“Break your heart, don’t they, the Demerovens?”
Gwen nods, shattered. “I’m sorry.”
“Oh, sweetheart, me too,” he says, pulling her in for a hard hug. She buries her face in his chest, taking solace in his arms for a few long minutes.
If she cannot have her happiness, at least they are grief-stricken together.
“Ready to watch Albie get engaged?”
Gwen groans and shakes her head, even as she knows she has to stay. Has to gather herself and paste on the first of what will be many an empty smile. Albie has stood by her through thick and thin; she must put away her heartache to be happy in the face of his joy.
“If it helps, Lady Demeroven is going to collect Miss Demeroven and go home. I left her a few rows back and told her to wait for Miss Demeroven to come to her while I found you.”
Gwen pulls back to look up at him. “Does it ever stop?”
“The heartache?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
He smiles so sadly she thinks she could fall back to pieces. “No. But we’ll find you someone someday who will take some of the pain. And at least you had this much.”
Gwen forces herself to nod, like this much is even halfway to enough. At least she had this, that’s what she’ll have to tell herself for the rest of her life. At least she had one brief moment of love and joy and affection before a life without.
Chapter Nineteen
Beth
Beth stares at her reflection as Miss Wilson finishes pulling the last of her laces. She steps blindly into her hoop cage and barely feels Miss Wilson raising it and securing it about her waist. Cares little for the petticoat she layers over it, nor the embroidered bodice and skirts that go over that in their pale pink loveliness. None of it matters. She looks as beautiful as she probably ever has, but it’s utterly hollow.
She thinks there’s no way Lord Montson won’t see it. That he’ll know, by looking into her empty eyes, that this isn’t what she wants. She’s desperate for him to see it—the aching sadness that she thinks permeates every inch of her face—she wants him to see it, to acknowledge it, to take back his promises.
But she knows he won’t. She’s getting engaged in a matter of hours; she should be a mess of anticipatory nerves. What woman wouldn’t be a bit nervous? And what woman would refuse such an offer?
She has to smile, and pretend to weep, and gush, and celebrate this joyous day.
Instead it feels like her stomach might fly out of her mouth at any moment, with her heart following after.
“You look wonderful,” Miss Wilson says as she settles the last of Beth’s skirts and tucks everything into place.
“Thank you,” Beth manages, her voice a whisper around her tightened throat.
“Do you want the earrings?”
Beth follows Miss Wilson’s pointed finger, feeling like she’s moving through water. Mother’s left her bridal earrings on the vanity in what Beth assumes is a peace offering.
“No,” she says, forcing a smile for Miss Wilson. “I wouldn’t want to overgild the lily.”
“More of a rose, don’t you think?” Miss Wilson asks, working so hard to stay cheerful. She goes on, filling the silence with a prattle of floral comparisons. Beth hums vaguely in her direction.
She and Mother didn’t speak at all in the carriage home from the Harrington tea. Mother didn’t mention Beth’s smudged lips or frayed hair. She doesn’t know if Mother even noticed; she’d clearly been crying herself. She should care about her mother’s happiness—be sickly grateful she’s given up yet another chance at love for Beth’s security and marriage.
She should care. She should be grateful. She should be kind and wear the earrings. But all she wants to do is scream, at Mother, at Lord Montson, at Lord Havenfort, at the prime minister and the queen.
“It’s a beautiful day, don’t you think? Memorable. Not a cloud in the sky,” Miss Wilson continues, fluffing at her skirts for something to do with her hands.
Beth clenches her jaw against a retort that she’d rather it were raining, since she doesn’t want to remember this day anyway. But Miss Wilson doesn’t deserve her nerves, so she just shrugs.
This is the mess her father left for them: no provisions fortheir well-being, no savings for another home. His two women destitute and at the mercy of her callous uncle, followed by a cousin she’s never met.
