Chapter 10
“Be careful, my darling girl.”
Ruby’s mother’s voice was one that was made of silk. It was the siren song that hundreds of men had fallen for. Yes, those men had fallen at her feet for more than twenty years, and Ruby had great respect for her mother, because her mother had not just affected mere mortal men.
No, she had summoned gods to her feet and made them worship her there. Unlike so much of England and the ladies there who lived small lives, never going very far from London or their personal estates, her mother had gone far beyond on a continental tour.
Her mother had taken to the world like a storm crosses the sea. Discontent had done that. Disappointment too. Frustration that the world could not be what she wanted. Ruby often wondered if her mother would have still been unhappy if she had been born to the position that Ruby was in.
“Why be careful, Mama? You’ve never urged such a thing before,” she pointed out as she crossed the opulent room decorated in the most elegant of tones.
Her mother loathed the gilding of Versailles. She believed that simple elegance and the rich paintings of people like Turner, Caravaggio, and El Greco were the most powerful imagery one could own.
She was not interested in the fussiness of the Rococo. No, her mother was striking, powerful, and impossible to miss. Unless, of course, you blinked, because then she’d be gone from sight.
Ruby knew that she was chasing her mother’s footsteps in a way, but she would never ever go that route of disappearing across the horizon, always going from one town to the next, to the next country, to places unknown to find the next most powerful man.
Ruby’s mother turned in her chair, a diamond earbob dangling between her elegant fingers. The earbob was so large that it could have touched her shoulder when she put it into her ear, but her mother’s long, elegant neck made such a thing impossible. It had been a gift from an admirer in the East.
Her mother had admirers wherever she went.
“Well, my dear, I see what you’re doing.”
“And what is that?” Ruby prompted, bustling across the room, pouring herself out a glass of champagne into a tall crystal flute, lifting it, and contemplating the bubbles racing to the surface. It was perhaps too soon to imbibe, but the day had been quite elaborate, full to the brim.
She had been unable to stop thinking about Viscount Skyburn.
She wondered if he was thinking of her too.
“I see what’s happening to you, and I do not wish what happened to me to befall you.”
“And what is that, Mama?” she asked, tensing, for the very same thought had just been in her head.
“Skyburn,” her mother said tightly. “Don’t marry him.”
“What?” she gasped.
“He’s not for you. You’re not for him. It’s a terrible idea.”
“Mama,” she exclaimed.
“You’ve had your fun. Or you’re about to. I can see it upon your face. And I salute you for it. You know I believe that a lady should have her fun. Just make sure that you’re careful and then move on as I do, because he most certainly will move on.”
“Mama, what are you talking about?”
“There’s something wrong with the men in his family. With him,” her mother said softly.
She knew her mother felt the same about her own father.
“Mama, how can you say such a thing?”
“I saw him as a child,” her mother said suddenly and without mercy, though her eyes were shadowed at the thought, as if it was too dark and unbearable to contemplate for long.
“That boy was broken long ago. He’s broken still, my dear, and I don’t think it’s a good idea if you marry him because he will break you. ”
Ruby lifted her chin. “Nothing can break me, Mama.”
Her mother put in the diamond earbob. It tugged at the hole in her ear, and she turned back to her mirror, eyeing her face before she began to laugh slowly, a deep, rich, rolling sound. “My darling girl, this life breaks everyone at some point. The question is how much, how hard, and for how long.”
Her mother braced her beautiful hands on the dressing table covered in the most elegant perfume bottles, hairbrushes, jewels, and flowers.
“Tonight we go to the theater,” her mother said simply. “There’s something that I want you to see. We cannot escape our family histories, my dear, and I think that you should understand his.”
She blinked. “Mama, whatever are you talking about?”
Her mother stood, her stunning peacock-green gown shimmering in the light.
She took her daughter’s hands and stared at her. She was an older, more worldly reflection who had known much pain.
“I will not send you out into the world as unguided as I was, which is why I returned.”
“For my Season, yes, Mama,” she said, trying not to sound bitter. “But you were absent for years. For all this time—”
“You know why,” her mother cut in. “And I am sorry for it. I genuinely am, but I cannot stay in this place. It is like a crushing prison.”
Her mother closed her eyes for a moment, and Ruby could have sworn she saw tears shimmer in her lashes.
And the sight made her confess, “I wish you had taken me with you, Mama.”
“Your father loves you,” her mother said.
“Yes, he does,” she whispered. “But I was still…” She licked her lips.
“Yes, my dear?”
She didn’t want to say lonely.
She didn’t want anyone to know that she’d ever been lonely.
She wanted everyone to believe that she had had the most magnificent childhood because she should have done.
She had everything she ever could have wanted, except two parents together who loved each other.
But both of her parents had their own problems, and they could not resolve to be together.
She was afraid that they had given those problems to her as gifts, inescapable, ever present, passed down like blonde hair and blue eyes, the need to race and run, the need to escape, the need to flee.
“We’re going to see the future you wish to choose,” her mother said. “And then you can decide if you want to marry that man.”
“Mama, I am not going to marry Viscount Skyburn,” she whispered.
“That’s what you say right now, my dear,” her mother said, her voice low and full of pain, as if she knew the hell that awaited her daughter and wished to prevent it. “But it’s already happening. I can see it in the works.”
“Why do you think that I shouldn’t?”
“I just told you why you shouldn’t,” her mother returned swiftly.
“No, you gave me vague generalities. On paper, he’s the perfect match.”
“All right then,” her mother said with a dangerous laugh, sliding her hands back.
“If you want just a marriage on paper, I can support that. I’ll talk to your father.
We’ll talk to Skyburn. We’ll make it happen.
He’s a powerful man. You’re a powerful woman.
The two families will unite. It will be perfect.
You two will have children. You will live the lives you please.
A contract will be written up to ensure it.
It’s not the first time something like that has been done.
It’s common. The Westforts have done it for generations.
It’s a miracle that boy Adam broke that line and married for love. ”
“Love, Mama?”
“I wish you could marry for love,” her mother said.
“But it doesn’t really exist, my dear. It’s a dangerous thing to think it does.
I hope to God young Westfort and his wife can manage to stay enamored for more than a few years after the children come, but it usually doesn’t work.
Soon, he’ll be chasing an actress, and his wife will be looking at some young man of the guard, or she’ll be put into the country, or she’ll be so worn out from having children that… ”
Her mother swallowed.
“Mama, why are you so bitter?”
Her mother met her gaze with eyes as hard as diamonds. “Because the futures of young women are stolen out from their grasps before they can even take hold of them, and I will not let that happen to you, my dear.”
“So what do you wish, Mama? That I remain unmarried for the rest of my life?”
Her mother bit her lip. “Possibly. I think that you would be happier.”
She stared at her mother, tears threatening to fill her eyes, but she blinked them back.
She wouldn’t show them because she didn’t think her mother was entirely wrong.
She had seen young woman after young woman marry and be crushed under the weight of their husbands and not just literal weight, but the weight of the responsibility, of needing to make sure that everything went just so.
The ideal woman was selfless, after all, and Ruby knew one thing to be true.
She could never abandon herself. She could not lead a selfless existence.
What was that anyway? She had no desire for it, and if a man needed that from her, well, of course, she would remain single for the rest of her days.
She stared at her beautiful mama, who then tucked her arm in hers and led her out into the hall.
“I will not allow you to be maneuvered by men, my dear. I am here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“No man is maneuvering me, Mama.”
Her mother pursed her lips. “That’s what you think, my dear, but I see the horde circling you.
You are too powerful to be ignored. You have too much to offer, and they will do everything they can to take it from you.
It is what they do, my dear. They suck all the joy, all the power, and all the strength out of women because they’re too afraid of women who have it all. ”
She wanted to protest, but she could not.
“Did you really think I didn’t wish to take you with me?” her mother whispered.
“What?” she gasped, certain she had heard wrong.
Her mother did not stop walking. She kept striding forward as if she had a demon on her back, keeping Ruby’s arm tucked in hers. “Your father wouldn’t let me. He owns you. Not I.”
And with those few words, it felt like her entire life swung. Suddenly, Ruby did not know which way was up or down. But her heart cracked then. For her mother. And for herself.