Chapter Six
“Oh!” Evangeline exclaimed, not for the first time on the very long journey to London, “this is ever so long and arduous!”
She fanned herself dramatically.
Lina smiled and looked out the window. Already they were passing the towns at the outskirts of the city, and no matter what lay ahead for her at the journey’s end, there was plenty to watch and see, all of it new and delightful. The road had become smooth, but even when they had traveled down the bumpy, poorly maintained roads from the Manor, the ride had never been arduous. Mr. Blackstone had sent for the family, and they were ensconced now in two gleaming carriages like the one he had arrived in months ago, when his peculiar proposal had been accepted by Mr. Harlowe.
Lina’s protestations about the marriage—which itself was described to her in only the barest of terms—had fallen upon deaf ears, and the Harlowes had all but threatened to turn her out into the street if she did not obey. Only Evangeline, surprisingly, had been receptive to Lina’s complaints about the marriage, which Mrs. Harlowe had dismissed out of hand as “utter foolishness” and “the silly fantasies of a little girl.”
“You must dismiss out of hand these ridiculous notions that women who marry for true love come to any end except unhappiness. Love, my dear girl, fades within a year. Poverty does not,” Mrs. Harlowe had declared imperiously.
Lina had kept to herself the fact that she knew Mrs. Harlowe’s concerns were not only for Lina’s financial fortunes, but her own.
Evangeline, on the other hand, had taken Lina aside and clasped her hands firmly, her eyes brimming with tears. “You must never abandon your hope of marriage for true love, Lina.” She had even used Lina’s true name, and squeezed her hand with heartfelt sympathy. “When we go to London, you shall attend balls and meet all manner of dashing men, and so shall I. Oh, you will be so very wealthy when you marry Mr. Blackstone, and you will invite me to all of the most beautiful balls and parties! You will see, he is not so very monstrous as he is rumored to be.”
Well. Evangeline was at least somewhat sympathetic to Lina’s problem, even if much of that concern was rooted in self-interest.
“Howlong,”Evangeline complained, “until we arrive?”
“Isn’t it grand?” Anna commented.
It was grand, indeed, Lina thought, and she smiled at Anna.
As for herself, Lina thought, her fate was not sealed, though thinking of her options made her stomach turn and flop. There was the matter of the sensation low in her belly—shamefully lower, where her naughtiest parts were—when she thought of Mr. Blackstone’s authoritative, crisp voice as he uttered the word “discipline.”
But she was not going to be married off to a monster, if in fact that is what he was. Though discovering what these “rumors” about Mr. Blackstone were was proving itself to be quite difficult. Evangeline did not know, and Mrs. Harlowe had been a locked box since the day of Mr. Blackstone’s departure—he had gone without so much as a goodbye or even breakfast.
Lina worried that loneliness awaited her with Mr. Blackstone.
On the other hand, she owed a great deal to the Harlowes, who had taken her in when her father had died. She did not want to be a burden on them.
There was, though, the matter that they seemed quite keen selling her off, and a great deal of money appeared to be being exchanged for this transaction, which only led an inquisitive mind like Lina’s to ponder why a man like Mr. Blackstone wouldpaygreat money for a girl with no family and no title, and for that matter, the albatross of being a bastard child hanging about her neck.
Unless there was something truly monstrous about him, which made all women of good standing refuse his offer.
When she saw the dense yellow fog hanging about the murky gray buildings of London in the distance, she did not bother to let Evangeline, who had asked at least ten more times if they would ever arrive, know. She smiled, and lifted her chin.
Because while she had not made any decision thus far, if she was in London, she was a great deal better off than at Green Grove Manor.
She had gone so far as to entertain the idea—the very wicked idea, certainly—in her mind, of disappearing, in the middle of the night, into the streets of London, wearing a ball gown that she would be able to sell for a modest amount that would surely enable her to go... somewhere.
Her heart dropped to think of what such a wicked action would lead to for the Harlowes, and so the idea was one of last resort.
But should it turn out that Mr. Blackstone was a monster, she would have no choice. After all, if the Harlowes were so willing to throw her beneath the wheels of the carriage for their own gain, she would be blameless for having done the same to them to save herself.
For now, it was a game of strategy, much like chess, which Lina played in the attic against herself, as women did not play games such as chess in the Harlowe household. Anyway, none of them would have been able to even amuse her, if Mr. Harlowe’s chess game as she had spied it one evening was as terrible as it had then seemed.
