Selina paused in her pacing. “Trouble them?”
It was not that she feared her parents’ displeasure. On the contrary, this was precisely what her mother had always wished for her. A marriage. A proper one. Security, position, a husband whose name would silence every lingering concern. Lucy had lived long enough beneath that hope to recognize it even before it was spoken.
That was what made the telling so difficult.
Once they knew, the matter would no longer belong to her. It would become her mother’s triumph, her family’s relief, the long-awaited proof that Lucy had at last come round to sense, and Lucy was not ready for that. She was not ready for her mother to be right, yet again. Not when she did not yet understand her own heart. Not when some private part of her wanted to hold this moment close, unexamined, before it was claimed by expectation and approval.
Lucy adjusted the ribbon of her glove with unnecessary care. “There is no urgency. Nothing has been announced. No date settled. It would be quite sensible to wait until matters are...” she searched for the word. “... a little more formed.”
Selina regarded her with interest. “You mean until you are accustomed to the idea?”
Lucy offered a faint smile. “If one must call it that.”
“My dear,” Selina said, seating herself at last, “your mother has been expecting this moment for the better part of a decade. It would be unkind to deny her the pleasure.”
That was precisely the difficulty.
Lucy looked away, her gaze settling on the small table near the window, where a plate of forgotten biscuits sat cooling. “She will be pleased enough when she hears of it,” she said carefully. “There is no need for it to be this evening. Or tomorrow. Or before I have… rested.”
Selina’s brows lifted. “Rested from what, exactly? You have only just agreed.”
Lucy’s fingers stilled. That was the problem. She had only just agreed, and already, the world was rushing ahead of her, naming it, shaping it, claiming it.
“It feels premature,” Lucy said at last. “As though I have stepped into something without yet understanding its proportions.”
Selina softened then, though her smile did not entirely fade. “You are allowed a moment of uncertainty. But this is not hesitation born of fear, Lucy. This is simply an adjustment.”
Lucy almost contradicted her. Almost told her that fear had very much to do with it, just not the sort, Selina imagined.
“If I tell her now,” Lucy said quietly, “it will cease to be mine. We can just wait a bit. Let me think.”
Selina studied her. “Ah.”
“I know that she has always wanted this for me,” Lucy went on, the words emerging more easily now that she had begun. “A marriage. A proper one. She will see this as the conclusion of a long argument, and perhaps, it is. But I am not yet ready for it to be resolved.”
Selina tilted her head. “You are afraid she will be pleased.”
Lucy let out a breath that was half a laugh. “Entirely. Is that so bad?” She rose from the bed and crossed the room, restless now. “I have spent years being certain of what I did not want. Watching my mama arrange her life around her husband, measuring every choice against duty and propriety. I told myself I would never live so narrowly. That I would not wake one morning and find that all my decisions had been made for me. You know this more than anyone. It was entirely the reason I came here in the first place.”
Selina did not interrupt.
“Now…” Lucy continued, more softly, “Now that I have agreed to marry, I cannot tell whether I have betrayed that promise to myself, or I finally understood why it frightened me.”
She stopped by the window, the fading light pressing close beyond the glass. “If I tell her now, she will believe I have come round at last. That she was right to wait me out. I do not know if that is true. I do not yet know why I proposed such a thing to His Grace. Just let me figure it out.”
Selina rose and came to stand beside her. “Lucy, I understand that this might feel too sudden for you, but you proposed the marriage to the Duke. I was there. You might be rethinking it because of what you have always believed, but there’s no going back now.”
Lucy nodded. “I do not intend to go back on my word,” she said, although not entirely believing the words that had just left her mouth. “I’m just asking that I tell mama in my own time.”
For a moment, Selina said nothing. Then she let out a soft sigh. “You may have your moment, my dear, but not too long a one. Even the most private truths have a way of insisting upon witnesses. You can go to your room and take the rest of the day to take it all in. This is happening. You are marrying the Duke of Langridge. Soon.”
Lucy’s smile waned, and she lowered her head. She stood very still for a moment longer, then she turned.
“Do you feel content now, Aunt Selina?” she asked.
Selina looked up, faintly surprised. “Content?”
Lucy met her gaze. “That you were right,” she clarified. “That I have, in the end, done precisely what you always said I would. Married... or very nearly so.”
