London and help at Jane’s club while he goes north with his family.”
She was hardly listening to her own words. Corbyn really loved her. The when and why of it didn’t matter if the feelings were true. And she’d been cross with him simply because he hadn’t wanted to be separated.
“Why should you want to do that? You’re his wife. Your place is by his side.” If Mama had been angered by the revelation that her new son-in-law would never be an officer, this new information seemed only to have perplexed her.
Of all people!
“There’s nothing strange about it. You don’t live with Papa,” Hannah pointed out.
“Poppet…” Mama drew a shaky breath. “That’s entirely different. You and Mr. Corbyn will fare better than your father and I.”
“How do you know that?” How could anyone know that? No one expected when they exchanged their vows that they would be miserable together, but it happened all the same, and then where would Hannah be?
Mama’s voice had grown far softer than it had been a minute ago. She spoke each word as if taking care that it should reach Hannah’s ears gently. “Because Mr. Corbyn is a different sort of man than your father. He loves you, and you love him.”
“Didn’t you love Papa once?”
Mama dropped her gaze, nudging her food absently around her plate.
“You know I don’t like to talk about this sort of thing with you children, but if you insist on asking, then I suppose I thought I did.
People grow apart sometimes. I didn’t know him very well when I accepted his offer, and our differences became more noticeable with time. ”
“What if I don’t know Mr. Corbyn very well yet either?” Hannah insisted. “What if we grow apart? How can you expect me to trust my future to a man who might come to dislike me in a few years?”
Mama was silent for a long time. Her dark-brown eyes were pleading.
“Hannah, I wish I knew how to reassure you. I tried to keep the peace with your father for a long time before I removed to town, but I simply couldn’t manage it anymore.
That doesn’t mean that your marriage can’t be a happy one.
Is this why you tried so hard to discourage all your suitors? Because of your father and me?”
Hannah didn’t reply. It would only hurt Mama if she agreed, and besides, Hannah could recognize now that she might have been a bit too hard on her for leaving Papa.
He’d done his part to drive her away. Hannah had been too hurt and angry to see it at the time, but her father’s behavior at supper showed how little he valued his marriage.
“There must be a reason that you said yes to Mr. Corbyn, when you were never tempted by anyone else,” Mama continued.
“You chose him as your husband. You can just as easily choose to try your best to be happy together, if both of you are willing to make an effort to be kind. Has he been kind to you?”
Hannah thought about how Corbyn had agreed not to have children when she’d expressed her fears; how he had devoted their wedding night to her pleasure without demanding anything in return; and how he’d insisted that the solicitor draft a settlement that provided any property bought with her dowry would be for her sole use.
“Yes.”
Mama smiled, relief taking some of the tension from her shoulders. “Well then. You must resolve to be kind to him as well. That’s all anyone can do.”
Hannah wasn’t sure she’d been kind this morning. All Corbyn wanted was to live with her, and she’d panicked at the suggestion.
“You make it sound easy, but if it were truly that easy, everyone would have a happy marriage.”
“I think it must be easy when you’re a kind person to start with, which you are, and when your husband is willing to be kind to you in return, which Mr. Corbyn is. So you’re lucky. Now go back home to your husband.”
“You’re not angry he’s going to be a brewery owner instead of an officer?”
“Of course I am.” Mama clucked her tongue. “But you’ve never listened to me about anything before, so I suppose I can hardly expect you to start now. You’re a married woman. You and your husband will have to decide for yourselves what’s best.”
Well. This day is full of surprises.
Hannah popped the last bite of her hot roll into her mouth and set the tray on an end table.
“Thank you, Mama.” She leaned over to wrap her arms around her mother’s neck and pull her into a quick hug.
“You’re welcome.” Mama looked a bit flustered—it had been ages since Hannah had last hugged her, and she probably didn’t quite know what to do—but she seemed pleased all the same.
“Remember how grateful you are when it’s time for you to come all the way to London from Burton upon Trent for a visit! ”
Hannah took her leave and hurried back to the lodgings in Southwark, feeling quite awful about how she’d left.
She shouldn’t have rushed off that way. All Corbyn had done was treat her well, and here she couldn’t even let herself trust that he meant it.
She’d probably hurt him, though he didn’t deserve to be punished for her parents’ mistakes.
When Hannah came into the kitchen, she found all three of them in the middle of a conversation that broke off when they saw her. She blushed, feeling very foolish for her behavior earlier with everyone watching her.
Corbyn was the first to break the silence. “Is your mother well?”
“Yes.” At least she had some good news to share. “She’s not happy to learn about the brewery, but she seems to understand. I think you shouldn’t have to hear mention of the subject more than once or twice in your life.”
Hannah smiled tentatively, but no one chuckled. Perhaps it was premature to try and lighten the mood before she’d addressed Corbyn’s concerns.
“Might I speak to you for a moment?” she asked.
He murmured his assent and led the way to his bedroom—their bedroom, she reminded herself. He looked so solemn that Hannah realized that he must think she was planning to pack up her things and leave this instant. Could she blame him, after how she’d reacted?
But before she could open her mouth to set things right, Corbyn began to speak. “I had something I wanted to tell you too.”
“No, let me go first, please,” she insisted. God forbid it should be plans to separate their households immediately. “I’m sorry I reacted badly this morning. I shouldn’t have run off like that. I was frightened.”
Corbyn blinked. He clearly hadn’t expected this.
“The truth is I—” Hannah swallowed. Why did it have to be so hard for her?
Corbyn seemed able to do it easily enough.
“I love you too.” As she forced the words out, Hannah found herself tearing up.
She blinked furiously, trying not to turn into an embarrassing mess before she could finish what she needed to say.
“You’ve been good to me, even before we knew each other.
You made me feel like I mattered when no one else would.
You’ve never given me a reason to distrust you, and if I did it anyway, it was only because it’s hard for me to believe that I could really have a happy marriage with a good man.
I spent a very long time struggling to escape a bad match, and I wasn’t used to hoping for better.
” There. Now Corbyn knew how much he meant to her.
Oh, wait! I missed the most important thing!
“And I’ll come to Burton with you if you still want me to,” she blurted out.
But Corbyn made a regretful half grimace with his lips. “Actually—”
“I was scarcely gone an hour!” she protested. “You can’t have given up on me that quickly!”
“No.” He chuckled. “I was going to say that I talked it over with Marian, and we’re considering setting up our brewery in London instead of going back to Burton.
We’ve been making connections with a number of the local brewery managers and publicans these past few weeks, so it isn’t as though we’d be starting with nothing.
The primary reason Marian intended to go back was to show my grandfather and my brother that she was capable of beating them at their own game, which I pointed out wasn’t the soundest basis for a business.
” Corbyn offered Hannah a sheepish smile.
“And this way you could still work at the club as you’d planned.
I thought you might feel better about living together if you didn’t have to give up your independence entirely. ”
If Hannah had been fighting back her emotions before, this was enough to tip the scales in their favor. She had no choice but to dab at her eyes before her cheeks grew wet. “You’d really do that for me? I don’t want to disrupt your plans.”
“I told you, we’ve been making connections in town this whole time.
There’s no real disadvantage to it. Frankly, I’d rather stay here than go back to Burton, where I’d be sure to cross paths with my father.
It was only a matter of convincing Marian, which wasn’t too difficult considering that London offers the largest market. ”
Hannah threw her arms around Corbyn’s neck, holding him tight.
She could hear the satisfaction in his voice as he continued, “We can still see about getting you property of your own somewhere if you want. You might rent it out, and that way you’d have another source of income as well as a place of your own if you ever wanted it. ”
“We can talk about that later.” She wanted a little time to examine her own emotions once her head stopped spinning.
There were practical benefits to Corbyn’s suggestion, but most of all, Hannah appreciated that he was thinking about her.
There might not be any way to guarantee the future, but Mama was right—she’d chosen Corbyn as her husband for a reason.
If she had a chance at happiness with any man, it could only be him.
“For right now, let’s enjoy being newlyweds. ”