Chapter 10 #3
Seraphina huffed at the same time Pearl asked, “‘This?’ What is ‘this?’”
Tamsin considered her feelings carefully as she looked from one sister to another. “I…girls, I have been managing this household since I was fourteen. A decade and one half. I think that perhaps I recognize a workable arrangement when I see one.”
“A workable arrangement,” Pearl repeated, in the tone of someone who found this deeply insufficient as a description of one’s own engagement. “Oh, Tamsin. It is a mercenary marriage, then? Are we that destitute?”
“Mama would have a string of gentlemen coming through the house for us all if we were,” Seraphina muttered.
Daphne’s brow furrowed as her lips pressed together. “It isn’t because of my coming out?”
At once, Tamsin raised her hands, attempting to calm them.
“No. No, it is not a mercenary marriage.” She continued, quieter.
“No. We are not destitute—though I believe Lord Hartwell intends to assist the family in a few matters. He said he would speak to Papa about them.” She returned her hands to her lap.
“There is more to my contented agreement than that, but I cannot think how to put it all into words. It is all quite sensible, I promise you.”
There had been many reasons that seemed small, each on its own, but they were adding to a sum she could not quite decipher. Her instinct was that the end result would please her.
There was the way he had listened. The way he had not dismissed her when she raised concerns about the children.
The way he had already thought about the household—had already, apparently, thought about some of her concerns—and simply told her so, without censure, without making a performance of his own consideration or expecting her gratitude.
She was not ready to say any of that aloud. Her younger, more romantically minded sisters would not understand—and in a way, she was glad they did not have to. Some things, too, she wanted for her own self.
It was too new. Too much like something she might have imagined, rather than something that had actually occurred.
She was to marry Lord Hartwell.
All four faces turned to look to the corridor when they heard the door to her father’s study open.
“Tamsin? Will you come to me, please.” It was their father’s voice.
She rose, and grinned as Pearl and Seraphina clasped hands while Daphne covered her mouth again, releasing a soft squeal. Smoothing her gown, Tamsin shook her head at them, smile affixed. “Do not worry. I promise, everything is going to be all right.”
She stepped into the corridor. Her father’s face wore the expression of a man who had agreed to something before he fully understood what it was and was now in the process of untangling his thoughts.
He looked at Tamsin, then at her sisters, who had materialized behind her in the doorway of the sitting room.
His brow furrowed. “Now, now. Off with all three of you, little starlings.”
They withdrew into the sitting room and shut the door with a snap.
Tamsin’s father held his hand out to her from where he stood in the doorway. He lowered his voice. “Tamsin. Lord Hartwell wants—that is, he says you have agreed to—”
It was something of a relief that he was as surprised by this turn of events as she was. “I have, Father.”
He absorbed that a moment, then slowly nodded. “Well. Then.” He cleared his throat. “Your mother—that is, stepmother—Anne ought to—”
“Of course.”
Anne needed to be sent for. Tamsin went into the study as her father saw to it.
Roman—Lord Hartwell stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, and turned when she entered.
Whatever he had said to her father, whatever negotiation had occurred in the study, it was not visible.
He looked as he always looked; like a man who had managed the situation and found its conclusion satisfactory.
Tamsin’s father returned and took his chair. Anne came in behind him looking confused yet hopeful, closing the door and moving to stand beside him. For a moment all four of them were in the room together, a rather strange collection of people silently staring at one another.
Her father asked again, more formally this time, whether Tamsin was certain. Her stepmother’s furrowed brow and tight smile likely held back a torrent of questions and advice, but for some reason, Anne kept it all to herself.
Surely she could not be intimidated by Lord Hartwell?
Tamsin looked at the baron. He did not offer reassurance. He simply waited, watching her.
She appreciated that more than she could have explained. Her gaze stayed on him as she gave her answer. “I am,” she said quietly. “I have accepted Lord Hartwell’s proposal, and I give him my hand freely. I hope with your blessing, Papa.”
Lord Hartwell’s expression did not change, precisely, but something in it settled. He held her gaze for a moment before he turned his attention back to her father, and in that pause Tamsin caught something she had not seen on him before. A smile, small and private.
Just for her.
She tucked that observance away to examine later.