Theodora closed her eyes. She wished she could believe her mother’s words but they both knew that it was too late. For the first time that week, since Alexander walked away, she feltsomething warm press against the numbness inside her. Only a mother’s love could do that.
“We will not let him send you away without a fight,” Lady Dowell mumbled.
Theodora let out a slow breath and rested against her. “I do not want to go.”
“I know,” her mother whispered.
They sat like that for a long time, holding each other, two women trying to comfort one another in a house that had never truly been a home. And Theodora realized, painfully, that her mother was not just a quiet, gentle presence in the background. She was a woman who had endured heartbreak long before Theodora ever knew what the word meant.
* * *
“This is your last day with us?” Maria’s voice cracked as she spoke. Her hands froze around the teacup she just picked up.
Theodora gulped. Since she was leaving in the next week her father has allowed her to visit Evelina for the last time. She considered not telling them anything at all but as soon as they saw her, they knew something was wrong. And once Theodora started talking about it, she could not stop. It was as if a floodgate had opened. The girls were utterly shocked and hung on every word.
“Theo?” Maria asked again.
Theodora lifted her eyes from the carpet. She had been staring at the same patch of woven flowers for so long she could trace every thread. Her chest felt hollow after she explained her situation to her friends.
“Yes, it is,” she said sadly.
Anna let out a soft gasp. “Theo… no. This cannot be happening.”
Evelina was pacing the length of her drawing room. Her eyes were red and shining. She kept wringing her hands, stopping only to glare at Theodora with a mixture of hurt and disbelief.
“How could you not tell me?” she burst out. “How could you not tell me about the affair? And about you and the Duke of Hawthorne?”
Theodora flinched. She had expected this and dreaded it. But hearing it aloud still felt like a slap.
“I am sorry, Evelina,” she whispered.
“Sorry?” Evelina’s voice cracked. “You are my sister. I tell you everything.Everything. And you—” She broke off, pressing a trembling hand to her mouth. “You did not tell me any of this.”
Anna stepped between the sisters. “Evelina, breathe. Theodora has been through enough without being made to feel guilty for keeping her own counsel.”
Evelina snapped her head towards Anna. “She is being sent away to a convent because of this debacle. Because of this Scarlet Duke. If she told us?—”
“Evelina,” Maria said firmly, already moving towards the tea tray. “All of you sit down before you fall over.”
Evelina hesitated, chest rising and falling with anger, but she obeyed. She sank onto the sofa beside Theodora, who sat stiffly, hands clasped in her lap. Maria placed a plate of cakes on the table and poured tea for them with shaking hands.
“Eat,” she said. “Or at least pretend to.”
Evelina stared at the cakes, then at Theodora and her expression softened. The anger melted into something far more painful.
“Theo,” she whispered, “why did you not tell me?”
Theodora swallowed. Her voice came out thin and brittle. “Because I did not want to worry you. It felt like it would be all too real if I told you. And I thought… I thought I could handle it on my own.”
Evelina let out a choked sound and pulled her into a tight embrace. Theodora stiffened at first, then softened into her sister’s arms, burying her face in Evelina’s shoulder.
Evelina held onto her and whispered shakily, “I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry.”
Her final week in London was not going well. Everywhere she went, her emotions were heightened. She would be “exiled,” as her father so coldly put it, in just a couple of days and she had no idea how to handle it. Theodora was to be sent away to a convent where she would spend the rest of her life in silence and obedience.
Theodora felt too much to feel anything at all.
Maria, Anna, and Evelina surrounded her, and she tried not to think about how much she would miss being away from them. They filled her life with adventure and humor. And with them she did not have to conduct any experiments to know that they loved her.
