Chapter 15 #2
Emilia snorted. “The ton is ridiculous, aren’t they?
They create all these rules, and it’s just so that they can maintain their own importance, but none of that is really real, Alice.
Their money is real and their power is real, but the rest of it is just like an illusion.
This is real. These people here. They’re real. ”
“George is right,” Celia declared firmly.
“Everyone here admires you because you’re like the characters in Shakespeare’s plays.
In those plays, the young women are always doing impossible things they shouldn’t, going off disguised as men, pretending to be what they’re not, breaking all the rules, marrying people who are beyond their station or their father’s enemies.
You are exactly the sort of person that Shakespeare would have written about. ”
She sucked in her breath. “I never thought of it like that.”
“Well, you should,” Emilia said, giving her a nod.
Celia nodded too. “You’re better than the lot of them, and if you don’t want to be in that world, you can come to this one, and this one will welcome you with open arms.”
“That’s right, miss,” George said. “You’re a good one. And don’t let any toffs tell you different.”
Alice began to smile brightly. So brightly that her eyes danced. “Thank you,” she said.
Deimos’s heart expanded, daring to hope. Daring to hope that any darkness that Lady Minerva had sowed was being beaten back by Alice’s sense of adventure and what she had found along the way.
He followed her into the school.
His sisters were right. This place was more real than any place. This place understood the value of character and strength and honor in a way that the people in his circle never would. This was the place he and Alice belonged. Fighting for these people. Fighting for England.
His grandfather came out of one of the offices, a ledger in hand.
“Oh, my boy,” he called, his wrinkled face transforming with delight. “It is so good to see you here,” he declared, his rough accent, that had never gone away despite all of his education and money, filling the corridor. “Is this the girl then? Is she the one you’re going to marry?”
“She is indeed, Grandpapa,” he said. “This is Miss Alice Mitchell.”
“Soon to be Mrs. Briarwood,” his grandfather said grandly. “We’ve heard a great deal about you.”
She winced. “Oh dear,” she replied. “All of it is terrible, no doubt.”
He froze, wondering what his grandfather would say. For the man was the salt of the earth, but at one time he had done everything he could to climb in society. Over the years, he’d only cared about society because he understood how it was used in power, but not because he admired it.
His grandfather studied Alice, smiling and then, very gently but very firmly, he asked, “Are you out of your mind, Miss Mitchell?”
She swallowed as if she feared that he did not know the worst. “You wish me to marry your grandson? Surely, you have not read the pamphlet—”
“Miss Mitchell,” he broke in, holding the ledger to his chest. “All that it declares is that you’re exactly the sort of person that should be marrying my grandson.
You’re not some silly little miss, are you?
You are a person of adventure. You will change the world.
Do you think the world has been changed by obedient sheep?
” His grandfather straightened, and a grave but kind smile tilted his lips.
“I came from nothing. Deimos’s paternal grandmother came from nothing.
And yet we changed the world. We make the rules, and now you have joined that club, if you so wish. ”
She stood still for a moment, trembling, but then she lifted her chin and asked, “You mean it, don’t you?”
Deimos’s grandfather handed his ledger to Celia, then strode forward and took Alice’s hands in his gnarled ones. “You’ve already changed my grandson’s world and your own. So, what are you waiting for?”
She did not hesitate but immediately embraced Deimos’s grandfather, then declared, despite her tremulous voice, “I don’t understand all of this, but I don’t think I need to.”
“No,” Deimos said. “You just need to show the world everything you’ve shown us.”
And as she leaned back, she smiled again.
She smiled with everything she was worth.
She smiled at Deimos most of all, because in all of her fears and doubts that she had crushed his family, it was clear she understood that she had made them proud.
She had done what they hoped. She had done what she had hoped.
Deimos crossed to her and took her hands from his grandfather. “Alice, I don’t need to protect you. As you once said, all I need to do is stand beside you. Even better? I will stand with you. For you are Briarwood through and through, no matter what anyone might say.”
She nodded. “I know who I am now,” she vowed. “I know what I want. And I want you. Us.” She looked around to his sisters, his grandfather, the school, and then to the East End outside of its walls. “All of this.”