‘I have known Laurent’s father for many years, and as such we believe a union between our two families would be a blessing. Laurent is here to propose marriage.’
‘No.’ Hope said the word before she’d even thought about what it meant to stand against her father. ‘I will not agree to a betrothal to a man I don’t even know!’
‘What do you mean,no?’ Her father didn’t even bother to hide his frustration or lower his voice. ‘I wasn’t giving you a choice, Hope.’
Hope sank into the chair across from him, straight-backed as she looked from her father to the young man seated across from her. If her father had so much as warned her before organising this meeting, she would have told him then, but instead he’d thought he could coerce her by inviting the poor young man to their house.
‘I’m not ready to marry, and when I do, it will be to a man of my own choosing,’ she said, trying to keep her voice level, to stop the anger she felt deep inside from bubbling over. ‘I’m sorry, but I will not agree to this or any other proposal. You should have spoken to me first.’
Her mother began to wring her hands, and Hope hated that she was causing her such distress, but if she was going to speak her mind, it had to be now. If she went along with this today, she’d have to extract herself from an actual engagement, and she was under no illusions about how difficult that would be.
‘Hope, this is not a negotiation. I’m your father, I’m the head of this house, and I?—’
‘Sir, if the young lady…’
Hope gave the poor man a sad smile. She was sorry to disappoint him, but she had to be strong. She’d had no choice but to speak her mind, and the fact that he thought it was fine to go along with a marriage agreement, when they hadn’t spent so much as a few afternoons together, was frustrating at best. Perhaps he was no better than her father. But even if he was, she had no intention of marrying the man, regardless of what her father might have offered him.
‘Need I remind you that you’re nineteen, Hope,’ her father said, more carefully this time, his anger restrained. ‘You cannot continue to have fanciful ideas about education or painting, and I will not allow a daughter of mine to become a spinster!’
She grimaced. His anger had clearly been too difficult to restrain, after all. She wanted to tell him that being unmarried at nineteen was hardly confirmation that she would be a spinster, but she knew that she was already treading on very thin ice. Every word from now on would have to be chosen carefully.
‘If you think you can just run off and marry whomever you want, if there’s a secret boyfriend that you think will come and?—’
‘There’s no one else!’ she cried, throwing caution to the wind. ‘Is it so hard to believe that I simply don’t want to marry? That I’m not ready? That this isn’t my will, and I want a say in my own life?’
‘We should never have let her go to school for so long. It’s what put these modern ideas in her head.’ Her mother tutted, getting up from her chair and beginning to pace. ‘This is my fault, I should have prepared her better. I should never have let her think she could have the same education as her brothers.’
Hope wasn’t clear how learning to paint and studying had put any ideas in her head other than testing her academically, but she chose to stay silent in that moment, her better judgement coming back to her. She bit down on her tongue to stop from speaking.
‘Hope?’ her father said, clearly expecting her to give in. But if he did, then it proved that he didn’t know her very well at all.
‘I’m sorry, Father, but I will not agree to this marriage,’ she said, keeping her eyes lowered now as she saw his face turn a dark shade of red. ‘There is nothing you can say that will convince me to consent.’
He’d never struck her before; he’d always saved that for her mother, who suffered in silence and steadfastly refused toacknowledge the way her husband treated her. But it was yet another reason why Hope had no intention of marrying a man she didn’t know well.
‘Please excuse me,’ the young man said, rising and looking embarrassed as he nodded to Hope’s father. ‘I think this is a family matter for you to discuss privately. If anything changes…’ His voice drifted away, as if he didn’t know what to say.
Hope watched him go, a lump in her throat. She sat silently as her mother showed him out, her whispered apologies from the hallway reaching Hope from where she sat, and when she thought about it later, she wondered if that’s why she’d missed the way her father had risen, his fists clenched at his sides. Suddenly she wished that the young man was still there, forcing her family to behave with at least some measure of decorum.
Because when he opened his palm and slapped her with such force across the cheek that her head ricocheted back and her teeth rattled in her jaw, she didn’t see it coming before it was too late.
‘You ungrateful wench,’ he spat at her as her skin ignited, and she instinctively cradled her cheek even though she wanted to pretend she was fine and that it hadn’t hurt at all. The last thing she would ever give him was the satisfaction of seeing her cower.
But in truth, she felt as if he’d cracked her cheekbone, he’d struck her so hard.
When her mother came back into the room, she went and stood beside her husband. Hope’s heart sank. She didn’t come to tend to her daughter, to wrap her arms around her and reprimand her father; to cradle her and whisper that she understood her pain. She stood beside Hope’s monster of a father, shoulder to shoulder, knowing his cruelty.
She might not have been in the room when it had happened, but her mother knew only too well the scene she’d stumbled upon.
‘You will agree to marry that young man before this time tomorrow, or you will no longer be welcome in this home,’ her father said, staring at her with cold eyes, not caring to apologise. ‘Heaven help you if he changes his mind between now and then, because it will be up to you to convince him otherwise.’
Hope sat as her father stormed from the room. She waited for her mother, imagining that she would tend to her once it was just the two of them, but her mother only shook her head and followed him, leaving Hope to lick her wounds alone. She couldn’t hate her mother for it, not really, not when she knew what her father was capable of. Her mother was stuck in this house with him, whether she wanted to be or not.
She tried to move her jaw, and pain shot through the side of her face, telling her that it might indeed be more serious than a bruise. But she didn’t have time to worry, even as tears clung to her lashes from the pain.
If he wanted her gone, then she’d go.
Because one thing was for sure—she wasn’t going to let any man lay a hand on her, father or not. She was not going to live in a house with any man who thought he had control over her, who thought he could do whatever he liked to her. She wasn’t going to become her mother.
