October 1812
Over the dark Atlantic, the clouds stretched the moon into a glowing smear. Marianne swayed with the rise and fall of the deck, bracing herself against the railing as she gazed at the swells of ocean below. The tang of salt burned the back of her throat with every breath. The ceaseless creaking of the ropes and boards of the ship might have irritated some passengers, but for Marianne they signalled the reiteration of a promise: that of an adventurous and joyful life just beyond the swelling sea. Perhaps there would always be some part of herself that longed for attention and fashion, one that gloried in being the newest arrival from England and therefore the proper expert on fashions in India. That was something to look forward to, but it had been dwarfed by an engrossing happiness in the life she was making now.
Her moments were special not because she was matching her life to some novel’s heroine, but because she had finally found the measure of happiness in her own standard of experience. In a way, that was heroic: to crystallise moments of joy here and there, and find the moments of her own life brimming with magic because she herself felt free to make them so in her own way, independent of others. The fact that Mr Hearn made a very agreeable husband certainly helped.
The crash of waves against the prow of the ship tossed up moonlit sprinkles over and over, like children throwing petals at a wedding. The idea brought Belinda to mind, and Marianne wondered if her sister’s wedding had been as gleeful as her own. She regretted missing it, but their ship to India had left too soon for that, and Marianne doubted Belinda would miss her much in the tumult of becoming Mrs Nabbles.
It was one family duty Marianne felt she could reasonably relinquish, considering the way she had intervened with Aunt Harriet. For her wedding present, she had begged her aunt to pay her parents’ debts. At first Aunt Harriet had balked, saying they would only expect her to do it again and run up more debts in consequence, but Marianne persuaded her aunt that limits had long since been established. Her parents would believe it a single act of generosity in honour of Aunt Harriet’s favourite niece getting married. If they ever began to encroach, Marianne was confident Aunt Harriet would put them in their place.
Aunt Harriet had found it uninterestingly sensible for the Hearns to travel to India, where Mr Hearn had made his first fortune, but Aunt Cartwright had been uneasy at first.
“There are such dreadful diseases in India,” Aunt Cartwright said, her breathy voice filled with wonder that Marianne would travel so far from what she knew. She could not understand Mr Glass going as far as Derbyshire! “You will not have me to help you. You will not even have a Mr Glass. Suppose you become ill?”
Marianne had known exactly how to reassure her. “I have a thorough understanding of my own constitution, Aunt, thanks to you.”
“Oh, well, you can do anything if you have but that, my dear.” That seemed to settle the matter for her, and Aunt and Uncle Cartwright blessed the union and the trip without fear from that point. Miss Stokes wrote a letter of congratulation, carefully worded to balance warmth with elegance. Now secure in her position as Lady Sweetser’s companion for the coming Season, the haughty young lady was again willing to open her heart. Even though Marianne knew Miss Stokes’s friendship fluctuated too much with her feelings of dominance, she kept in her heart the memory of Miss Stokes squeezing her hand and encouraging her when Belinda was missing, as proof that a genuine bond had subsisted underneath everything.
Martha’s letter was much more satisfying, albeit late. It gushed a hundred congratulations and a hundred questions, none of which the Irishwoman seemed to expect an answer to, and it even boasted of Martha’s having predicted and hinted at the romance a hundred times besides, which Marianne took as an Irish liberality of rewriting the past.
Robert, leaning on the rail beside her, took her hand, and Marianne’s thoughts turned to the future again. A few weeks more would see them disembarking in a sweltering climate and the scents of strange, bold flowers and unknown cookery. She would enjoy a few weeks of being the fresh new face from England, and then she would dive into the real life of making a place for herself with new friends and new pursuits. Somehow, the part of her life where she would unfurl the intricacies of her inner being to her friends had become more intriguing than the heady rush of acclaim among the masses. Probably few would understand and applaud her ways, but so long as she herself enjoyed them, it mattered less and less whether society bowed to her or not. She squeezed her husband’s hand.
“It is nice, is it not?” he asked, gesturing at the muddled moonlight escaping from the clouds and sliding over the waves. A commonplace, dull remark. Marianne’s novels would have demanded the flash and sparkle of outward things—sonnets delivered on bended knee, swoons of desire—and never appreciated the subtle reality of boundless love underneath ordinary remarks. But the joy leaping in Marianne’s heart found glittering crystal in every word.
“Very nice, indeed,” she said.
THE END
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Acknowledgments
Special thanks to Amy D’Orazio, Jan Ashton, Marcelle Wong, Michael Rasche, Sue Pumphrey, and Bonnie Pumphrey for their editing, publishing, other practical help, and encouragement in creating this book.
About the Author
After acquiring a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Arkansas, Elizabeth taught philosophy in the United States and co-taught English in Japan. Now she and her husband live in northwest Arkansas, the ‘garden of America’. (At least, she has only ever heard Arkansas called so.)
She dreams of visiting Surrey (if only to look for Mrs Elton’s Maple Grove), Bath, and of course, London. When she has a Jane Austen novel in one hand, a cup of tea in the other, and a cat on her lap, her day is pretty much perfect.
Elizabeth Rasche is the author of The Birthday Parties of Dragons and her poetry has appeared in Scifaikuest. Flirtation & Folly is the first book in her A Season in London regency romance series.
Coming Soon from Elizabeth Rasche
Book Two of the A Season in London series
Clementina Mowbrey has always been the mouse of the family—plain, quiet, and meek. By suppressing her own needs, she has kept the peace in a family of twelve, and she hopes for nothing better than a little peace and quiet at home. The pressure of a Season in London is the last thing she desires, and Clementina hopes she can pass through it unnoticed. But when her sister’s marriage is threatened, Clementina discovers it’s not enough to stay quiet. She must protect the secrets she discovers or unleash a torrent of scandal—all while finding her heart awakening to a new unrest of its own.
Also by Elizabeth Rasche
The Birthday Parties of Dragons (as Lisa Rasche)
In the strict society of dragons, becoming an adult means everything. For only adult dragons are fearsome enough to dazzle human minds into forgetfulness, thereby keeping dragons safely within the realms of myth and mystery.
Flirtation & Folly Page 31