“Not even Leith,” he said, knowing that it was true. Despite their clashing personalities, Leith loved Henrietta like his own sister. “He might be an uptight scoundrel, but he is still a scoundrel.”
Henrietta nodded against his chest. And Trem began to compose the letter to Leith and Montaigne in his head.
*
One night, not long after their discussion of what to do with Hartley, Trem and Henrietta had supper with Mary Forster while Mr. Ryerson had gone to the nearest market town for the evening. On this occasion, Henrietta asked to hear the story of how Mary met her husband.
“I had left Edington,” Mary said, her voice low, loosened by a glass of after-dinner port, “and I was extremely lost. I was devastated to have left you—” she nodded at Henrietta “—but I knew that it was the right decision. Your father wanted me to marry him, he begged me, after I gave birth to you. He hoped that I would be weaker then, I think.”
She had an eerie, haunted smile on her face. Trem reached out and took Henrietta’s hand, knowing on impulse that she could use the fortification of his touch.
“But I knew that I couldn’t live as his duchess. In a cage. And that you would be the worse for it. How could I ever convince you that life was worth living if I myself hated my existence? My whole life I resolved not to have the kind of marriage that my parents did—the staid gentry union founded on nothing but obligation. If I had married Reginald, then, it would have been only that. But worse than my parents because our conduct would have still been infamous. We would always carry the love that had died between us. I know it may seem extreme to you, but it was what I felt, and I hope that you don’t judge me too harshly.”
Mary’s gaze was on her lap.
“I understand,” Henrietta said softly, releasing Trem’s hand and moving towards the sofa. She sat and took her mother’s hand in turn. “I would have done the same thing. And I had a good childhood. I was safe. And raised with every advantage.”
Trem knew that Henrietta was minimizing the complexity of her early years for her mother’s sake. It made his heart constrict.
“I’m sure it wasn’t all that easy, my girl,” Mary said. “But I am fortunate that you did not find your childhood a cruel one.”
“It wasn’t,” Henrietta said, shaking her head. “But I want to know what happened to you after you left. And how you came to marry Mr. Ryerson.”
The older woman nodded. “I told you before that I knew Mrs. Bercine. Well, when I left Edington Hall, I had very little money. And nowhere to go. I made my way, almost by chance, to the Craven Arms. I was surprised to see that it had a woman proprietor. I thought I might as well apply to her for employment—I imagined, as another woman, she might be more sympathetic to my position.”
Mary laughed, not bitter, but wry.
“Instead, she showed me how few actual skills I had as a high-born lady. But, in the end, she did hire me. She did just happen to need another surrogate for herself, you see, someone with a lady’s bearing, to help her manage affairs around the inn. I learned the business and saw to the matters that needed fixing but were of secondary importance—she used to call me her réplique, her double, because I played her role when she needed to be somewhere else in the inn or in town. In truth, she badly needed a steward. She had too much to do for one person. Slowly, we became friends.”
Trem considered teasing Henrietta for her jealousy towards the older woman but decided that she wouldn’t care for it—not in front of Mary Forster.
“She’s a complicated woman, Mrs. Bercine,” Mary continued. “But tough—and impressive. She does many things for the children of her parish as well. I always understood that the only reason the foundlings had quality shoes in the winter was because of Mrs. Bercine. I’m not sure that, if I had never met her and seen her at work, I would have realized how women who aren’t born into the gentry or aristocracy can have power, too, and potentially more freedom. She made me see the possibilities outside the world of my birth and that happiness could be found elsewhere. And, more directly, if she hadn’t taken me in, I have no idea where I would have gone.”
“Surely Father would have given you more money, if you had needed it?” Henrietta asked, concern etched into her voice.
“He would have. And potentially any number of others would have, too. But I didn’t want it,” Mary said, turning to Trem now, their eyes meeting. “You can’t understand the desire I had for a new life. You can’t understand the power a society, a man, has over a woman who is with child—or who has a child. The vulnerability of being with child—or of the child itself—is used to control her. She can be made to work in indecent conditions, or to marry a man she never would choose otherwise, for the sake of the child; that is, if you can control what can be offered to the child, you can control the woman.”
She turned to Henrietta now. “No court or magistrate in the land would have refused a duke who wanted his child. And your father wanted you very much. He wanted me—but you, too. When I made it clear I would not marry him, he agreed to let me go—on the condition that I left you with him. And what kind of life could I offer you to compete with that of the daughter of a duke? You see, if you control the child, you control the mother.”
“I understand,” Henrietta said. “Father shouldn’t have made you choose.”
Trem felt deeply struck by Mary’s words. He had lived his entire life with the security of not only his gender, but also his position. While he had fretted at various points about whether he had gotten a woman with child and what an inconvenience such a situation would be, he had never really considered how small his own trouble would be in comparison to that of the woman in question. And, of course, he had known men of his rank who had fathered by-blows and had either thrown the women to the fates—or, in a move that was usually considered benevolent, supplied the woman with funds to move to the country to raise the child. But everyone knew that such settlements came with the expectation that a woman would adhere to certain standards of propriety. No new lovers, no life outside of her quiet, shamed role.
The injustice of it struck him as it never had before. He wished that he had some power to change these circumstances—to offer women another choice.
“No,” Mary said. “He shouldn’t have.” Then, she shook her head. “But that is not the point of this story.”
“While I was working at Mrs. Bercine’s réplique,” she continued, “one of my jobs was to negotiate with the farmer from whom the inn bought our wheat and potatoes. That was Mr. Ryerson, of course. He had a high opinion of his crops and Mrs. Bercine always wanted a more favorable price—and I was in between.” She laughed. “I was wary, after what I had been through, of men, of falling in love. But he convinced me. He told me that he could not make me a duchess, but that I would be a queen in his home. That he didn’t care where I had been, or what I had done—that he just wanted whatever I could give him.”
Trem met Henrietta’s gaze and he saw that her eyes were teeming with tears.
“I am so glad,” she said, grasping her mother’s hand, “that you found Mr. Ryerson.”
“As am I,” Mary said, wiping a tear from her eye. “And I am glad you have found this one, my girl,” she said, nodding towards Trem. “It is not many men who could lie so convincingly as he did when you two first came there. It is the kind of thing that a man only does for love.”
Trem gaped, unsure of what to say.
“It wasn’t a lie!” Henrietta protested. “We really came to see you.”
