Whatever the future holds, they’ve chosen each other. Chosen together.
Catherine slowly pulls back. Her beautiful brown eyes are red-rimmed and teary, but she’s still here. Rosalie rises on her tiptoes and Catherine meets her halfway in a terrified, devastated kiss.
“We’ll make it,” Rosalie whispers as they part.
Rosalie can see in her eyes that she has doubts. Rosalie does too. So she kisses her one more time, sliding her hands to hold Catherine’s jaw, keeping her close and safe and there with her until Aunt Genevieve coughs quietly.
Catherine presses her lips together and forces a watery smile. And then she pulls away and walks out into the cloakroom.
Rosalie stands there, listening, but either Mrs.Pine is speaking too quietly to hear, or, more likely, Catherine’s dressing in horrid silence under her mother’s disapproving gaze. Rosalie shivers, bringing a hand up to cover her mouth as the tears finally fall in earnest.
She wants her mother to come back and tell her it’s all right. To promise to help. To promise to love her. She wants—
Aunt Genevieve catches her before she sinks to the floor. Rosalie weeps quietly against her chest, hands fisted in the back of her dress. She must be wrinkling it.
She should be grateful to have Aunt Genevieve—grateful she’s not alone. But even with Aunt Genevieve holding her up, this hurts so much more than she thought it would.
They fixed their mothers’ relationship just like they planned, but somehow they broke everything else in the span of just a few minutes. How has it only been a few minutes?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Catherine
Every time she moves, she can feel her damp chemise sticking to her skin. The faint stench of wine keeps wafting up to her nose, roiling her already-twitching stomach.
Rosalie and Lady Jones never came back into the room. Christopher, Amalie, and Henrietta have been throwing her confused looks for the last two hours.
She hasn’t gotten up the courage to say a thing to her mother. Instead, she’s just standing there, her whole body tight and twisted, her heart so sore it feels like she’s being stabbed by a dull knife. Because Mother looks like absolutely nothing happened. Her smile while they say goodbye to their guests seems entirely genuine.
Henrietta and her mother approach them with Mr.Rile. Henrietta opens her mouth—
“A marvelous tea, Mrs.Pine. You’ve really outdone yourself,” Mrs.Raught says.
Mother smiles brightly. “Thank you. And thank you, Mr.Rile, for attending.”
“Any chance to spend some time with my dear fiancée is time well spent, and the sandwiches, in particular, were scrumptious,” he says, his broad cheeks dimpled in a brilliant smile.
Catherine tries to take solace in Henrietta’s happiness. Triesto smile genuinely at her even as she gives Catherine a searching look.
“Thank you most kindly,” Mother says to Mr.Rile.
Mrs.Raught leads them away before Henrietta can say anything, and Henrietta looks over her shoulder at Catherine until they’re down the stairs and out of sight.
Father appears on Mother’s other side. “They’re leaving.”
Catherine opens her mouth, about to ask who he means while Mother glances around at the mostly empty tearoom.
“All right. Do it quietly.”
Mr. and Mrs.Flintley approach them and Catherine shuts her mouth, forcing a smile while she watches her father make his slow way across the room to Lord Dean and Mr.Dean, who have been loitering by the dessert table. They sat glaringly separately for the tea. And now Lord Dean is stuffing his face rather conspicuously. Mr.Dean looks a bit embarrassed.
It doesn’t deter Father, who steps up to them with a jaunty smile. Catherine notices Christopher and Amalie watching from across the room while Lady Tisend speaks to someone she doesn’t know. She’s acting like nothing happened too, but hiding it more poorly than Mother. Her shoulders are tense, her smile pinched.
Catherine turns back to Mr. and Mrs.Flintley, trying to focus on whatever they’re saying to Mother.
“Sir,” she hears from across the room.
Catherine looks back at Father, who’s going on to Mr.Dean about something she can’t quite make out over by the dessert table. Lord Dean beside them is slowly going red in the face, Mr.Dean glancing at him at intervals.
