Chapter Twenty-Eight
Catherine
Every time she moves, she can feel her damp chemise sticking to her skin. The faint stench of wine keeps wafting up to her
nose, roiling her already-twitching stomach.
Rosalie and Lady Jones never came back into the room. Christopher, Amalie, and Henrietta have been throwing her confused looks
for the last two hours.
She hasn’t gotten up the courage to say a thing to her mother. Instead, she’s just standing there, her whole body tight and
twisted, her heart so sore it feels like she’s being stabbed by a dull knife. Because Mother looks like absolutely nothing
happened. Her smile while they say goodbye to their guests seems entirely genuine.
Henrietta and her mother approach them with Mr. Rile. Henrietta opens her mouth—
“A marvelous tea, Mrs. Pine. You’ve really outdone yourself,” Mrs. Raught says.
Mother smiles brightly. “Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Rile, for attending.”
“Any chance to spend some time with my dear fiancée is time well spent, and the sandwiches, in particular, were scrumptious,”
he says, his broad cheeks dimpled in a brilliant smile.
Catherine tries to take solace in Henrietta’s happiness. Tries to smile genuinely at her even as she gives Catherine a searching look.
“Thank you most kindly,” Mother says to Mr. Rile.
Mrs. Raught leads them away before Henrietta can say anything, and Henrietta looks over her shoulder at Catherine until they’re
down the stairs and out of sight.
Father appears on Mother’s other side. “They’re leaving.”
Catherine opens her mouth, about to ask who he means while Mother glances around at the mostly empty tearoom.
“All right. Do it quietly.”
Mr. and Mrs. Flintley approach them and Catherine shuts her mouth, forcing a smile while she watches her father make his slow
way across the room to Lord Dean and Mr. Dean, who have been loitering by the dessert table. They sat glaringly separately
for the tea. And now Lord Dean is stuffing his face rather conspicuously. Mr. Dean looks a bit embarrassed.
It doesn’t deter Father, who steps up to them with a jaunty smile. Catherine notices Christopher and Amalie watching from
across the room while Lady Tisend speaks to someone she doesn’t know. She’s acting like nothing happened too, but hiding it
more poorly than Mother. Her shoulders are tense, her smile pinched.
Catherine turns back to Mr. and Mrs. Flintley, trying to focus on whatever they’re saying to Mother.
“Sir,” she hears from across the room.
Catherine looks back at Father, who’s going on to Mr. Dean about something she can’t quite make out over by the dessert table.
Lord Dean beside them is slowly going red in the face, Mr. Dean glancing at him at intervals.
“Sir, I implore you—”
Father says something else with a little bounce on his toes and Lord Dean slams down the profiterole he was holding, sending crème pat flying onto Mr. Dean’s and Father’s jackets.
“I will not let this stand!” Lord Dean exclaims, his voice echoing around the room.
Everyone turns to stare at the three of them.
“Whatever do you mean, Lord Dean? I thought we were to have a merry union?” Father asks, glancing over at Catherine and winking.
Her bruised heart soars.
“There will be no union between our families, absolutely not. I cannot have my son involved with business so base.”
Mother scoffs beside her, her hand curling around Catherine’s elbow.
“Mr. Pine—” Mr. Dean starts.
Father merely shrugs casually, his voice carrying cleanly across the room. “Well, that’s rather for the best. I wouldn’t want
my beautiful, intelligent daughter around any man who would so loudly embarrass my wife. Both of them are more prize than
all of the Dean fortune anyway. Good riddance.”
With that, Father turns, ignoring Mr. Dean’s spluttering behind him and Lord Dean’s scandalized face. Father strides evenly
across the room, no hint of his limp, grinning.
“That’s that, then,” he says, taking Catherine’s other arm. “We so appreciate your coming to the tea,” he adds to the Flintleys,
who are staring at them, mouths agog.
He squeezes Catherine’s arm as she and Mother curtsy to the Flintleys. They leave quickly without another word.
Catherine can’t help but smile at Father. “Thank you,” she whispers, refusing to look over her shoulder at Mr. Dean.
“For you, anything,” Father whispers back, leaning in to kiss her cheek before turning to a rapidly assembling line of stragglers.
Catherine’s chest clenches. Will he still look like that at the end of the night, when Mother has told him everything? Will
he still think her such a prize when he knows whom she wants? Does “anything” really mean anything?
A few minutes later Lord Dean and Mr. Dean slink past behind the other guests without a word. Mr. Dean doesn’t meet her eyes,
seeming more bemused than anything else. Which is . . . absolutely fitting.
She wants to tell Rosalie. Wants to see her expression when she recounts the entire exchange. Wishes she could have seen him
taken down a peg. Catherine glances over at Christopher and Amalie, who stare back with wide eyes, caught between excitement
and confusion. They’ll have to tell her.
Mother leaves Catherine’s side as soon as the rest of the guests file out. She walks over to bid Lady Tisend adieu where she,
Christopher, and Amalie are still hovering at the back of the room. Catherine clutches at Father’s arm, watching the stilted
way the women speak—watching Lady Tisend lead Christopher and Amalie rapidly out of the room without more than a nod in Father’s
direction.
Mother stands alone at the back of the hall, staring out the large windows down to the street. She was so excited for this
tea. So proud and so brave to face the ton as she has. And Catherine took all of that from her. She thought righting the wrong
between Mother and Lady Tisend was what needed to be done—thought it would be worth any of the fallout.
She still thinks it was. At least, she thinks she thinks it was.
She’s not sure she’ll feel the same way once she’s alone. When she can focus on the way Mother avoided her eyes in the water closet. When she can think about the way Lady Tisend ignored Rosalie altogether.
If it were just Catherine’s happiness, maybe she could bear it. But even though Father seemed more righteous in the altercation
with Lord Dean, Catherine will still be the ridiculous girl who ruined a perfect match. The ton will talk about her family
again—a second generation disgraced, just differently.
“Your mother will be fine,” Father whispers. They watch Mother wandering the back of the room, just the three of them and
the staff now milling about, clearing plates. “Your happiness matters more than any fortune; she knows that.”
Catherine forces herself to smile, to look relieved. But it’s a long few minutes while Mother liaises with the staff, and
longer still as they make their way out of the Upper Rooms, leaving their “triumphant” afternoon behind.
No one says a word in the carriage. Catherine tries to catch Mother’s eye, but Mother won’t look at her. Father, none the
wiser, stares out the window, looking absurdly cheerful. It would almost be funny if it didn’t hurt so much.
By the time they arrive home, Catherine feels like she might fly apart with rage and confusion and sadness. The door closes
behind them and she stands in the foyer, watching Father help Mother remove her wrap. Like nothing’s wrong. Like nothing changed.
Like there’s nothing to say.
Mother hands her gloves to Miss Teit, muttering something about a very light supper and Catherine feels herself break.
“Would you at least look at me?” she exclaims, her words bouncing around the room.
Miss Teit glances among them and slowly backs out of the foyer and down the servants’ hallway, leaving Catherine staring at
Mother and Father, chest heaving.
“Are you really going to pretend it didn’t happen?”
“Catherine—”
“Just wake up tomorrow and start a list of other suitors? Send me off on more outings, like everything is just as it was this
morning?”
Mother finally meets her eyes and Catherine physically steps back. It’s a look she’s never seen before. Like she’s searching
Catherine for the woman she knew, when Catherine’s still standing there, exactly the same person she was before the tea.
“What did I miss?” Father asks, looking between them.
Catherine opens her mouth, unsure of how to face it—how to tell him—how to risk him looking at her the way Mother is now.
Mother shakes her head. “I need to speak with your father before we discuss this as a family,” she says, her tone final. It
almost feels like a scolding.
“It’s about me, shouldn’t—”
“Let me do this, Catherine. Please,” Mother says.
Her please feels like a physical blow.
Biting at her lip, Catherine watches with dread as Mother guides her confused father up the stairs. She has to support him
now, his muscles tired from the tea—from playing host. From saving her so gamely from a life of mediocrity.
When they reach the landing, Father looks down at her and smiles.
Thank you, Catherine mouths. If he feels like it seems Mother does, it may be her last opportunity to say it.
He winks at her, and then they’re gone, moving slowly up the next staircase.
What if he never smiles at her like that again? What if everything is different from this moment on? What if they never look
at her the same way ever again?
She didn’t think about the aftermath, not like this. She never let herself. Forced herself to believe that her parents could only accept her. That it would be hard at first, of course, but it was possible. It was possible they’d help her and keep loving her exactly as they always have.
She just wanted . . . she just wanted.
She stands there, trembling, trying not to cry, and Miss Teit comes out of the servants’ hallway, wringing her hands.
“Shall I help you undress?” she asks. “We ought to get to that stain.”
Catherine looks down at her wine-soaked dress. She’d almost forgotten. Everything started from that stain. From asking Amalie
for help. From daring to wonder if there was a different way to live her life—a way that gave her Rosalie, and Christopher,
and a bigger, wider, better world than the one she’s always been told to expect.
She doesn’t know if she can stay in this dress for another minute.
“Here. Spin,” Miss Teit says softly.
Catherine realizes then that her chest is heaving and she’s sucking in scant air. Miss Teit quickly undoes the laces and helps
lift the dress and her petticoat over her head.
The moment the fabric clears her hair, Catherine whispers a choked “Thank you.”
Then she’s running full tilt up all the staircases, past the sitting room, past her parents’ floor, until she hurtles into
her room, slamming herself into safe, secluded peace.
It’s started raining, water streaking down the window. How fitting. If this were one of her novels . . .
Catherine growls and hurls herself onto the window seat. She curls up in her wine-soaked chemise and her stays, arms around her knees, staring out at the rain.
Rosalie isn’t going to climb into her window in a pair of riding pants and whisk her away to live happily off somewhere. Her
parents aren’t going to easily turn the other cheek. Society isn’t going to magically accept Catherine and Rosalie together.
There isn’t a fairy-tale ending.
It didn’t all have to be tonight. They didn’t have to upend everything they’ve ever known all at once. It would have been easier to just keep . . . pretending. Fend off suitors
and steal time together.
But as Catherine watches a raindrop slide down the window, she knows she doesn’t really want to live a half-life like that.
Always stealing time, stealing moments, stealing each other.
Her mother’s unsure gaze, her father’s confusion, Rosalie’s mother’s dismissal—they sear at her gut and clench at her heart.
But even so, she still wants the opportunity to love Rosalie, really love her. To decide how to start a life and grow together.
Live off in the country, run a home—like she would have with Mr. Dean.
The happiness her mother has with her father. The happiness Amalie and Christopher have. She and Rosalie deserve that too.
She wants her mother to visit. Wants her father to send her letters and keep exchanging novels. Wants to watch her brother
meet Rosalie. Wants to watch Rosalie beat him at every card game imaginable.
She wants the life with her family she always thought she’d have. Just with a woman by her side instead of a man. Surely it’s
not so much to ask.
Catherine sighs, resting her cheek on her knee to stare out at the rain.
She’s always quietly thought the happily-ever-afters in her novels were disingenuous. That there was too much tumult, too
much to the story before the wedding, for everything to end in a sunny happily ever after.
She wanted to be the heroine of her own story. Maybe this is the price.
She turns her face into her knees and lets the tears come in full, sobbing until the pain dulls enough to sleep.