2. Georgina
— ? —
Georgina
The car comes up the drive at half past eleven, exactly when my mother said it would.
I watch from the sitting room window as the driver steps out and rounds to the passenger side, and I tell myself the tightness in my chest is just nerves.
Giselle is my sister. She wants to help. This is a normal family visit, and I’m going to behave like a normal person who receives family visits without wanting to crawl out of her skin.
The passenger door opens, and my mother emerges first.
As expected.
Isadora della Rovere doesn’t send her youngest daughter anywhere without a proper escort and a set of instructions for everyone involved.
She’s wearing cream linen and pearls, her silver hair swept back in the style she’s kept for as long as I can remember, and even from this distance I can see the way she surveys the front of the house as though checking whether we’ve let standards slip.
I half expect her to produce a white glove and run it along the doorframe.
Giselle climbs out behind her, and my chest catches the way it always does when I haven’t seen my sister in a while. Her pale blue dress is barely creased from the drive. She stops to thank the driver, smiling as he hands over her bag, and I recognize the dress.
I was with her when she bought it. We spent half an hour arguing over the color before she chose the one I suggested, then told me not to look so pleased with myself.
Deep down, I wish that were the visit we were about to have.
I push away from the window before they can catch me staring. The housekeeper is already opening the front door, and I make myself walk toward the entry hall at a pace that suggests I haven’t been standing here since breakfast trying to prepare for this exact moment.
“Georgina.” My mother’s voice reaches me before I’ve finished crossing the hall, and I arrange my face into something that might pass for welcoming. “You look well. A bit pale, but that’s to be expected.”
She kisses both my cheeks without actually touching them, a skill she’s perfected over decades of avoiding mussed lipstick. Behind her, Giselle hovers with her hands clasped, waiting her turn like a child who has been told to let the adults finish speaking.
“Mother.” I accept the air kisses and step back. “I didn’t realize you were coming as well.”
“Someone had to make sure Giselle arrived safely.” Isadora removes her gloves one finger at a time, surveying the entry hall with the same critical eye she turned on the exterior. “And I wanted to see for myself how you’re managing. You’ve been very scarce lately. People talk.”
People talk. That’s her concern. Not whether I’m sleeping, or healing, or finding my way back to myself. Whether the right families are saying the right things about her eldest daughter’s prolonged absence from society.
“I’ve been recovering.” I step aside to let the housekeeper take her coat, grateful for the interruption. “As one does after a fall.”
“For a year, Georgina.” She tucks her gloves into her handbag with precise movements. “At some point, recovery becomes seclusion. And seclusion becomes gossip.”
I could point out that I saved her other daughter’s life when I took that fall. That the reason I’ve been scarce is because I can’t get near a horse without my hands shaking, and horses happen to be the center of the world I married into.
But I’ve learned that defending myself to my mother is like trying to fill a sieve. The effort disappears, and the emptiness remains.
Giselle steps forward before I can respond, her arms already opening. “Georgie.”
I let her embrace me, and her arms are warm and slightly too tight, the way she’s always hugged, like she’s afraid I might disappear if she doesn’t hold on hard enough.
When she pulls back, she searches my face, her smile fading.
“I’ve been so worried about you.” She keeps hold of my hands, squeezing them between her own. “I know Mother said you were fine, but I needed to see for myself. After everything that happened.”
Everything that happened, huh? Such a small phrase for the moment that split my life into before and after.
I don’t know what to say to that, so I squeeze her hands in return and step back.
“Come in, both of you.” I gesture toward the interior of the house. “Tea is ready in the sitting room.”
I lead them through the halls, painfully aware of my mother cataloging every detail as we pass.
The flowers on the hall table. The state of the carpets.
The artwork that has hung in these halls for three generations of Costanzos.
I keep my shoulders straight and my pace unhurried, performing the gracious hostess because that, at least, I know how to do.
The sitting room is bright with midday sun, and I’ve had tea laid out on the low table between the sofas.
Giselle settles beside me, close enough that her knee brushes mine.
My mother takes the armchair across from us, positioning herself with the window light falling over her shoulder in a way that’s almost certainly calculated.
“Where is Maximillian?” She accepts a cup from me and inspects the rim before taking a sip. “I’d have thought he would want to greet his wife’s family properly.”
“He’s training.” I pour tea for Giselle and then myself, grateful for something to do with my hands. “The season is demanding. He will join us for dinner.”
“The season is always demanding.” My mother sets her cup down with a precise click. “One would think a husband could manage an afternoon away from the horses for his wife’s family.”
“One would think a mother could manage to ask before arranging her daughter’s life.” I put my cup down, the words sharper than I intended. Beside me, Giselle goes very still.
“I beg your pardon?” Isadora folds her hands in her lap and waits, giving me the opportunity to take it back.
“Yesterday.” I move the teapot aside so I can see her properly. “Felicity told me Giselle was arriving today. Not asked. Told. Because apparently this visit was arranged without anyone thinking I might have an opinion about my own household.”
“Felicity was supposed to prepare you, not upset you.” My mother picks up her cup again, unruffled. “And I fail to see why you would object to your sister wanting to help.”
“I don’t object to help.” I press my palms against my knees beneath the table. “I object to decisions being made about me without me.”
Giselle’s hand lands on my arm, soft and tentative. “Georgie, I’m sorry… I thought you knew. Mother said she had spoken to Felicity, and I assumed that meant everything was arranged properly.”
Did you assume that, or did you just not think to ask?
The thought is unkind, and I push it away. Giselle has always let our mother handle logistics. That’s not malice. That’s just how our family works, with Isadora at the center arranging everyone else like furniture.
“It’s fine.” I pat her hand where it rests on my arm. “You’re here now. That’s what matters.”
“You see?” My mother gestures with her cup as though I’ve just proven her point.
“No harm done. Now, shall we discuss how Giselle can actually be useful while she’s here?
I was thinking she could help you with correspondence, perhaps.
Or organizing the household calendar. Skills that might benefit you both. ”
Skills, as though I’m a project to be managed, a problem to be solved with the right combination of tasks and supervision. I reach for my tea and take a long sip, using the cup as an excuse not to respond.
“Actually,” Giselle says, her voice soft but with something underneath it I can’t quite identify, “I was hoping to spend time outside. The grounds here are beautiful. And I thought maybe…” She trails off, glancing at our mother before continuing.
“I thought maybe I could learn more about riding. Properly, I mean. With real instruction.”
The sitting room goes quiet. My mother’s teacup pauses halfway to her lips. I stare at my sister, trying to parse what she’s just said.
“You want to learn to ride?” I turn toward her, waiting for her to explain.
Giselle has never pursued it seriously. She’s ridden before, but she’s never pushed for more. Never fought our mother for stable time the way I did.
“I know it must seem strange.” Giselle releases my arm and folds her hands in her lap, not meeting my eyes.
“But I’ve been thinking about it ever since the accident.
You loved it so much, Georgie. It was such a part of who you are.
And now you can’t…” She hesitates, choosing her words carefully.
“I thought maybe I could learn properly. To keep that part of the family alive. To honor what it meant to you.”
She wants to ride because I can’t. She wants to do the thing I love because I’m not doing it anymore, as though my absence has created a vacancy someone should fill.
“You’re asking me to watch you do what I still can’t.” I pull my hand back into my lap. She should hear what this sounds like.
Giselle’s face crumples slightly. “That’s not what I meant. I’d never want to hurt you, Georgie. I just thought… if I understood what you loved about it, maybe I could help somehow. Be closer to you through it.”
Is that really what this is? A way to be closer to me? Or is it something else, something I can’t quite name, a feeling that has no evidence to support it except the strange twist in my stomach?
“What a thoughtful impulse.” My mother sets her cup down with a decisive click, and her face has transformed with approval I haven’t seen directed at me in years. “Giselle, darling, I think that’s exactly what this family needs. A way to honor the tradition while Georgina recovers.”
My mother is beaming at Giselle now, praising her for wanting to do the exact thing she spent my entire childhood forbidding me from doing.
“You forbade me from riding.” I look straight at my mother, letting her hear the edge in my voice. “For years. You said it was unladylike. Beneath us. A waste of my potential.”