Epilogue #4
Her mother had lived out a fairy tale, a lowly young nurse to a duke’s son, who caught the eye of the master and became his duchess. Once Henrietta left the ranks of the serving class for the upper classes, she never looked back.
Gemma was afraid her mother was in for a terrible shock when they arrived at their new home.
The solicitor, Mr. Eggleston, had indeed mentioned an income, but the sum was the barest fraction of what Gemma used to receive from her father as pin money.
It would not support the Lively women for long, even with economizing.
What was more, there couldn’t be many servants attached to such a house, nor could they afford to add more.
The ember of anger buried at the pit of her stomach flared for a moment into a white-hot flame. She tamped it down. It hurt too much to be angry with her father.
He had loved them, she reminded herself. He had assumed—or perhaps, he’d wished to believe—that they’d be taken care of.
By his estranged heir, the son who had never forgiven him for his unconventional second marriage.
The son who had, in his beneficence, left them with no funds, no dowries, and only one place to turn: a house of unknown size and character, in a tiny village two days’ drive west of London in the Wiltshire countryside.
Humiliation scoured her lungs as she recalled the cold, unyielding lines of her half-brother’s countenance facing them across the drawing room after their father’s funeral procession.
Gemma had looked at Nathaniel Lively, the new Duke of Ashbourn, and seen in him every snobbish society matron who’d ever cautioned her boring daughters against turning out like “that scandalous Lively chit.”
Henrietta, no stranger to dramatics, had been ready to throw herself at her former charge’s feet and beg to be allowed to stay at Ashbourn House—their home, which was abruptly and unceremoniously no longer their home.
Gemma might have let her—hell, she might have joined her—if it would have made any difference.
But there was no mercy or softness to be found in her vengeful half-brother.
The closest thing she’d discerned to a spark of humanity was the faint glimmer of satisfaction at finally being in a position to send his upstart, unwanted relations back to the level of society to which he deemed they belonged.
“I still can’t believe dear Nathaniel would treat us this way.” Henrietta shook her head in bewilderment. “His own family. He loved me so, when he was a little boy.”
Yes, Gemma thought, but that was before you married his father when the man should’ve still been in mourning for Nathaniel’s mother. Still, one would hope a grown man would be able to put the past behind him.
Apparently not.
“He’s supposed to be such a stickler for propriety,” Lucy complained, rustling her newspaper in agitation. “Shouldn’t his sense of honor demand he care for his mother and sisters, at least in public?”
“Stepmother. Half-sisters.” Gemma could hear the qualifiers in Dear Nathaniel’s frigid tones, exactly as he’d spoken after the funeral.
“Ashbourn doesn’t see us as his family—he sees us as his father’s lamentable and embarrassing mistake.
Therefore his honor does not require that he support us in any way.
If we wait for him to come to our rescue, we shall drown.
We will have to find a way to keep ourselves afloat as best we can. ”
“Oh, well,” Henrietta sighed, fidgeting with the lace edges of her handkerchief. “I suppose what’s done is done, and cannot be undone.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Gemma folded up the solicitor’s letter and tucked it away in her reticule. “I fully intend to regain everything we’ve lost, and more.”
It was Lucy’s turn to snort. “How?”
“By marrying well, obviously.”
Finally Lucy dropped her scandal sheet to stare at Gemma. “You’re daft. We’ve just left London and its scores of eligible bachelors for some ramshackle farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, and you think now is the right time to start husband-hunting?”
Gemma shrugged, determined not to appear daunted by the enormity of the task she’d set herself. “There are men everywhere. They usually seem to like me well enough. I’ve turned down scores of marriage proposals over the years. It shouldn’t be too difficult to finally say yes to one.”
“There certainly are men everywhere, but one wouldn’t want to marry most of them.” Lucy wrinkled her pert nose. “And before, you were the daughter of a duke and could expect a sizable portion to be settled upon you. You may not find yourself quite so popular now.”
“Ooh, a palpable hit.” Gemma grinned, surprised to find herself enjoying Lucy’s company.
She ignored the little pang of worry that her sister might be correct about the origin of her attractions for men.
After all, the instant it became known that the new duke was turning them out without a penny, her bevy of admirers and friends and hangers-on had scattered like pigeons set upon by a tomcat.
“But I’ve other attributes that will help me along the way to matrimony. ”
“Oh,” Lucy nodded sagely. “You mean your breasts.”
“Lucy!” Henrietta shrilled, handkerchief fluttering.
“Well, look at them,” Lucy protested, gesturing at Gemma’s chest. “She’s not wrong, they’re definitely going to be a help.”
Without vanity, Gemma knew she’d been blessed with the sort of figure that most men noticed at once, and kept on noticing even while one was trying to carry on an intelligent conversation.
It was a nuisance, but she’d always supposed she might as well make the most of it while it lasted.
However, it wasn’t the attribute to which she’d been referring.
“I meant my mind,” Gemma told her sister loftily. “Breasts are all very well in their place, but they won’t be enough to find us an unmarried man of large fortune and biddable disposition.”
“All this talk of…of body parts and mercenary marriages,” Henrietta moaned, closing her eyes and laying the back of her hand to her forehead. “Where did I go wrong? How have we come to this? Gemma, didn’t you father and I always tell you that you must marry for love, as we did!”
Affection squeezed Gemma’s heart. “And so I shall, Mama. You are quite right. I shall endeavor to do exactly as you did: I shall fall in love with a kind, indulgent, amusing, and wealthy man.”
Very wealthy, Gemma amended silently as the coach bounced over a bit of rough road, and Henrietta gave a short shriek.
“Oh, I do hope the coachman is taking care with my darlings,” Henrietta wailed, her gaze darting anxiously to the roof of the carriage.
“I still cannot believe they were not allowed to ride inside with us, but must stay piled atop, willy-nilly, exposed to the elements! I dread to think what has become of them.”
Henrietta’s “darlings” were her most cherished possessions: her enormous collection of fashionably overdecorated bonnets. Today’s specimen was on the simpler side, in accordance with Henrietta’s deep mourning, but some of them were truly impressively batty.
Gemma’s gaze was snared by the beady black eyes of the stuffed raven perched atop her mother’s head.
A cloud of black netting surrounded the thing like a nest, dotted here and there with faceted jet beads that caught the light whenever Henrietta moved.
The poor creature’s black wings had been manipulated to look as though it was about to take flight.
“Your hats are fine, Mama,” Lucy and Gemma said in unison, then shared a small smile. The response required no thought at this point in the journey. This marked at least the twenty-fifth time Henrietta had lamented the fate of her darlings in their many trunks and boxes.
“There would have been no room inside the carriage for us, if we had let your collection ride inside,” Gemma reminded her mother, who huffed and shifted against the squabs.
“Oh, when will we arrive?” Henrietta twitched her black shawl closer around her shoulders.
“This has been the most interminable voyage.” Gemma silently agreed, wincing as the carriage jounced over a particularly deep rut in the road, rattling her bones and bruising hindquarters that had been tenderized over two days of travel.
Her knuckles whitened where she clutched her reticule and its meager contents.
The funds they’d left London with, the sad remnants of the money they’d received by selling their jewelry, had been sorely depleted by the necessity of last night’s stay at The Green Man in Reading.
Then the horses slowed, and Gemma realized they were making a turning. She reached to unlatch the window and crack it open to allow a little cool air into the coach. It smelled fresh and bracing, like growing things.
Despite all her cares and worries, Gemma felt her heart lift. “Soon, I should think. We’ve left the main road, so we must be getting close to Little Kissington.”
“I want to see!” Lucy exclaimed, scooting along the bench seat closer to the window and jostling Gemma aside so that she could peer out.
With a little shoving, Gemma made room for herself at the window as well.
The crowded cobblestones and gray smoke of London had long since given way to the rolling hills and valleys of the North Wessex Downs.
The gentle green land spread out on either side of the road like a rumpled blanket tossed down by a careless giant.
Wildflowers bloomed purple and yellow amongst the waving grasses, dancing in the breeze.
In the distance, the afternoon sunlight glinted off one of the many brooks or rivers the carriage had rumbled across in the last several hours.
Gemma caught her breath. It was beautiful. Undoubtedly as dull as the dusty road they traveled, but beautiful.
“What is it?” Henrietta cried excitedly. “Can you see the house yet?”