Agatha’s teeth ground hard. Foolish girl. Foolish, stubborn,thoughtless...She rode this new wave of anger, grasping gratefully at the invaluable clarity of rage. “Do you love my son, Miss Brinkworth?”
Sydney started a defensive reply, but cut it off at a sharp glance from Eliza.
The apprentice squared her shoulders to face Agatha, tucking her hands behind her back like a disgraced soldier at a court-martial. “I love your son dearly, Mrs. Griffin. I expect to love him for the rest of my life.”
Agatha snorted. Such confidence meant nothing at seventeen. “Then why not marry him?”
Eliza’s reply was quiet, and sure, and utterly devastating: “Because if I made that choice, I would lose the right to make too many other choices in my life.”
Agatha’s heart all but stopped beating.
“Marriage is a legal prison, from a wife’s perspective,” Eliza went on. Softly. Inexorably. “You’ve said so yourself. And I’ve read Wollestonecraft and Godwin and Wooler, among others, and I find myself strongly persuaded against the whole institution. Your son loves me enough to trust my decision on this. I would like to continue loving him—but I can’t do that so earnestly if I marry him.”
She bestowed upon Sydney a smile of such pure and profound affection that Agatha half expected the boy to keel over on the rug from the force of it.
Eliza’s face when she turned back to Agatha was still composed, except for a slight tightness at the corners of her eyes. “I know this must be painful to hear, but I’m quite determined, and I hope that you can find it in your heart to understand in time.”
Agatha could find no reply to this. After a moment, Eliza turned away and walked down the hallway toward the dining room. Her spine was straight, her step unhurried. Everything calm and collected.
It was the calm born of unsurprise. She’d known the argument with Agatha was coming. She’d prepared for it, and now that it was here she’d weathered it, and not let it sway her from her chosen course.
Agatha would have admired that if she hadn’t wanted so badly to seize the girl by the shoulders and shake her until all her philosophical ideals fell to the floor like so many loosened hairpins.
She rounded upon her son, an equally appealing target. “What do you intend to do about this?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” Sydney replied shortly.
Agatha choked. “That is unacceptable!”
Her son’s frown deepened. “We talked about this, turned it over from every side. Formonths.She doesn’t want to marry me. It’s her choice to make. What kind of man would I be if I pressed my suit after she so firmly refused?” Sydney spread his hands, misery writ plainly on his face. “I love her. I’ll take anything she chooses to give me—but not a thing more than that.”
Agatha fumed at this, and fumed a little more when she realized he was using some of her own teachings against her. But there was one point yet to be made: “If you aren’t planning to wed,” she said, voice low and dark, “then the correct thing to do is to break off the affair entirely.”
Sydney’s long mouth twisted unhappily. “That’s not what either of us wants.”
“If your father were here—”
“He’d what?” Sydney cut her off. “Disinherit me? Throw Eliza out into the street?”
“We could find her another apprenticeship,” Agatha blurted out, desperate. It was a mistake, she knew it at once, and she kept going, anyway. “Plenty of printers in London could use someone as talented as she is—Novello, for instance...”
Sydney’s eyes blazed. “If you send her away, I’ll go with her.” His hands were fists at his sides. “I’ll go anywhere with her.”
“How about to her father?” Agatha shot back. “What will you do when he asks what your intentions are for his only daughter? What will you say when people start to whisper about you and Eliza—assuming they aren’t already—when no wedding happens—and if there is a child—”
“There won’t be,” Sydney replied staunchly.
“You can’t be certain—”
“If there is, we’ll revisit the question then.” One corner of his mouth turned up in grim amusement. “After all, we can always get married later on, can’t we?”
Agatha felt like screaming, but had to restrain it to a furious hiss. “Of all the irresponsible—”
“Enough, Mum!” Sydney cried.
Agatha’s mouth snapped shut.
Sydney huffed out a breath, fists balled at his sides. “I won’t force Eliza to place her whole life in my hands if I can’t do the same thing for her.” He skewered Agatha with a furious glare, which reminded his mother far too much of herself. “You and Father taught me that honesty was a virtue—well, I’m telling you honestly: I love Eliza, and I’m not going to marry her, and there’s nothing you can say to convince me what we’re doing is wrong.”
