“Yes.” She beamed. Her eyes twinkled as she said the words. “So you won’t be married much before me at all.”
“How did they finally come to an agreement? It has been ages.” Cassandra and Sebastian had been engaged last season and, at times, it had seemed that Mrs. Seymour and Mr. Burnbridge Senior would never come to an understanding. Mr. Seymour, Cassandra’s father, had tried to intervene in the negotiations due to his daughter’s distress, but Mrs. Seymour had told her husband to not intervene in affairs he couldn’t understand.
“Sebastian,” Cassandra said, her face radiating pure joy. “He told his father that if he didn’t come to a settlement with my mother immediately then he would take me to Gretna Green the next day and marry me with nothing!”
“Mr. Burnbridge believed your parents weren’t offering enough for your dowry?”
Cassandra shook her head. “The amount was adequate. It was my mother’s insistence that the marriage articles reserve the fifteen thousand pounds for me and my children. Sebastian wouldn’t be able to legally touch the money.”
“Doesn’t your mother trust Sebastian?”
“She does,” Cassandra said. “But she said it was a matter of principle.”
“You must be so cross with both your mother and Mr. Burnbridge for taking this long.” Henrietta didn’t know how Cassandra had stomached it. If her brother had even tried to haggle with Trem over the settlements, she wouldn’t have put herself above throwing utensils like Griffon.
Cassandra shook her head. “We have both been vexed, but we also understand. My mother and Sebastian’s father—they’ve had to make their way in a world that regards them as perpetual outsiders. They’re both wary of their children being taken advantage of. It is hard for both of them to let us go.”
Henrietta nodded. Of course, it was easier for her brother and Tremberley to not argue over such matters. Neither John nor Tremberley had ever known deprivation or prejudice against themselves that wasn’t solely personal and—many would argue—earned through their reckless, indulgent actions. To them, Henrietta’s gigantic dowry was improvements on an estate or—more likely—funds for second sons or dowries for future daughters. For Mrs. Seymour, Cassandra’s fifteen thousand pounds was ballast against a world that would try and destroy her daughter if it only got the chance.
“But they’ve realized now that they can’t protect us forever,” Cassandra continued. “I think they both realized that their haggling over the terms had begun to jeopardize our happiness more than anything else. Sebastian insisted that his father accept my mother’s decision to put the funds in trust. And the old man gave in.”
Henrietta took her friend’s hand. “I am so happy for you.”
Cassandra smiled up at her and Henrietta could see the tears in her eyes. Surely, Henrietta thought to herself, if Cassandra could be patient through a year of waiting, she could endure the next three weeks of wedding planning and aggressive chaperoning from her sister-in-law.
“And now you’ll come with me to Mrs. Warburton’s,” Cassandra said. “All these fittings will be so much less dull with you there too.”
Henrietta smiled, gleeful that she could now reveal to Cassandra the news that, a few weeks ago, would have been the first order of business in any of their conversations.
“And we can plan our first issue of The Lady’s Magazine while we get stuck with pins.”
Cassandra gasped and covered her mouth. “Mr. Redmond agreed?”
“Yes!” Henrietta told her all that Mr. Redmond had shared with her the night of the Worthington ball. The first issue of their new magazine would appear in a year; it would be a monthly affair, organized solely by themselves and financed by Mr. Redmond.
However, they had to cut their planning short because the discussion for the day was beginning. At her last salon, Mrs. Seymour had distributed poems by Phillis Wheatley and the assembly now began to discuss their impressions of her verses. Miss Wheatley and her poems had caused a short-lived sensation in London society nearly fifty years ago, but her work had since faded into obscurity. Mrs. Seymour wanted to bring her back into notice and hoped this salon could be a first step.
Henrietta was so riveted by the discussion that followed that she nearly forgot her pressing need to speak to Trem. A debate broke out as to Wheatley’s intentions in writing “On Being Brought from Africa to America” and “To the University of Cambridge, in New England.” Mrs. Seymour and Mr. Williams led a faction of readers who saw her use of religious themes as supportive of abolition and racial equality; Mr. Pendleton and Mr. and Mrs. Wallis saw her as less politically radical, more concerned with the afterlife and Christian piety than the condition of her brethren on this earth. Salon members quoted different passages back and forth, interpreting their meaning in slightly different ways. It made Henrietta think about her and Cassandra’s magazine—how they might capture the vitality and nuance of such a debate on paper. With the magazine, she hoped that she and Cassandra could bring the spirit of Mrs. Seymour’s salon to a broader audience.
It was only after this discussion, when the salon began to break up, that Henrietta remembered her intention to speak to Trem.
Luckily, he already had her in his sights. He strode across the room and took her hand. A few nearby matrons appeared to notice. Perhaps due to the freethinking nature of the group, no one appeared to cast them a look of true censure—the expressions were more of watchful curiosity than anything else.
With her hand in his, Trem’s hazel gaze seemed to heat her very bones. And yet she felt nearly nauseous at the prospect of telling him what she had resolved to share. She pulled him away from the group, towards a quieter corner, where no one could hear her if she spoke low.
“Trem,” she whispered, “I must tell you, I know you said that you didn’t care, but—”
He shook his head, a cavalier smile playing on his lips, and he cocked his head in the direction of Mrs. Seymour. Ah, Henrietta thought, there was that look of censure. Mrs. Seymour was clearly not about to lose her reputation as an impeccable chaperone. Henrietta had a distinct suspicion that she may have even received a missive from her sister-in-law to keep a close eye on her and her new fiancé.
“Later,” Trem said, giving her a sinful smile and her hand a parting squeeze. Then he headed out the door.
Her stomach sank as she watched him retreat.
How could they marry if she couldn’t tell him this simple truth? And how could he truly not care to hear it? His smile had been so relaxed, as if nothing she said could disrupt their happiness.
Trem’s confidence should have perhaps heartened her, but, in this moment, it left her cold.
Chapter Eighteen
