Chapter One #2
‘See now, if you’d spoken thusly, you might not be in your current predicament. Or perhaps you might be. One can never truly tell what will amuse them enough to become ensnared. However, your eyes give you away to those who’d pay any attention.’
‘My eyes?’
‘Yes. They sparkle.’ He blinked twice, sure he’d misheard, then shook his head, wondering what he’d stepped into.
‘To return to my earlier point about you being a novelty, it had nothing to do with any of that. Merely that you are departing from tradition in not advising the most incorrigible gossips just how much of a fortune you are seeking. No one seems to know, it’s most bothersome. So how much, to save it?’
‘At least fifteen hundred pounds, I expect.’
‘Well then, I fear we would be ill-suited,’ she said, almost sadly, and he understood, for he doubted very much that they would be ill-suited at all. ‘I’ve only a thousand.’
A thousand could work.
He’d only made very rough calculations, based off of what information he could get from the solicitors and strange men of business who had plucked him from blissful anonymity and thrust him into alleged fortunate infamy, working from there to find an heiress.
‘’Tis the only way, young man,’ one of those same old solicitors had advised him over half-rimmed glasses in an office that looked fit to burst with paper, parchment, rolls, books, ledgers, and everything in between.
‘Marry rich, for no amount of work will save you now. There are many ready to purchase a title by such means.’
Initially, Thorn had huffed and puffed and dismissed every bit of it as all that was wrong with nobility in this country; however, three days later, after looking at all he could, his own meagre savings—he had some success and was no spendthrift, however there were savings and fortunes—he’d crawled back to the same office, and asked if the old man had any suggestions.
An hour later he’d left with a list of venues and names to search for, and then of course, the invitations had begun to flood in, and he’d truly thought he might manage it.
Perhaps I did, for in the end, I arrived here; perhaps here is where I was always meant to be.
‘I could make do with a thousand,’ he said seriously, throwing all caution to the wind. ‘However, you know my faults, what are yours that you and your acceptable portion remain untouched?’
‘I know nothing of your faults, one out of two of those statements is correct, and I posit society would consider my faults to be that I am rather plain, and past thirty, therefore in my dotage. Now, as to why I remain unmarried at thirty with such an acceptable portion, well, it is very simple. The amount was designed to ensure that I had no access to suitors of any greatness, shall we say, so that whenever those of more desperate circumstances come sniffing, my father can play the benevolent protector, and send them packing.’
‘Your father wishes you to remain unmarried? Why provide a dowry at all?’
‘For appearances, of course. And as regards the former, someone must care for him, and my mother, and anyone else who may be in need in the future. My sister is the pretty one, and she is to marry.’
‘The one who will have a duke, or a marquess, at the very least. The reason you are here tonight.’ He barely saw it, but caught a nod, and the flash of lantern and moonlight on bright red curls. Hm. ‘What would your father say then, if I came courting?’
Thorn didn’t see the grimace though he certainly felt it.
‘You are an earl,’ the woman said eventually. ‘It has been mostly second sons ready to debase themselves for a thousand pounds until now, so I don’t rightly know. I can only suspect it would be a fight.’
‘If I came courting. Then again, you are thirty. Would I be correct in wagering that your father wouldn’t risk public dishonour by refusing the dowry were you to marry without his consent?’
‘The banns would still need be read.’
‘Or a licence obtained. I have now resided in London for well over a month.’
‘Though I’ve heard many need not even pass that test to obtain one.’
‘Hm.’
‘Hm.’
They fell into silence for a moment, and Thorn thought about it, truly.
Thought about marrying this woman he couldn’t even see, but whose voice was delightful, and who was obviously clever and grounded. He had been prepared to marry for less, if only to marry for more financially.
A thousand could work.
He wondered what any of it said about him, and whether he cared. If it was worth the risk. His heritage, himself, even the damned pigs somewhere in Kent.
I feel my last chance is the one I’ve been waiting for.
‘You’d be content marrying a stranger you’ve spoken to for perhaps ten minutes—and I am being generous—tying yourself to a man you don’t know for a lifetime, a man who mere months ago was a lowly blacksmith, with all the education you probably received before you were twelve?
A man who will now make his living as a pig farmer, and whose only wealth is a house that for all intents and purposes is derelict? ’
‘Your eyes sparkle, and you’ve incredibly rare sharpness and truth. Being shackled to you would signify freedom from my family.’
‘They are that bad?’
‘I suppose as with all things, it is about perspective. However, if you are asking whether my freedom is enough of a price to marry you as it stands, then yes.’ Thorn nodded, accepting, and admittedly curious, but knowing now was not the right time to ask pertinent, yet unnecessary questions.
‘Will you strike me if I displease you?’
‘God, never.’
‘Do you want children? I’ve no desire for them, though I understand the tradition would have you passing on the title to your sons yet-to-come.’
‘I intend to save the estate, do my now duty, then pass it along to the next poor sod in whatever twisted line the experts can decipher. I’ve no desire for children, in fact I had none for a wife.’
‘Only a dowry.’
Thorn nodded, feeling the weight of the moment settling on his shoulders.
‘Will you control me, dictate my days?’
‘As long as you do not spend frivolously, or engage in public affairs, I’ll keep my opinions on your occupations to myself. Can you make the same promise?’
‘I can. You won’t regret tying yourself to a woman when you could perhaps still find love, as well as fortune?’
‘I can still find love. This is a business transaction, after all. A contract. We shall remain…’
‘Ourselves.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Very well then.’
‘You’ll marry me?’
‘Yes, I think I would like that.’
‘I’m Thorn, by the way.’
‘Hypatia. Hypatia Quincy.’
What a name.
One that suits the woman I’ve yet to see—though how I know that, I cannot say.
Since the dawn of philosophers—admittedly perhaps, since the dawn of time—the question of the cost of freedom had been asked, debated, answered, asked again, and debated again. Thoroughly, and to no true conclusion.
Some part of Hypatia had been content to accept that freedom had no price, and that so long as one was free of spirit and mind, they were free.
Some nights, she had comforted herself with such assertions, only now, in this moment, she knew that though such assertions were likely unfathomable truth, the tangible truth of her life, was that her freedom had a price.
A very neat and tidy price: one thousand pounds.
A fortune for some; a paltry pittance to others.
To her, the most blessed number in existence right then.
Perhaps she was being somewhat overdramatic—so many were in worse circumstances, so many whose freedom truly had been wholly stripped away—only it didn’t feel thus.
It felt as if she could hear the doors to her admittedly comfortable prison unlocking, not quite cracking open yet, but unlocking.
She could almost see a path beyond them, a path of hope, and possibility.
Of a future, beyond that which she’d believed she’d been condemned to for so long.
One might wonder, what precisely it was that was so terrible about her life, that would make her exult so at this new future, married to a stranger she’d met approximately eleven minutes ago.
That would make her so easily eschew and abandon her family and known comforts, for uncertainty, and a pig farm; that would make her call the shackles of marriage freedom.
And Hypatia would readily tell you, that it was a lack of freedom, a lack of agency, and a lack of existence as herself, that defined the terrible nature of it.
Not anything highly unusual for her sex, however something which in some cases could be remedied with the right choices, and so therefore here she was, remedying it.
Once, well, many times actually, she’d pondered running away, only good sense, common sense, and yes, fear had won out.
There was a difference between knowing you had some skill and will, and going out into the world with only that and a very small sum, scrimped and saved over the years, to your name.
For someone as practical as Hypatia, who knew well enough how quickly the world could swallow up whole and spit out the best intentioned and most capable, there was risk, and then there was risk.
In her position, she could afford the former, but not the second.