“But.” He drew a deep breath.
She held her eyes steady on her face, her expression open and watchful, the green in her eyes catching the light. But all the same he felt the tension in her, as if she were bracing herself for news she could not like.
“I cannot allow my family to be subject to scrutiny or public ridicule,” he said quietly. “I have explained all this to you before. Judith is so fragile, and my father’s children— All they may depend on is the life I can give them. I walk a fine line already, being born a draper. If my wife were to be notorious, to be thought a public woman—you know what the perceptions are,” he said desperately.
“I wish they were different, Lucasta, I truly do. But this is the world we have, and even if I am to inherit an estate someday, my business is our livelihood. If we are scorned or looked down on,if no one patronizes my shops, we are destitute, and my whole family will suffer. Please understand.”
He rushed to say the last words, pleading for her not to withdraw. But he saw her face tighten, the lines around her eyes, her nostrils, her mouth, even the tendons moving in her neck as she swallowed. She drew her head back and looked him in the face. The expression in her eyes nearly killed him.
“I do understand,” she said quietly. “I respect your devotion to your family, Jem. I do. I admire your dedication to your business. It is one of the many things I adore about you. So practical. So determined. You are a kind, deeply moral man, and your mind is as good as your eye for fashion.”
She laid a hand against his cheek. She’d stripped off her gloves, and her palm was cold, the pulse in her wrist fluttering against the corner of his lips. He turned his head slightly and kissed the delicate skin, trying at the last to coax the words he wanted from her. She drew a deep breath and dropped her hand.
“I have had a week to think deeply about what I want from my life, Jem. About what marriage would mean to me. Whatyoumean to me.”
He reached for her hand, drawing it stubbornly to his chest so she could feel the wild beat of his heart. “You love me.”
She nodded. “I do. I never expected to feel this way about anyone. I didn’t know that I could. I adore you with everything in me. I suspect that I always will.” She spoke in a low tone, steady and firm, but her eyes glistened with tears. “But I have also, in these past weeks, come to understand myself more clearly. And I need to use my voice.”
“You may,” he said, the words spilling out of him. “Of course. However you wish. Benefit concerts, and performances for our friends, and even now and then a private engagement. Your voice is a miracle. Your voice is what truly made me see you.”He clasped her hand to his chest with both hands. “I want to use your voice. Always.”
“But not as a career,” she said quietly. “Not in public.”
“It doesn’t have to be that, does it? There are other ways.”
She tugged gently at her hand. He refused to release her.
“It is my one great dream, Jem. It is the one thing that has always been mine, when everything else was taken from me. My music. It is not just my greatest pleasure—it is my purpose.” She tugged more firmly, and the tears spilled from her eyes. “If you cannot share my great dream, Jem, then I cannot give my life to you.”
“I can give you music,” he insisted. “Lessons with friends, like you did for Judith and Bertie.”
“A music conservatory of my own?” she asked gently.
“You won’t need it. I will provide for you. A marchioness has no reason to have a music conservatory.”
“But I want to teach. I want to help others pursue their passions and use their gifts. I want to share music with them. And I want to perform.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks with her free hands. “I didn’t understand how badly I want to sing in this concert with the girls until Gale kept me prisoner and I thought I wouldn’t get back in time.”
“I’ll build you a stage of your own at Arendale House,” Jem said wildly. “You can have a private concert every night.”
“And sing only by your permission. I don’t want to have to choose, Jem,” she said, her voice catching. The tears fell freely. “But if I cannot have a husband and also sing, then I do not want a husband. Not even you.” She held her hands over her face a moment, then faced him, wiping the tears from her chin.
“I love you, Jeremiah Falstead, upon my soul I do. But I will not dally with you, and I cannot marry you.” She passed a hand over her eyes.
“I have one request of you, however.” She took a deep, bracing breath. “Please do bring your family, all of them, to the concert tomorrow. I promised they might hear it, and I want to say a proper goodbye. I shall send over the tickets.”
She went into the music room and closed the door. Though he stood for several moments, not a sound emerged.
His guts had been torn out of him and flung to the ground, like a traitor disemboweled before his execution, but his skeleton still worked. Jem walked down the stairs, each jarring step telling him that he did not dream, that Lucasta Lithwick had declined his hand and wounded his heart to a depth he could not even begin to fathom.
Her friends waited for him on the small landing, watching.
“Turned me down.” His voice rasped like dried flax. “After all I can offer her…”
“Can you give her her great dream?” Selina asked quietly.
Jem stared at her with bewildered eyes. “To sing,” Minnie explained.
Jem shifted his gaze to stare out the small window, where the sky had finally delivered on its miserable promise and released rain. “I cannot,” he said helplessly. “In my position— I have more than my own wishes to consider.”
