“Months?” She laughed. “I’ve already phoned all the major newspapers to announce the engagement, and I wired Lord Cumberland to tell him the happy news.”
“Don’t you think that’s a bit premature?” Father asked.
“Premature?” She frowned. “How so? We’re already behind schedule. The wedding is six short weeks from now.”
“Six weeks?” I stood, bumping the massive table with my thighs. Pain shot through my body, but I didn’t care. “I will not marry him in six weeks. That’s impossible. I said at least a year.”
“Yes, you will.” She stared at me. “Your father heard you agree.”
“She agreed if we postpone,” Father reminded her.
Mother frowned. “I didn’t hear her say that.” She waved her hand. “Besides, it’s too late. The newspapers have already been given the wedding date, and Lord Cumberland has already purchased his passage to arrive on July 29th. We cannot postpone now without his consent, or so the agreement says. The wedding will happen in six weeks, whether you want it to or not, my pet.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She’d manipulated me. It had all been an incredible act. She’d lost so much weight and had been in bed for weeks. Dr. Payne had even been convinced. I could hardly believe the commitment she’d given to her cause.
I’d been a fool.
“Was all of it a lie?” Father asked, breathing heavily.
“A lie?” Mother lifted her nose at him. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Were you truly sick, or was it part of your scheme to get Libby to agree?”
“I was sick at heart at her ungratefulness.”
She leveled an icy glare at me, and I knew in that moment that she did not love me. She was incapable of love. All she understood was using people to get what she wanted. Wasn’t that why she’d married Father, to get ahead in life? Wasn’t that why she had promised me to an English marquess, so she could climb the social ladder?
She took a delicate sip of her soup and closed her eyes briefly, as if savoring the flavor. “It’s already been announced. The plans have been laid. Unless you want your family to be humiliated and financially ruined, Elizabeth, you will keep quiet and do your part.”
“This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?” I threw my cloth napkin down on my bowl of soup. “All this time I thought I had been spared, but you were conniving to get me to agree.”
“You’re too soft. You must work on that before you’re married,or Lord Cumberland will walk all over you.” She looked at Father out of the corner of her eye. “Some men are easier to get around than others.”
Father also stood and threw his napkin on the table. He strode out of the dining room without another word.
“I refuse to let this happen,” I told her.
“Oh, do sit down, Elizabeth. You’re making a scene in front of the staff.”
“I won’t go through with it. You can’t make me.”
“Well,” Mother said, dipping her spoon into the soup again, “perhaps you could try running away, but I fear you would face a far greater calamity if you took to the streets. The staff have already been told to watch your every move, and I still have the power to dismiss Edith without a reference if she’s foolish enough to help you. She’ll be ruined along with you, and her plight will be even worse than yours.” She lifted the spoon to her thin lips and took a sip. “So you must accept your lot in life and look forward to becoming a marchioness in six short weeks. I know I will.”
I wouldn’t allow it to happen. I had options—surely. Father would not let this happen.
“Remember,” Mother said to me as I started to walk out of the dining room, “I can make your life miserable.”
More so than she already had? It was hard to believe, but it was true.
I left the dining room to beg Father for his help. Mother had won the battle, but he and I would win the war.
11
WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA
AUGUST 1, 1774
I sat on one of the Windsor chairs in our sitting room, Mama pacing the floor as I stared at the table. Rebecca and Hannah had been sent to help Mariah and Abraham weed the gardens, and Louis and Glen were already at work in the printing room. That left Mama and me some space and time to talk.
