Chapter 2
Two
“Almost done…” the honorable Thalia Carstone said to herself as she worked to stitch the tear found in the hem of her gown. “Just a few more…” She bit into her lower lip, hands trembling as she did her best to mask the tear so that her garment appeared as good as new.
And if not quite as good as new, not something one might find on the side of the road. At this point, that’s about as good as I can hope for.
“I do hope you are not planning on wearing that rag out tonight, dear.”
Thalia’s head snapped up, having not heard her aunt, the Dowager Viscountess Carstone, walking into her bedroom.
She eyed the gown with a look that might have suggested Thalia was tending to a stray cat she’d found in the back garden; one that should have been put down rather than brought into the house.
“Not only am I going to wear it, but I am going to look like a princess torn from the pages of a fairytale.” She laughed to herself as she went back to her work. “At least that is what they will say. And if the lighting is dim enough.”
Her aunt exhaled sharply through her nose as she approached where Thalia was sitting by the window. “I don’t know what fairytales you have been reading, but few feature heroines dressed in rags.”
“It is not a rag.”
“True enough. At least rags can be used by the staff to clean and wipe down dirty surfaces. This abomination…” She curled her nose. “I daresay such a use as that would be an insult to rags.”
Thalia rolled her eyes as she put through the final stitch.
And then she smiled at a job well done, placing down the needle and thread and lifting the gown from her lap.
She fluttered it in front of her, making it dance before holding it to her body to double-check that there was nothing else that needed to be done.
“All jokes aside…” She held the dress close, extending her leg out as if to show the gown off. “What do we think? Not bad for an old rag?”
“Is that a serious question?”
“I want to say yes…” Thalia said as if she was being serious. “Yet I sense that your answer isn’t going to be the one I was hoping for.”
“Thalia…” Her aunt swept toward her, snatching the skirt of the gown and holding it away from her body as if it smelled.
“You are attending a ball, not a battlefield. How do you expect to turn heads and invite interest if you look like…” She clicked her tongue.
“A beggar walking in from off the street.”
“I think that is a little exaggerated.”
“True enough.” Her aunt dropped the skirt and folded her arms. “Beggars, at least, would have the good sense not to attend the ball in the first place.”
The words were as harsh as they were fair. And where Thalia resented her aunt’s cruel assessment of her gown, she knew too that it came from a place of worry and love. That she wanted the best for her niece and was willing to put her down harshly if that was what it took.
A shame that all the cruel words and insults in the world wouldn’t make any difference. Like it or not, this right here was the best that Thalia could afford—her only possible option—and it would have to do.
“I don’t know…” She held the gown to her body again. “I think it’s rather… quaint. And my stitchwork is good, no?”
“That really isn’t the point.”
“Besides, perhaps it will serve as a conversation starter?” Thalia laughed at the image. “I might have those handsome lords who dare approach me guess how old the dress is, and how many times I have altered it.”
“I think it’s adorable that you assume any lord is going to approach you once he sees you wearing that.”
Thalia scowled at her aunt. “You know there is a fine line between constructive criticism and just being mean. And you, dear aunt, are walking it dangerously.”
Her aunt sighed. “If I have said it once then I have said it one hundred times. All of this might have been avoided if you had just considered one—just one of the offers that came your way these past two years. I know there were a few.”
Thalia snorted. “As if such a thing as that was possible.”
“You would be married by now,” her aunt continued, pleading.
“Your woes would be in the past. And you would not be forced to beg as you are now, throwing yourself at the mercy of lords in the vain hope that one of them takes a fancy to you.” Her nose curled as she eyed the dress again.
“And need I say that any lord who takes a fancy to you in that dress is one not worth the begging.”
“I don’t plan on begging.”
“You’d better,” her aunt continued. “Funny that these past two years you were so insistent that such a thing was beneath you.”
“I did not spend the last two years avoiding those so-called offers because I did not wish to beg. I did it because none of the men who pursued me were suitable.”
“They were!”
“They were not,” Thalia said, her tone turned suddenly sharp because she was through having this conversation.
“And besides…” She grimaced and looked away, a sense of shame taking her.
“Even if they had been, you know as well as I do that not a one would have stuck around once he found out about Olivia.”
“Oh, Thalia…”
“It’s true,” Thalia sighed, letting the gown sag against her, the excitement that she had forced upon herself fading like the sun behind storm clouds. “You know that the moment I mentioned my daughter they would have turned and fled as if their buttocks were on fire.”
And the worst part… I wouldn’t have blamed them.
How had her life come to this?
Truly, Thalia had no idea. She had tried so hard to do the right thing—she had even done the right thing, and from that mindset she would not budge. But that was the problem with this world, that even when one’s intentions were pure and right, the worst still so often happened.
Was it enough that she told herself regardless of where she was and what she was faced with, that she wouldn’t change a thing? She supposed it had to be.
What made it all the harder still, or darn near impossible, was trying to convince others of this truth.
Especially when she wasn’t able to tell them why things had turned out the way that they had.
Lies made because it was the right thing to do, consequences suffered because Thalia was a better person than most believed.
And if she was the only person who knew it…
that was going to have to be good enough.
“Is Olivia sleeping?” Thalia asked her aunt.
“She is,” her aunt said softly, concern now etched across her face. “And you need not worry about her tonight. I will make sure no harm comes to her.”
“Thank you…” She smiled and reached for her aunt’s hand. “You know how much this means to me. Everything you have done…”
“I know it, dear. I just pray it’s not for nothing.”
Thalia owed her aunt everything. It was just a month ago that she appeared suddenly on her doorstep, begging for a place to stay.
It was four years before that when they had last seen one another, and her aunt, despite her objections and many questions, had generously offered to look after her the best she could.
But it wasn’t enough. A temporary measure that could not last. And they both knew it. Which was why Thalia had since committed to her new plan, one which would begin in a few short hours. One which she hoped would save her and her daughter from damnation.
“You know what you need to do tonight.” Her aunt straightened herself and then took the gown, holding it to Thalia’s body as if it was a stunning work of art fit for a queen.
“I do.”
“I am serious, Thalia,” she pressed on her. “I know that you hate to beg. And I know you wish that you did not need to. But your situation…” She clicked her tongue with worry.
“I am aware of my situation.”
“Are you? You have no money. Nowhere to live. No prospects. No future, if tonight does not work as you need it to.”
“No need to soften the blow, then…” She tried for the joke, but it fell terribly flat.
“I just wish you would…” she sighed. “If you would only tell me more, Thalia. Where you have been these last years… Who the husband to your child is—if you told me that, at least, I might be able to find him. He should not have left you with such a burden.”
“Olivia is not a burden,” Thalia said warningly.
“I did not mean it like that. You know I did not.”
Thalia was always defensive where Olivia was concerned. She was three years old and in Olivia’s eyes the world existed to see her in it. And where she would have loved to have told her aunt everything, she simply could not. Her daughter… where she had come from… some things were better left unsaid.
“Tonight will go as it must,” Thalia said, changing the topic. “I have no choice, and so it will be.”
Her aunt frowned. “He will need to be rich—and marriage is your only option. You can’t waste an entire Season being courted, only for it to fall apart.”
“So…” Thalia let her eyes dance with mischief. “All I need to do is turn on my natural grace and charm and have a poor young lord fall hopelessly in love with me. Simple.”
“In this gown?” Her aunt cocked an eyebrow. “Let us hope you are as charming as you seem to think that you are.”
Thalia did not want to be here. Dammit, she did not want to be doing this!
She had spent the past four years living away from London and high society for good reason. She had been happy. Living on an isolated estate, doing as and how she pleased, her life her own with nothing to worry about because she had left such worries in the past.
Oh sure, such actions taken by her left a sour taste in the mouth of her peers, and she knew well enough what people thought of her. Rumors and gossip that would make her task tonight that much more difficult. But she did not regret any of it. Not for a second.
And I still do not. Even if tonight tumbles around my ears. Even if this plan of mine is an utter failure. I made my choices, for good reason, and I would do it all again.
Alas, life was never as simple as one wished. And now that she had a child to care for, Thalia was forced to admit such things as this and put her own needs and desires on hold because the reality of the situation demanded it.
“Tonight…” Thalia straightened herself and took her aunt’s hands again.
She fixed her eyes upon her, determination and resolve simmering beneath them.
“By the time I return, I will have fixed everything. And this…” She indicated vaguely to the room as if it represented her woes.
“All this will be is a thing of the past.”
Her aunt smiled. “At the very least, you might finally be able to afford a new gown.”
They laughed together and it sounded good to Thalia’s ears. It had been a while since she’d laughed so freely and she prayed that come the end of tonight, she might be able to do so again. If not for her… for her daughter.