Chapter 12 #2
Arabella sighed, dreamy for a moment despite the topic. “All the best men are.”
Eleanor gave a small snort. “Not true. But that is beside the point.”
Gwen let out a breath. “Whatever he is, I must speak to my mother first. If she does not agree, I do not know whether I can leave.”
“And if she hesitates?” Eleanor asked. “Will you pressure her?”
“I will tell her the truth,” Gwen said. “All of it. Then I will ask her to choose. I cannot drag her from her home like a thief.”
Arabella’s eyes welled with tears again. “What if she chooses him?”
“Then I will have to decide whether to be a bad daughter or a bad woman,” Gwen replied.
Eleanor reached out and laid a gentle hand on Gwen’s. “Whatever choice you make, you will not make it alone.”
Arabella nodded fiercely. “We will help. We will lie, and carry trunks, and invent alibis. I will even sacrifice my new bonnet if it must be used to smuggle jewels.”
“You are not sacrificing your bonnet,” Eleanor said. “It cost more than our first governess.”
Gwen laughed, a small, uneven sound. “I do not wish to leave you either.”
“You will not lose us,” Arabella assured her. “You will only have to endure my letters.”
“And mine,” Eleanor added. “Which will be considerably more useful.”
Gwen’s gaze drifted to the window. The pale afternoon light lay across the street like a thin veil. Somewhere beyond it, Greystone House stood with its quiet garden and polished pianoforte and a man who had kissed her as if it cost him something to stop.
She dragged her thoughts away.
“I do not want to stop seeing him,” she admitted, her voice almost inaudible.
Arabella leaned in. “Then do not. Take what nights you can. You are being flung toward a life you did not choose. You are allowed to steal a little happiness on the way.”
Eleanor did not rebuke the sentiment. That alone told Gwen how grave her situation was.
“You must be careful,” Eleanor urged. “If you continue meeting him, it will complicate everything. Your heart as well as your plans.”
“My heart is already a complication,” Gwen said. “And my plans are nothing but complications tied together with lies.”
Arabella squeezed her hand. “Then let us fasten them more firmly.”
Gwen nodded, though her throat felt thick. “I will speak to my mother tonight.”
“And the Duke?” Arabella prompted.
Gwen closed her eyes for a moment. “If I go to him, it will be for money and perhaps counsel. Nothing more.”
Arabella made a skeptical noise.
Eleanor said nothing. Her silence, for once, felt like permission rather than judgment.
Gwen rose at last, smoothing her skirts.
“Pray for me,” she pleaded, attempting a smile. “Pray that my mother chooses me. Pray that I find the courage to leave, if she does. And pray that I can bear to say farewell to whatever small pleasure I have found along the way.”
Arabella stood up and embraced her tightly. “I will pray for a miracle,” she whispered.
Eleanor rose as well, more restrained, but when she took Gwen’s hand, her grip was firm. “I will pray for clear roads and unbroken wheels,” she promised. “Miracles are fickle. Practicalities are less so.”
Gwen laughed through her tears. “Between the two of you, perhaps I shall reach something like safety.”
She left their house with the weight of decision pressing down on her shoulders, but also with a strange, flickering hope.
She had friends. She had a mother to fight for. She had a few nights left in which to feel something other than fear. And somewhere in the city, a man who had been only a dangerous arrangement now occupied too much of her thoughts.
The carriage jolted as it turned from Berkeley Square onto South Audley, the horses snorting clouds of pale mist into the dim afternoon.
Gwen exhaled slowly, pressing her gloved hands together in her lap. The conversation with Arabella and Eleanor replayed in her mind over and over, each word tugging at another until she felt quite undone.
She leaned back, closing her eyes for one blessed moment of stillness. Something crackled beneath her spine.
Her eyes flew open. She straightened, her brow furrowing, and reached behind her. At first, her fingers met only the velvet squab of the seat. Then, tucked between the cushion and the carriage wall, her fingertips brushed the edge of folded parchment.
Her breath caught.
No one should have been in the carriage but her. No one should have placed anything there without her knowledge.
She pulled out the note carefully, the sealless paper heavy and fine beneath her fingers.
Victor.
Her pulse quickened. She hesitated for only a heartbeat before unfolding it.
My Lady,
Tonight was mine to miss. Tomorrow shall not be.
My hunting lodge at midnight. My man will collect you from Greystone House.
You owe me night four.
V.
Gwen closed her eyes and let out a shaky breath.
Victor should not write to her. He should not know where or how to place such a note. He should not demand anything of her, not when her future teetered like a blade.
She pressed the folded parchment to her chest. She should refuse. She should pull back before the thread between them drew taut enough to break her.
But she already knew she would go.
God help her, she would go.