Chapter Twenty-Seven
Rosalie
Mother’s still practically hyperventilating with rage over Mr. Dean snubbing them in the tearoom. Mrs. Pine looks halfway
between hysterical laughter and hysterics, and Catherine’s . . . in just her shift and petticoat.
“What happened?” Rosalie asks.
“Amalie threw wine on me,” Catherine says simply.
“She threw it on you?” Mrs. Pine nearly shouts.
Rosalie just stares at Catherine. Catherine shrugs. “It worked, didn’t it?”
Rosalie can’t help but laugh a little. “Devious.”
“She certainly thought so,” Catherine says, running her hand down her stays, a beautiful white set now stained with red.
Momentarily distracted, Rosalie doesn’t notice Mother moving behind her to try to open the door until the handle rattles.
“Why won’t it move?” Mother mutters, tugging frantically.
“Did you plan this?” Mrs. Pine asks Catherine. “This—with the wine, and the door, and her?”
Catherine looks to Rosalie, who can feel her mother boring a hole in her back. Seems like it’s now or never.
“Open this door, right now,” Mother demands.
Rosalie meets Catherine’s eyes, taking strength in the fact that they’re in this together. “No.”
Mother moves to face her, glaring, and Rosalie takes a step back. Catherine goes with her until they’re standing there staring at their mothers, reluctantly shoulder to shoulder, angry and trapped in the water closet with them.
Rosalie musters every imperious impulse she’s ever had. “You are not leaving this water closet until you end this feud. Catherine
and I won’t play along anymore.”
Mother’s eyes widen, her nostrils flaring. “Open the door, now.”
“It’s time Mrs. Pine understands what happened, and why.”
She keeps herself tall despite the ice in her mother’s eyes, her body screaming at her to cower, to run. But she can’t. She
has to do this. For Catherine, for Mrs. Pine, for herself.
“You have no right,” Mother hisses.
Rosalie stares at her mother, willing her to make the choice herself. Willing her to see reason. “Doesn’t she deserve to know?”
Mother’s jaw tightens. “Don’t you want to tell her? Apologize?”
“Whatever rosy image you have concocted in your head about what happened twenty-five years ago, Lady Rosalie, you are severely
mistaken if you think it could be waved away with an insincere apology,” Mrs. Pine says, her voice biting. “Your mother’s
actions were unforgivable, and I won’t stand here and listen to you defend whatever you’ve been told. Catherine, open that
door, right now.”
“It wasn’t unforgivable, Mama,” Catherine says, her voice shaking. “You just don’t know the whole story.”
“You told her?” Mother exclaims, horror and shock and betrayal on her face.
“I had to,” Rosalie says. “I couldn’t let Catherine end up married to Mr. Dean when she can’t stand him just to protect our
family.”
“What?” Mrs. Pine nearly shrieks, turning wide eyes on her daughter.
“Could you have used a little more tact?” Catherine mutters.
Rosalie sighs, looking among the three of them, all glaring at her now. “If we’re making them tell the truth, it’s only fair
we do as well.”
“You could have prepared me,” Catherine shoots back.
“You thought we’d get through this without that coming out?” Rosalie asks, incredulous.
“I thought we’d get through this first and it would come into the conversation more natur—”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Mrs. Pine shouts.
“I want you to open this door right now,” Mother insists.
“Mama, if you would just listen,” Catherine says, reaching out to touch her mother’s arm.
Mrs. Pine rears back. “Oh no. No, no, I want to know what the hell you’re doing colluding with . . . conspiring with—”
“I’d hardly say we’re conspiring,” Rosalie hears herself say.
“It certainly seems that way,” Mother puts in.
“Well, at least they agree on something,” Catherine says.
“Stop that!” Mrs. Pine says. “Stop talking to each other like we’re not here!”
“And let us out,” Mother adds.
Rosalie runs her hands down her face, her pulse starting to race with all the shouting. It’s warm in the water closet, and
she’s getting tired of this. “Would everyone just be—”
The door wrenches open behind her. Rosalie spins around, heart in her throat, stomach at her toes—it’s not enough time. They
can’t get interrupted, not now.
But it’s only Aunt Genevieve, looking a bit crazed. She turns and snaps the door shut again. It groans against the wood, and she gives it an experimental tug. It doesn’t budge.
She turns back to them, wiping her hands down her green skirt. “So, where are we?”
They all stare at her, the four of them quiet in shock.
“Christopher squealed like a pig when I asked him where you’d gone,” Aunt Genevieve says with a shrug.
Rosalie huffs out an incredulous laugh and Catherine snorts quietly beside her. They are so in over their heads, but at least
Aunt Genevieve is here too. Which . . . well, she doesn’t know how it might change the situation, but it’s another variable.
“Are you part of this? Did you agree to . . . to . . .” Mother starts.
“Capture you in a water closet? No, that was all their idea,” Aunt Genevieve says, gesturing to Rosalie and Catherine. “Though
I agree that it’s high time the two of you talked, and if you won’t explain, Clara, I will.”
Mother glares at Aunt Genevieve. “It’s not—”
“Of the three of us, I rather think I have the most right to decide whether it is or isn’t Mrs. Pine’s business?”
“Would someone like to explain what in the hell you’re talking about?” Mrs. Pine demands, glaring at all of them.
Mother stands with her hands on her hips, staring daggers at Aunt Genevieve. “Well?”
“Coward,” Aunt Genevieve says coolly, before turning to look directly at Mrs. Pine. “I have come to apologize for the incredible
wrong that was done to you twenty-five years ago. I didn’t know my brother and soon-to-be sister-in-law would go to such lengths
to protect my reputation. Had I known, I would have put up a fight to make sure that your honor was equally protected. I’m
sorry I didn’t.”
Mrs. Pine’s tight jaw slowly goes slack, her eyes widening. “I . . . don’t understand,” she says, her voice much softer. “What—what is she talking about?”
She turns to Mother, who looks between the two of them for a long, painful moment. “When Lord Tisend began courting me, he
told me that Captain Daniels had a . . . reputation, and I ought to stay away from him. As should you.”
Mother hesitates, looking to Aunt Genevieve, who sighs loudly. “He seduced me,” she says, and it comes out too loudly, echoing
off the walls.
There’s a very uncomfortable silence.
“You were fifteen,” Mrs. Pine says, aghast.
Rosalie squirms. She hadn’t actually done the math. Catherine winces beside her.
“And very na?ve,” Aunt Genevieve agrees. “George found out and tried to intimidate him into making me an . . . honest offer.
But Captain Daniels was so wretched, he decided it wasn’t worth it. Instead, George paid him off to stay quiet, and whisked
me up north so rumors couldn’t spread.”
“But Captain Daniels never left town,” Mother says. “And George couldn’t go around warning everyone he knew, because he’d—”
“He’d have had to explain how he knew,” Mrs. Pine deduces slowly. “Lady Jones, I am terribly sorry that happened to you.”
So that’s where Catherine gets her kind heart.
Aunt Genevieve waves her off. “I was fine. Silly, and young, and impressionable. A few years with my very strict cousin, and
I bounced right back, met Walter, and everything worked out. No one told me that in the interim you suffered on my behalf.”
Mrs. Pine’s warm regard melts quickly away as she turns to Mother. “You didn’t think to simply tell me this? Instead you told the whole ton I’d fallen to him too?”
Mother meets Mrs. Pine’s angry gaze, her face cracked, and hurting, and vulnerable in a way that makes Rosalie want to shrink
against the wall. She knew it would be painful, but she didn’t know how much it would hurt to watch her mother live through this.
“George made me promise,” she says, her voice brittle.
“I wouldn’t have told anymore,” Mrs. Pine insists hotly. “I’d have taken that to the grave,” she adds, glancing at Aunt Genevieve.
“I know,” Mother whispers.
“Then why?” Mrs. Pine demands, her cheeks pink, hands fisted. “Why didn’t you trust me?”
“Because I was young, and silly, and in love with a man who said he knew best,” Mother exclaims. “I did what I was told.”
There’s a pregnant pause as those words settle over all of them. Rosalie wonders how many friendships have ended, how much
hurt has been wrought, because women are meant to do as they’re told.
“I wasn’t as headstrong as either of our daughters, it seems, even if I thought I was,” Mother continues.
Rosalie glances at Catherine, who shoots her a tentative smile. The sick, twisted feeling in Rosalie’s stomach eases just
a little.
“You never wrote to explain,” Mrs. Pine says. The tone of her voice breaks Rosalie’s heart. So much hurt and anger and sadness
laced through each word.
“Would you have read a letter if I had?” Mother asks.
Mrs. Pine opens her mouth to snap out a retort, and then pauses. “I don’t know,” she admits.
“There was no apology I could make that would justify what I did,” Mother says softly. “I knew what I was doing was wrong, and I did it anyway. I did it because I wanted to protect you, and I had no other way, not without breaking George’s trust, and jeopardizing Genevieve’s future.”
“I wouldn’t have told anyone,” Mrs. Pine repeats, almost plaintively.
“I know,” Mother says, reaching up to swipe at her cheek.
She’s crying. Rosalie hasn’t seen her mother cry in . . .
Catherine’s hand slips into hers, squeezing. Rosalie squeezes back, the two of them watching their mothers crack themselves
open. It’s beautiful, and horrible, and she’s glad she’s not alone.
Aunt Genevieve glances at them, eyes falling to their hands. She opens her mouth—
“I am sorry I took the choice from you. That I forced your hand,” Mother says softly. “It was wrong. I had my reasons. I—God,