Chapter Twenty-Nine #2
But the way Christopher is smiling now, the way his hand is gripping Rosalie’s again, she’s grateful. It would have killed
her for Christopher to lose their parents on her account.
“Don’t you want to run your own home someday? Have children?” Rosalie looks over to find Mother watching them almost curiously.
Rosalie hesitates, glancing at Aunt Genevieve and back to Mother. They’re both living lives she’s never wanted. Father—she
doesn’t want to say this in front of him.
“It’s all right to want something different,” Aunt Genevieve says, giving Mother and Father a pointed look while squeezing
Rosalie’s hand.
Rosalie sighs and squeezes back, clenching her eyes shut before meeting her mother’s gaze.
“It wouldn’t feel like it was my life, if I married a man, if I bore his children.
I’d be living his life. I know that’s what you wanted for me, what you’d planned for me, and I’m so sorry, but I don’t want it. ”
“Rosalie—” Mother starts, but now that she’s begun, she can’t stop the words from coming fast and sure.
“I have always . . . felt the way you said I would about a man about women. And now with Catherine—I know what it’s truly
supposed to feel like when you meet someone you want to spend your life with. And I know—I know it isn’t the life that would
make you proud,” she says, meeting Father’s eyes. “And I know it isn’t the life that will make society happy,” she adds, looking
to Mother.
“We—” Father says.
“And I am sorry. If I could change myself, I would have, just to make it easier, but I can’t. And I don’t want to anymore.
I’ll do as much as I can to help, and find a way to fix what I’ve broken, but I can’t—I can’t—”
“You do not need to be fixed,” Father says loudly, stopping her tirade, the words hitting her chest like a punch. “You do
not need to change, nor to fix anything. To hell with Lord Dean.”
“George,” Mother exclaims with a laugh.
“He is a mean old man,” Father says, turning to Mother. “You heard what he said in the Pump Room about Mrs. Pine. Who’s to
say he wouldn’t say the same about us, or Rosalie, in a moment of inhibition?”
“It was horribly indelicate,” Mother agrees.
“Even if Rosalie wanted to marry that boy, I’d have had quiet reservations. But as it is, I’m glad you won’t be marrying him,”
Father says, looking back at Rosalie. “And we shall help you and Miss Pine, whatever you need.”
“Really?” she asks, breathless.
“We have not spent our entire lives developing an impeccable reputation, gathering all this power and wealth and social influence
just to crush your spirit,” Father says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.
As if it’s a given.
That wretched fiery indignation rises again. “Just like that. After all these years—all the etiquette lessons, and all the
time spent making me into the perfect little wife—all the lectures about what we do—it’s perfectly all right that I don’t want to marry?”
She winces as it comes out loud and rough, but her parents don’t yell back. Instead, Father turns to look at Mother, almost
imploring. There can’t be more family secrets. Rosalie glances at Christopher, who stares back, equally at sea. Can there?
“You might not be as alone as you think,” Aunt Genevieve says.
Rosalie turns, looking up at her aunt, one of her very favorite people in the world. Desperate, shocking yearning rises painfully
in her chest.
“Do you—have you felt like this?” Rosalie whispers.
Aunt Genevieve gives her the softest smile she’s ever seen. “No, darling, I haven’t,” she says, her voice achingly gentle.
It does nothing to stop the painful, stabbing feeling in her stomach. She didn’t know she wanted someone else to feel like this. Didn’t know what the hope of having someone to talk to would feel like. Even fleetingly,
it was wide and wonderful and absurdly comforting, and its loss hurts almost as much as Mother walking out of the water closet
earlier in the night.
“But I have.”
Rosalie turns slowly to find Mother staring back at her, eyes wide and brimming. It can’t—she can’t—
“I was so angry at myself earlier,” Mother says.
“Angry at—” Rosalie starts, breath bated, hope and that raw, wounded pain pushing at her chest.
“That you felt you had to hide this from me. That you didn’t think you could talk about it. That I never sat you down and
told you—” She breaks off, using her free hand to wipe at her cheek.
Mother has felt like this for a woman? And she never said? All this time, all of the courting, all of Rosalie’s life they could have shared this, and she never said?
Mother blows out a shaking breath as she meets Rosalie’s eyes. “It didn’t seem fair to burden you with a secret so large,”
she says, her voice cracking.
“I wouldn’t have told anyone,” Rosalie says, unable to keep the hurt from bleeding through.
“Nor would I,” Christopher adds beside her, his arm coming around her shoulders. “It’s not what we do,” he adds, voice sharp.
“We know you wouldn’t have,” Father says as Mother stares at both of them, her lips pressed tightly together.
“You knew, this whole time?” Rosalie stares at her father in shock, in wonder, in anger. It’s like she’s seeing her parents
as entirely new people. “And it didn’t matter?”
Father shakes his head with a sad smile. “I loved your mother from the very first night we danced. Everything about her. That
she’d loved before me didn’t matter. Who she loved before me didn’t matter. Just that I was her greatest and her last.”
Rosalie feels a tear slip down her cheek and tries to reach up to wipe it away. Both Christopher and Aunt Genevieve whip out
handkerchiefs for her. She takes Christopher’s with trembling fingers.
“And you—Father—” Rosalie starts, looking back at her mother, who’s gripping Father’s hand so tightly. “It doesn’t matter that—you feel the same way for him that—” She can’t seem to find the proper words.
There aren’t proper words for any of this, because it’s never discussed.
Mother swallows hard, meeting her eyes. “For me, I think, it matters more who the person is than whether they are a man or
a woman.”
“Oh,” Rosalie says.
She didn’t know. What else doesn’t she know?
“Had the girl I loved once stayed—had I had your bravery, darling, to go after her when she left, I don’t know where I’d be
today,” Mother says, and Rosalie’s heart stutters.
Who was she? What tore them apart?
Could she have sobbed in her mother’s arms when Jane left?
“That I fell madly in love with your father was purely luck. I could just as easily have fallen for another woman—for someone
I could not love loudly and with my entire chest. The way you have with Miss Pine.”
Rosalie stares at her mother, feeling so wonderfully seen, and somehow yet so entirely other. “I don’t think I could fall
in love with a man,” she whispers. The words still carry around the room.
“And you do not have to,” Father says immediately.
But Rosalie’s still watching her mother, who smiles so softly at her.
“All we care about is that you love whomever you choose to spend your life with,” Father continues.
“Do you love Miss Pine?” Mother asks.
They’ve avoided such words, but Rosalie does. She does. Ardently, and passionately, and fully.
“I should probably tell her first,” Rosalie whispers.
Aunt Genevieve chuckles. “You should.” Rosalie turns and meets Aunt Genevieve’s eyes. “I have a feeling she feels the same
way.”
“I hope so,” Rosalie says.
“You don’t risk your whole life on someone you don’t love,” Mother says, a promise there in her slightly teary voice.
Rosalie turns to look at her, a catch in her chest.
“I’m sorry it wasn’t clear that you could tell me,” Mother adds. “That I made you go through this all alone.”
Rosalie doesn’t know what to say. She didn’t know there was any other option until tonight. She’s grieving something she never
knew existed. Where does all that pain go?
“We’ll make it up to you now,” Father says.
“All of us,” Aunt Genevieve adds. “Because it is far less lonely, isn’t it, for our loved ones to know who we truly are?”
Rosalie looks up at her and finds her watching Mother.
Rosalie turns and Mother meets her eyes. “It is.”
A short sob erupts unexpectedly from Rosalie’s chest. Aunt Genevieve wraps her arm around Rosalie’s shoulders and she leans
into her, trying to calm down, handkerchief pressed to her lips.
Her parents just watch, eyes shining, their hands clasped together. She doesn’t want to make anyone sad, or hurt, or worried.
But the feelings feel too big. She could sob into Aunt Genevieve’s shoulder for hours and never get them all out.
“I feel left out,” Christopher exclaims. He throws his arms out and huffs. “Everyone has secrets but me.”
They all burst into laughter. Aunt Genevieve grips at Rosalie’s shoulder to keep them both upright. Mother and Father fall into each other in giggles. Christopher grins at Rosalie, who wipes at her dripping nose, beaming back.
“Is there something you would like to share with the family that, while not scandalous, is still important, to feel better
included?” Father asks.
Christopher’s silly smile disappears and he looks at Father and Mother almost hesitantly. Rosalie reaches out to take his
hand again. They really can’t take more secrets or surprises.
“I’d like to ask Amalie—Miss Linet—to marry me, actually,” he says. “With your blessing.”
“Oh,” Mother says, her face breaking into a smile.
“Though I should admit that she was my partner in crime in tonight’s reconciliation.”
“What reconciliation?” Father asks. They all turn to him, flabbergasted. “How, exactly, did it come out that Rosalie and Miss Pine
are in love?”
“We didn’t actually—”
“Amalie threw wine on Miss Pine, so Miss Pine and her mother had to go into the water closet, and Rosalie tricked Mother into
going in there, and then I sent in Aunt Genevieve to end the feud,” Christopher says. Like it was all his plan.
“There was a little more nuance than that,” Rosalie says as Father looks between them. Not much, but still.
“So you and Eleanor made up?” Father asks Mother.
“We did. Which should help,” Mother says, gesturing to Rosalie.
“Good,” Father says, then looks to Rosalie. “Excellently done.”
“A little more dramatic than we anticipated, but thank you. Amalie ruining Catherine’s dress was not actually part of the
plan.”
“But wonderfully executed,” Christopher says.
“I believe we’ve swerved off the point,” Aunt Genevieve says.
“Ah, yes,” Father says, smiling at his sister before looking back to Christopher. Mother squeezes his hand. “You, of course,
have our blessing, on the condition that Miss Linet is equally prepared to have Rosalie and Miss Pine in residence should
they choose, and that you both will swear to take care of them until the day you die.”
Christopher looks to Rosalie, who grins back at him, feeling light and excited and so terribly exhausted all at once.
“She is,” Christopher says as the same time Rosalie says, “She will.”
Father and Mother laugh. “Then we’ll arrange a wonderful ceremony as soon as you propose,” Father says.
“Yay,” Christopher says, reaching out to hug Rosalie, who leans into him, smiling as Aunt Genevieve jostles his shoulder in
congratulations.
“We’ll need to find Mother’s ring for her,” Aunt Genevieve says.
“You have her jewelry box,” Father says.
“I’ll check tonight. And perhaps on my way home, I ought to deliver a letter to the Pine residence?”
Rosalie’s good cheer dims a little. It’s all well and good that this family meeting has gone spectacularly well, but the Pines
are another matter entirely.
“I’ll write one before you leave,” Mother says. “Our plan is perfectly reasonable; they should have no cause to object to
the girls living with you for a few years, and it will be easy enough to orchestrate smoothly.”
“Leave the details to your mother,” Father tells Rosalie. “It’s easier.” Mother elbows him. “She can see the whole chessboard. Always has done, even when it’s cost her,” he says, meeting Mother’s eyes. “It’s one of the things I love most about her.”
“No one will be sacrificing happiness for reputation anymore,” Aunt Genevieve says firmly. “If we do this right, Rosalie and
Miss Pine can be happy and save face, with saving face being the far less important of the two.”
Rosalie smiles up at her. Christopher pulls her backward until they’re slumped against the back of the settee, and they listen
exhaustedly as Mother and Aunt Genevieve begin a rapid discussion of furniture, annual events, and décor. Father smiles at
them and gets up to fill his pipe.
Rosalie sniffles against Christopher’s shoulder. She didn’t know the pain of what could have been would be as fierce as the
excitement for what will be. That learning she and Mother could have celebrated knowing they were alike in this way would
hurt. Everything is a messy ball of joy and sadness in her head.
“You think she’ll want the blue room or the yellow?” Christopher wonders. Rosalie nudges his chin in question. “You’ll have
a wing at Aunt Genevieve’s. Does Catherine like blue or yellow more?”
Rosalie smiles despite the tumult of emotions coursing through her. “The yellow,” she whispers.
Once she stops crying, she knows she’ll be desperate to see Catherine again. To get to spend a life with Catherine. To see
her face as they explore Aunt Genevieve’s estate. As they build a beautiful future together.
But for now, she’s going to let herself doze against Christopher’s shoulder while her mother and aunt argue over drapes. It
turns out getting everything you’ve always wanted feels suspiciously like falling and flying all at once.