Page 40 of The Gentlewoman Author

She couldn’t remember the question. All she knew was that she and Daniel sat across a table, leaning toward one another, and neither of them was breaking eye contact.

“I was thinking of my late husband.”

Daniel sat up and crossed his arms, the spell broken. Mary didn’t know how to reclaim the moment, so she plowed forward. “If we hadn’t moved to Ireland, my life may have been different.”

Daniel nodded. “I know how that feels. I don’t know where I would be if I had not gone into banking.”

“Do you wish you’d done something else?”

“No. But I regret leaving on poor terms with my father.”

He leaned forward again, his arms crossed over the table. She’d brought him close again. To hold him there, she began talking, not knowing what made her divulge her life to him. “I nursed a grudge against my mother, and she died before I could reconcile with her.”

Daniel’s eyes understood, and he gave her a tight half-smile.

“It’s a healed wound and doesn’t carry the sting it used to. In my heart I’ve come to peace with her.” It also helped that her mother didn’t know that she embarrassed Mary.

The females ought to maintain a behavior toward men which will keep themselves safe without offending the men; looks that forbid without rudeness and oblige without invitation. They must leave no room for the saucy inferences that men’s vanity suggests to them upon the least encouragements.

The Whole Duty of a Woman, An Infallible Guide to the Fairer Sex, 1737