The Summons
Not "Her Majesty requests your presence at tea." Not "The Queen wondered if you might join her in the garden." No—this had been delivered by a footman whose face held the carefully neutral expression of a man who had been instructed to convey very bad news and was attempting to pretend otherwise.
"Her Majesty requires your attendance in the blue drawing room. Immediately."
Requires. Immediately.
The language of impending doom, dressed in royal courtesy.
Florinda had taken the time to change her dress, re-pin her hair, and locate her shoes—all acts of petty rebellion that she suspected would go entirely unnoticed.
Her hair, at least, was now properly confined in a respectable arrangement that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the wild tumble it had achieved during the pirate incident.
The pirate incident. Even in the privacy of her own mind, the words made her wince.
She had not meant to be discovered. The children had needed exercise, the governess had been indisposed, and Florinda had made the regrettable decision that the east garden was sufficiently private for a brief game of pirates-and-sea-monsters.
She had not anticipated the King of England rounding the corner with a guest in tow.
She had particularly not anticipated that the guest would be the Duke of Carthedge.
Frederick.
Florinda's face grew warm at the memory, which was irritating.
She was six and twenty years old. She had survived one public humiliation at the hands of a fortune-hunting poet and emerged with her dignity largely intact.
She was not going to be undone by the recollection of the Duke of Carthedge observing her stockings.
Even if they had been her good stockings.
Even if he had been staring at her with an expression she could not quite decipher—something between horror and fascination, as though she were a particularly exotic species of insect he had not expected to encounter on a garden lawn.
She had pretended not to notice. She was very good at pretending not to notice things.
The blue drawing room was empty when Florinda arrived, which gave her precisely three minutes to compose her features into an expression of serene dignity before Ella swept through the door.
The Queen of England looked, Florinda observed, as though she had been crying.
This was alarming. Ella did not cry. Ella managed crises with the same brisk efficiency she had once applied to managing their father's chaotic household. Ella fixed problems; she did not weep over them.
"Florinda." Ella's voice held a strange, tight quality. "Please sit down."
"If you are about to tell me that someone has died, I should prefer to receive the news standing."
"No one has died." Ella clasped her hands before her, a gesture Florinda recognised from their childhood—the pose she adopted when delivering unpleasant news about governesses being dismissed or holidays being cancelled. "But I am afraid—that is, Edward has decided—"
She stopped. Took a breath. Started again.
"His Majesty believes you might enjoy the country air."
Florinda felt the words settle into her chest like stones dropping into still water.
"How thoughtful," she heard herself say. "The country air is so much easier to manage than opinions."
"Florinda—"
"When am I to be exiled? Today? Tomorrow? Or has Edward graciously permitted me time to pack my scandal along with my stockings?"
"You are not being exiled—"
"I am being sent away because I played pirates with the children and a duke observed my ankles. That sounds rather like exile to me."
"The carriage is waiting," Ella said quietly. "Your things have already been packed."
Of course they had. Of course her belongings had been gathered and loaded whilst she was brushing her hair and locating her shoes. Of course the decision had been made without her knowledge, her consent, her presence.
She was furniture. Inconvenient furniture that had been discovered in an unsuitable location and was now being removed to somewhere less visible.
"Where am I being sent?" Her voice emerged remarkably steady, considering.
"Raventhorn. To Margot and Percy." Ella would not meet her eyes. "Edward has written ahead. He thought—that is, we both thought—it might be time for you to consider... your situation. Your future."
"My situation." Florinda tasted the word. "You mean my unfortunate status as an unmarried woman of advancing years."
"You are six and twenty, not sixty—"
"And yet apparently too old to be permitted to romp with children without causing a diplomatic incident.
" Florinda's hands had begun to shake. She clasped them behind her back, where Ella could not see.
"What does the letter say? Be precise, please.
I should like to know exactly how I have been described. "
Ella's face crumpled. "He asked Margot to help you find a husband. A suitable match. Someone respectable who might—"
"Might take me off everyone's hands." Florinda nodded, the motion jerky. "How efficient. I am to be managed. Disposed of. Paired off with some respectable gentleman who does not mind a wife with a reputation for exposed limbs and an excess of opinions."
"That is not—"
"It is precisely what it is." Florinda's voice had gone very quiet.
Very controlled. The voice she used when she was in danger of screaming.
"I have spent four years making myself useful.
Four years caring for your children, managing household crises, being the convenient sister who requires no attention because she has learned to want nothing.
And the moment I become inconvenient—the moment I cause the slightest embarrassment—I am to be bundled into a carriage and shipped off to be married to whoever will have me. "
"Florinda." Ella reached for her hand. "I did not want this. I argued—"
"But you did not win." Florinda stepped back, out of reach.
If Ella touched her now, she would shatter, and she had no intention of providing anyone with that satisfaction.
"And so the carriage waits, and my trunks are packed, and I am to be grateful for the opportunity to find myself a husband whilst the palace recovers from the horror of my calves. "
There was a long silence.
"I know," Ella said finally, "that this feels like punishment. But Margot will be glad to see you. And perhaps... perhaps some time away from court might help you find—"
"Find what?" Florinda laughed, the sound brittle. "Contentment? A sense of purpose? A gentleman foolish enough to overlook eight years of spinsterhood and one spectacular incident of public impropriety?"
"Peace, perhaps." Ella's voice was gentle. "I know you haven't found it here."
The words were kind. That was the worst part. Ella meant well. Ella always meant well. And yet somehow Florinda still ended up alone, her future decided by others, her value measured in her usefulness and found wanting.
"I should like," Florinda said, with tremendous dignity, "to say goodbye to the children."
"Of course." Ella blinked rapidly, her composure fraying. "Of course, take whatever time you—"
"Ten minutes should be sufficient. I would not wish to cause any further delays."
She left before Ella could respond. Before the burning behind her eyes could transform into something more humiliating than dignified retreat.
The children, at least, were uncomplicated in their grief.
Charlotte wept and demanded to know why Aunt Flor was leaving.
James clung to her skirts with sticky fingers and refused to let go until bribed with the promise of letters.
Even little Charles, who was too young to understand, seemed to sense the wrongness of the moment and contributed a wail of sympathetic distress.
"I shall write every week," Florinda promised, kneeling to bring herself to Charlotte's level. "And I shall tell you all about the countryside, and the horses, and whether there are any pirates to be discovered."
"There are no pirates in the countryside," Charlotte informed her, with the devastating logic of childhood. "Only sheep."
"Then I shall write about the sheep. Perhaps they are secretly pirates in disguise."
"Sheep cannot be pirates. They don't have hands."
"A compelling argument." Florinda kissed her forehead, then James's, then scooped Charles up for a final embrace that left a smear of jam upon her travelling dress.
"Be good for your governess. And do not let anyone convince you that sheep are boring.
They have their own adventures; they simply don't boast about them. "
The carriage was indeed waiting.
Florinda climbed in without looking back, settled herself against the cushions, and waited until the palace had disappeared entirely from view before allowing herself to feel anything at all.
Then, with no one to observe, she pressed her fists against her eyes and breathed very carefully through the tightness in her chest.
She was not going to cry. She had cried quite enough over her last romantic catastrophe, and she refused to waste tears on this one.
This was merely... logistics. The practical rearrangement of an inconvenient person.
It had nothing to do with love, or rejection, or the slow, grinding realisation that she had spent four years making herself indispensable only to discover that she was, in fact, entirely dispensable.
Stop it, she told herself fiercely. You are not a Gothic heroine. You are a practical woman with a perfectly serviceable brain, and you are not going to spend this journey wallowing in self-pity like a character from one of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels.
The crossroads appeared after two hours of determined not-wallowing.
Florinda knew these roads. She had travelled them countless times as a girl, visiting neighbours, attending assemblies, riding between the great estates that dotted the countryside like jewels on green velvet.
To the north lay Raventhorn, where Margot and Percy would be waiting with gentle sympathy and well-meaning suggestions about eligible bachelors.