21. The Hastily Return #4
“She became someone who could work. Someone who could eat. Someone who could survive.” Mary’s voice was heating up.
“Do you know what it’s like for a woman with no family, no protection?
She would have ended up in the workhouse, or worse.
She would have been destroyed by this world, piece by piece, until there was nothing left of her. ”
Kate felt something twist in her chest at the image. She had never faced what Gina had faced. Never been that desperate, that alone, with nothing and no one standing between her and ruin.
“But ten years, Mary. Ten years of this pretense. Surely after she established herself, after she built her business—”
“And then what?” Mary’s passion surfaced.
She stood up and rounded her chair, placing a hand on the back.
“Return to being a woman with no legal rights? Give up everything she’d built?
Let some man take control of her business, her life, her very existence, simply because the law demands it?
Watch everything she’d worked for be stripped away because she was born into the wrong body? ”
The questions landed exactly on the right place, one on top the other, each one striking at the foundations of her fear. Because Mary was right. There was no path back for Gina. There never had been. This wasn’t a temporary disguise that could be shed when convenient—it was survival.
She had never considered herself a situation like Gina’s, the trap that society had created for women like her. Like them both. Whom were she trying to fool here?
“She never intended to marry anyone,” Mary continued, her voice softening. “The arrangement with you… it was supposed to be business. Nothing more. A way to expand her operations while giving you the social protection of a husband. It was meant to be simple, transactional, safe for both of you.”
“But it became more than business.”
“Yes, ma’am. It did. And that terrified her more than anything she’d faced in ten years of living as a man.”
Kate turned from the window to face Mary again. “Why? Why would love terrify her?”
Mary met her gaze steadily. “Because loving you meant risking everything. Meant the chance of losing you. Meant living with the knowledge that one day you might learn the truth and hate her for it. Meant wanting something she could never fully have—not honestly, not openly, not the way she wanted to have it.”
Kate felt her throat tighten with emotions she was so much suppressing.
“She loves me then?”
“More than her own life.” The answer came without hesitation.
Kate’s legs suddenly felt weak. She moved back to her chair and sat down slowly, trying to process this confirmation of something she’d sensed but hadn’t dared believe.
She had seen glimpses of that love, in Gina’s attention to her comfort, in the way her voice softened when they were alone, in the desperate tenderness of her touch. And in that final vow she made about protecting her with her own life.
But hearing it stated so plainly, so certainly, made it real in a way that seized every one of her senses. It heightened her awareness with every detail her body found to let her know, to make her feel, that Gina Moore had taken possession not only of her physical body… but also of her soul.
“Tell me about her preferences,” Kate said abruptly, digging deeper, needing to extract the whole truth. “Her… romantic adventures.”
Silence took hold of the chamber for quite so long that Kate thought Mary wasn’t going to answer at all.
Kate’s gaze was fixed on the ground, while Mary stood behind her chair, and when she looked up, she saw her face tightly closed, like a wall that rises and remains perpetual.
“That’s not my place to discuss, ma’am.”
“I’m her wife. Surely I have a right to know—”
“No.” Mary’s voice was firm, unyielding. “That’s between you and her. I won’t betray her confidence in such personal matters.”
Frustration flared hot in Kate’s chest. “You’ve already betrayed her confidence by confirming her deception. What difference does this make?”
“All the difference in the world.” Mary gripped the back of the chair in front of her even tighter.
“Her survival, her business dealings—these things I can explain because they affect practical matters, because they involve others, because you need to understand the scope of what we’re protecting.
But her private matters belong only to her. ”
“Even if they concern her wife?”
“Especially then. Those are things that should be spoken between the two of you, in privacy, with honesty. Not reported secondhand through a servant, however loyal.”
Kate stared at Mary, recognizing the immovable loyalty in her stance. It was admirable and infuriating in equal measure. She wanted—needed—to know more, but Mary had drawn a line she wouldn’t cross.
“Has she…” Kate hesitated, hating the vulnerability in her voice but unable to stop the question. “Has there been others? Other women she’s…”
The thought made her stomach clench with sudden, irrational jealousy. The idea that Gina might have loved others, touched others, given to others what Kate was only now beginning to understand she wanted for herself—
Mary’s expression didn’t change. “Mrs. Moore-Sullivan, I won’t be discussing such matters. I’ve told you that.”
“You’re protecting her again.”
“I’m respecting her privacy. As I would respect yours, if someone asks me personal questions about your past.” Mary’s voice gentled slightly. “These are conversations you need to have with her, not with me.”
Kate sank deeper into her chair, suddenly exhausted by the weight of everything she was carrying. “I don’t know what to do, Mary. I don’t know how to… how to proceed. I’m terrified of what people might discover. I’m terrified of—” Her voice broke. “Of everything.”
Mary’s expression softened again. “May I speak plainly, ma’am?”
Kate only nodded.
“Gina is the same person you knew as Jason. The same person who makes you laugh, who shares your passion for business, who holds you when you cry, who looks at you with admiration. The only thing that has changed is your knowledge regarding her gender. The person she is with you is real. She always has been.” Mary paused, lowered her gaze to the floor, and added, “I understand that you may not be able to accept her as… as what she is, but… perhaps you could accept her… friendship? Her companionship?” She looked up and fixed her gaze on Kate.
Kate looked away then, trying to keep the blush Mary’s words had provoked from showing as much as it felt.
“But how can I trust Jason now?” she asked. “How can I be sure he isn’t deceiving me about other things? How can I know what is real and what is pure fiction?”
Mary was quiet for a moment, choosing her words carefully.
“You can’t,” she said finally. “Trust isn’t about certainty, ma’am. It’s about choice. You have to choose whether to believe in the person you know him to be, or let fear of what you don’t know destroy what you have.”
Kate closed her eyes, feeling the weight of that choice pressing down on her chest like a physical force.
The fear was still there—constant, suffocating, demanding attention.
But underneath it, growing stronger despite her attempts to suppress it, was something…
longing. Love. Desire for a future she was terrified to imagine.
“She’s miserable without you,” Mary said softly, and Kate opened her eyes to find Mary watching her with surprising tenderness.
“You traveled alone, you left her in Yorkshire. She’s probably torturing herself right now, convinced she’s lost you forever.
I can assure you of that, even though I’m not with her right now. That’s how much I know her heart.”
“Maybe she has lost me,” Kate whispered, though the words felt hollow even as she spoke them.
“Has she?” Mary asked gently. “Is that truly what you want?”
Kate couldn’t answer. She didn’t know. Or rather, she knew but was too afraid to admit it, even to herself.
Mary finally sighed, then lifted her chin.
“What will you do then, ma’am?”
The question was only fair to ask, Mary was, again, protecting the person to whom she was most loyal.
Kate let several seconds pass before answering, using the time to steady herself, to regain some measure of control over her spiraling and tormenting thoughts.
“I won’t say anything. I promised her that much,” she said at last.
Mary’s exhale was quite audible, releasing the air from her lungs heavily. Her shoulders slumped as if a great weight had been lifted from them, and Kate saw tears glint in her eyes.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Mary said, blinking intermittently. “You don’t know what that means—”
“But I need time,” Kate interrupted, needing to establish boundaries, needing to maintain some control over a situation that felt increasingly beyond her grasp. “I need time to understand this. To understand what it means. To feel safe before I can…” She didn’t finish the sentence.
Before I can love her. Before I can want her. Before I can accept what I feel.
Mary nodded, understanding. “Of course. Take all the time you need.” She made a pause, then, “Can I take my leave now, ma’am?”
Kate nodded, suddenly wishing to be alone with her turbulent thoughts, her lingering fears, and her growing, terrifying desires. “Thank you, Mary. You may go.”
Mary curtsied and headed toward the door, but stopped on the threshold, turning to look at Kate before leaving completely.
“For what it’s worth, Mrs. Moore-Sullivan—I’ve never seen her happier than she’s been these past months with you. Whatever else you doubt about her, whatever else you question or fear—don’t doubt that. Don’t fear that. Her happiness with you has been real. Perhaps the most real thing in her life.”
Then she was gone, leaving Kate alone with her questions and her fears and the terrible, wonderful possibility that love might be stronger than terror, that desire might be more powerful than shame, that the connection between her and Gina might be worth the risks they faced.
If only she could find the courage to believe it.