6. Elizabeth
— ? —
Elizabeth
I try.
God help me, despite everything I told myself after the gala, I try.
I learn his favorite meal from the cook - braised short ribs with roasted vegetables, simple but precise - and spend an afternoon in the kitchen helping to prepare it.
My hands aren’t made for this kind of work, more comfortable with paintbrushes than paring knives, but I follow the instructions carefully, chopping and seasoning and stirring until everything is ready.
I set the table myself. Candles, flowers from the garden, cloth napkins folded into complicated shapes I learned from a video on my phone. All the small touches that might make this house feel like a home instead of a monument to old money and older obligations.
I wait.
Eight o’clock comes and goes. The candles burn lower. The flowers begin to droop in the warmth from the kitchen.
My phone buzzes.
Don’t wait up. Business dinner running late.
I stare at the message for a long time. Business dinner. No explanation, no apology, no acknowledgment that I’ve been sitting here for an hour waiting for a man who couldn’t be bothered to show up.
I eat alone. The short ribs are perfectly cooked, meltingly tender, and they taste like ashes in my mouth.
The cook watches me from the doorway with pitying eyes, and I want to scream at her, want to throw my plate against the wall, want to do something, anything, that might make the hollow feeling in my chest go away.
Instead, I scrape my plate into the garbage and tell her the meal was delicious.
She tells me, gently, that Mr. Fairweather was seen leaving the club with Miss Glover.
Of course he was.
***
Three days later, I try again.
He’s in the study, working late, the lamp casting shadows across his face as he frowns at whatever document has captured his attention. I’ve made coffee the way I’ve learned he likes it - strong, black, a single sugar - and I carry the cup to his desk with hands that only shake a little.
“I thought you might need this.”
He doesn’t look up from his papers. “Thank you.”
I set the cup on his desk, careful not to disturb the organized chaos of files and folders. I should leave. Should accept the dismissal for what it is and retreat to my room and my paints and the small comfort of creation.
Instead, I linger.
“Jarec.” My voice sounds strange in the quiet room, too soft, too hopeful. “Can we talk? About anything. I feel like I don’t know you at all, and we’re supposed to be-”
I reach out, almost touch his shoulder.
He flinches away from my hand.
The rejection is so swift, so instinctive, that I actually take a step back. Like I’ve been slapped. Like my touch is something contaminating, something to be avoided at all costs.
“We have an agreement, Elizabeth.” His voice is cool, final, his eyes still fixed on his papers. “You have everything you need. A home, financial security, the protection I promised your father. Don’t make this difficult.”
“Difficult.” The word tastes bitter on my tongue. “Is that what I am? A difficulty?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean? Because from where I’m standing, it seems like you’d rather be anywhere else. With anyone else.”
His jaw tightens. “I don’t have time for this.”
“You never have time. You don’t have time for breakfast. You don’t have time for dinner.
You don’t have time to remember that there’s a person living in your house who isn’t part of your staff.
” My voice is rising, but I can’t seem to stop it.
“What exactly do you have time for, Jarec? Business meetings? Victoria Glover? Anything and everything that isn’t me? ”
He sets down his pen with deliberate care. Looks up at me for the first time, and his eyes are flat, unreadable.
“Go to bed, Elizabeth.”
“I’m not tired.”
“Then find something to occupy yourself. Paint something. Read a book. Do whatever it is you do when you’re not making demands I never agreed to meet.”
The dismissal lands like a blade between my ribs. I stand there, coffee growing cold on his desk, feeling small and stupid and desperately alone.
“Fine,” I say finally. “I’ll leave you to your work.”
I walk out of the study with my spine straight and my chin high. I don’t cry until I reach my room, and even then, I do it silently, muffling the sounds against my pillow like a child hiding from monsters.
The coffee sits on his desk until morning.
He never drinks it.
***
Victoria’s luncheon is everything I dreaded and nothing I was prepared for.
The club’s private dining room is awash in cream and gold, tasteful flower arrangements on every surface, the kind of understated elegance that costs more than most people make in a year.
The table is full of society women in expensive clothes, pearls and diamonds glinting in the afternoon light, and Victoria holds court at its head like a queen receiving tribute.
I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to smile at women who look through me, don’t want to make small talk about charity boards and summer homes and all the things I’ve never had and never wanted. But to refuse would be to admit defeat, and I’ve had enough of that lately.
So I wear my best dress - the gray one, the one Jarec said I looked fine in - and I sit at the far end of the table and I try to be invisible.
It doesn’t work.
“Elizabeth, dear.” Victoria’s voice cuts through the chatter, silky and sharp. “How are you finding married life?”
Every eye at the table turns to me.
“It has its challenges,” I say carefully, reaching for my water glass. “As I’m sure any marriage does.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” Victoria’s smile widens. “Though I imagine it must be quite an adjustment, coming from your… background.”
Polite titters ripple around the table. I feel my cheeks heat.
“I’m adjusting well, thank you.”
“Are you? How wonderful.” Victoria takes a delicate sip of her wine. “I suppose you have your little hobby to keep you occupied. You paint, don’t you? How charming.”
“I do.”
“Jarec always did appreciate the arts. Among other things.” She pauses, perfectly timed. “He mentioned once that he found amateur art quite… quaint.”
My fingers tighten on my water glass. “Did he?”
“Mm. Said it was sweet how some women needed something to fill their time.” Victoria’s eyes glitter with malice. “Given that they weren’t filling much else.”
The implication hangs in the air like perfume, and I feel every woman at the table register it. The arranged marriage. The separate rooms. The husband who chose duty over desire.
I should stay silent. Should let the comment pass, refuse to engage, maintain the dignity I’ve been clinging to like a life raft.
But something in me breaks.
“I find painting quite fulfilling, actually.” My voice is steady despite the tremor in my hands. “There’s something to be said for creating beauty rather than simply purchasing it. Or pursuing it in other people’s husbands.”
Silence.
Victoria’s smile freezes on her face. Someone at the far end of the table coughs.
“Well.” Victoria sets down her wine glass with a click. “I see the arrangement hasn’t done much for your manners. But then again, breeding will out, won’t it?”
She turns to her neighbor and begins a pointed conversation about the upcoming regatta, and I am dismissed, excluded, cut out of the social fabric as cleanly as if I never existed.
I sit through the rest of the luncheon in silence, pushing food around my plate, counting the minutes until I can escape.
When I finally reach the car, I sit in the back seat with my hands clenched in my lap and I don’t cry.
I’m done crying over Victoria Glover.
I’m done crying over any of them.
***
That evening, Jarec is quiet at dinner.
He actually showed up, which surprises me - the first time all week he’s bothered to eat at the same table. But his jaw is tight, his movements sharp, and he won’t quite meet my eyes.
“I heard about the luncheon,” he says finally, not looking up from his plate.
“Did you?”
“Victoria called me.”
Of course she did.
“And what did Victoria tell you?” My voice is brittle, careful. “That I was rude? That I embarrassed you? That I’m not fit to breathe the same air as her precious society friends?”
“She said you implied she was pursuing married men.”
“I implied nothing. I stated a fact.” I set down my fork. “She’s been hanging on your arm since the gala, and everyone knows it. Everyone except you, apparently.”
His eyes finally meet mine, and there’s something complicated in them. Anger, maybe. Or guilt. Or something else I can’t quite read.
“Victoria is an old friend.”
“Is that what you call it?”
“I don’t have to explain my friendships to you.”
“No.” I push back from the table. “You don’t. You don’t have to explain anything to me, do you? I’m just the wife. The obligation. The problem you didn’t ask for and don’t know how to solve.”
“Elizabeth-”
“Forget it.” I’m already walking away, already putting distance between us. “I’m tired. I’m going to bed.”
I don’t look back.
In my room, I sit on the edge of the bed and stare at my hands.
They’re shaking.
I think about my father, about the promise I made, about the life I gave up to be here. I think about Victoria’s smile and Esther’s cold eyes and Jarec’s endless, exhausting distance.
I think about leaving.
The thought is terrifying and exhilarating all at once. I could pack my single suitcase, call a cab, disappear into the night. I have nothing - no money, no connections, no safety net - but I also have nothing to lose.
Except my promise.
Except my pride.
Except the stubborn, stupid hope that maybe, someday, something in this arrangement might change.
I lie back on the bed and stare at the ceiling.
I don’t sleep for a long time.