Lucy sat beside her, feeling more confused and frustrated and tired than she had in some time. Nothing about this Season had gone as planned. She longed for Reed’s company. She missed the little gestures of kindness she received from him—his arm when she walked, the way he adjusted her wrap when they were out, their shared excitement over antiquities and ices. She missed his smile and his laughter.
Mother set aside her embroidery. “Reed has been in consultation with your father and Robert and Charles.” She made that fact sound like a terribly ominous thing. “They realize we mean to teach Reed a lesson in valuing his wife, and they mean to teach us a lesson in return.”
“What lesson is that?” The only thing the past week had taught Lucy was that being a wallflower as a debutante was not as miserable as being a wallflower as a married lady. The former was disheartening, while the latter was simply heartbreaking.
Amelia, sitting in a chair facing them on the sofa, leaned forward. “The gentlemen mean to show us thatweare the ones who cannot live withoutthem, that we are more miserable in their absence than they are in ours. They are determined to prove that we will give over first and go running back to them, begging for their company. To make us admit that we miss them when they are gone.”
Mother nodded her agreement with Amelia’s explanation.
“But I don’t know that I can live without him,” Lucy said. “What is so wrong with telling him so?”
“And deal a blow to ladies everywhere?” Amelia scoffed. “No, dearest sister-in-law. Your victory in this battle will give hope to your fellow wives. You will be a revered warrior.”
“‘A revered warrior’? How utterly ridiculous. I only wanted Reed to take me to balls and such. When did this turn into a war?”
Mother waved off the question. “When? Adam and Eve, darling.”
Lucy felt unaccountably exhausted. “How much longer do I have to keep ‘teaching Reed a lesson?’ This has been a long week for me. I don’t get to go home to my husband as you do. I am alone every night and every morning and most of the day. I haven’t danced at any balls, nor have I had the man I love to whisper with at the theater. Your endurance may be endless with those things buoying you up. But mine is quickly running out.”
“Do not fret,” Mother said, retaking her embroidery. “The tide will turn tonight. We have it all in hand. You’ll see.”
***
That night, Lucy watched her mother and sisters assume their positions at the ball and couldn’t help thinking that the undertaking rather resembled the positioning of troops on a battlefield.
Reed had arrived, flanked by the Harris men. As they had during the past few evenings, the gentlemen quite obviously headed in the opposite direction of Lucy. But the Harris ladies had anticipated the maneuver. Mother was waiting for them. They were too far distant for Lucy to overhear their conversation, but she could easily guess at it.
Mother offered a greeting, doing a poor job of pretending to be surprised at having bumped into Reed. He made some kind of polite reply, all the while glancing at his companions for someindication as to what he might do to counter the ladies’ strategic victory. Before anyone could speak to the contrary, Mother had her arm threaded through Reed’s and was leading him rather forcibly in Lucy’s direction.
How utterly humiliating. All I wanted was for him to accompany me to Society functions, but here I am now watching him be bullied into even talking to me.
Reed reached her side a moment later. He wore the same vaguely polite expression he had at Mother’s at-home a week earlier. “Mrs. Stanthorpe.” The same emotionless greeting as before.
Oh, Mother. This had better be worth the heartache.“Mr. Stanthorpe,” she replied, as her female relations had advised her to.
“As luck would have it,” Mother said, “Our Lucy has this next set free. How fortuitous.”
Reed hesitated for just a moment. Would he truly turn down such a pointed request? “I—”
Father interrupted whatever Reed was about to say. “Oh, dear, ladies. I do believe Mr. Stanthorpe told me he didn’t mean to dance tonight.”
Lucy kept her gaze on her husband. “Is that true?”
“I...” His eyes darted to Father then to Robert and Charles gathered nearby. “I am not particularly in the mood for dancing, and it would be unfair in the extreme for a person to be forced to do something he did not care to do.” Something about the declaration felt practiced.
Reed has been in consultation with your Father and brothers.This, then, was what Mother meant. They were combatants. Indeed, Amelia and Robert seemed almost gleeful at the prospect of debating the topic.
“By that logic,” Amelia said, “a lady who does not care to be left at home evening after evening shouldn’t be forced to remain there by a husband who refuses to take her out.”
Robert answered his wife’s argument point by point. “Requiring a gentleman to undertake something he finds truly distasteful is hardly comparable to a lady spending a quiet evening at home.”
“Distasteful?” Amelia clearly objected to the word. “If you found squiring me about all these years so torturous, why did you even bother?”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Robert answered. “I was never given the opportunity to stand up for myself and for husbands everywhere. But Reed here does. And I, for one, applaud him.”
Lucy looked to her mother. Was this truly the great victory she’d promised? This was “having it all in hand?”
Mother didn’t seem swayed in the least. “If Mr. Stanthorpe does not mean to dance, surely he would have no objection to taking a turn about the room. You would have been doing precisely that as it was.”
