“They might say otherwise.”
“They would say otherwise about all three of us.”
“That’s true,” Prudence said. “I haven’t heard the end of it since I ran away from one marriage and refused another—they can’t accept that from me.”
“But you didn’t wish to marry those men. I thought Mother understood that now,” Caroline protested.
“Some days, she seems to understand, but other days are different. Just last night, after you went to bed, she was bemoaning my fate. Complaining about the fact that I was likely to be a spinster forever, and how she would never rid herself of her house full of daughters, she would never be done with her duties as a mother, never this, never that…believe me, the same complaints she always gave you are still on her lips. There is no making her happy. That doesn’t mean that any of us have failed.”
“But I also feel that I’ve failed as a wife,” Caroline said.
“Your husband was the one who failed there, not you. You told us what happened.”
“Prudence is right,” Arabella agreed. “You told the duke what you needed to be content in your marriage and her refused you. You can’t blame yourself for that. You can’t be angry with yourself for not persuading him to give you what you wanted when you asked him. He had his chance and he didn’t take it. That’s a matter for him to live with—you did all you could, Caroline.”
Caroline didn’t know whether that made her feel better or worse. But in thinking about Arabella’s words, she found she could concede that her sister was probably right. “What should I do, then?” she asked. “You act as if you think I have nothing to be regretful about—as if I have done nothing wrong. You say I should find a way forward, to live a life that will make me happy. But I have no idea what that would look like for me, since I’ve lost my marriage.”
“There are plenty of things a lady can do on her own,” Arabella said. “Now that you are married, you don’t need to worry about the question of who is going to provide for you. Your needs will be met throughout your life, and that gives you freedom. Why not travel? See the world?”
“Do you mean…by myself?” Surely her sister couldn’t mean that.
“A traveling companion could be arranged. Come, you’ve read about so many magnificent places in those books of yours, and you’ve never seen any of them for yourself. Wouldn’t you like to go to Paris? Or Greece? Wouldn’t you like to see the world?”
“It would be an adventure,” Caroline conceded. “And I could use a good time. Oh, I wish you could come with me, Arabella. Or you, Prudence. That’s what I would really enjoy—all three of us going as one another’s traveling companions.”
“I would like that too,” Arabella said gently. “But there’s no chance I can go abroad and leave my children.”
“Oh, I know. I would never ask that of you. It was only a wish.”
“Well, I have no children,” Prudence said stoutly. “I’ll go with you.”
Both Arabella and Caroline laughed. “Mother and Father would never allow that,” Arabella said. “Caroline may go because she is a married lady, but no one would allow you that same freedom while you are so young and still without a husband.”
“And if I should never marry? Will I be locked up in this house all my life?”
“I’ll take you traveling,” Arabella promised. “We’ll find an occasion and you can come with me and my family. But this trip is to be Caroline’s. Come, Caroline, tell us where you would most like to go.”
“To Spain, I think,” Caroline said, recalling one of her favorite books, which had been set in Barcelona. “I’ve always longed to see it for myself. It seems almost mythical when I read about it—it’s hard to believe, sometimes, that it’s really there.”
“You should take the opportunity. Who knows when you might get another like it?”
Caroline nodded slowly. Though the prospect was daunting, travel would be far preferable to sitting around the house with nothing to do besides contemplate everything she had lost. “You’re right,” she said. “I should go. And I will go. It’s a good way to get out of my thoughts and focus on all the good things I still have in my life, and that’s something I don’t want to allow myself to forget.”
Arabella smiled at her. “I’m very proud of you, you know.”
“I wasn’t even able to make a marriage work, Arabella. You shouldn’t be proud of me.”
“But I am. It took courage for you to leave Mowbray. Don’t think I don’t realize how much strength that required. I know you feel now as if maybe you made the wrong choice, but I have always told you that the only thing that matters to me is your happiness. I can see that you were unhappy in your life with the duke, so you did the right thing by coming home. We’ll figure out the rest together.”
Caroline nodded, recognizing the kindness of what her sister was saying, but she also felt pinpricks of shame and regret.
Because it wasn’t that simple. Not really.
Because she hadn’t been unhappy.
Not always.
She thought back to the night she had fallen asleep in his arms. The moment of comfort she had felt just before closing her eyes—it had been more than comfort, really. It was pure bliss. And it pained her to know that she had lost that, that she would never feel it or anything like it again.
