by Lucia Ashta
Samuel shrugged noncommittally.
A minute passed in silence while I gathered the courage to ask what I wanted to next. I nibbled on the inside of my lip. We watched some birds pecking at the ground, searching for food. “Do you know what my parents are receiving in exchange for our union?”
“I do.” Even though I wasn’t yet familiar with Samuel’s ways, it sounded like he was trying to keep aversion from his voice. “Father has entered the King’s favor as of late. The King has already promised him a new title. The Duke of Luchesy opposed the King’s new taxation policies, and so the King is stripping him of his title and his lands.”
“I see.” And I did. That meant that the Count of Chester would soon become the Duke of Luchesy. If Samuel was in line to become a duke, then as his wife, I would be in line to become a duchess. Father and Mother dreamt of being the parents of a duchess.
“My parents are selling me off for land and wealth. Your parents are selling you off for a title and the King’s favor.” He laughed a bitter laugh. It was in that instant that I decided I liked him—or, at least, that I would learn to like him. Neither one of us appreciated what our parents were doing to us, nor did he seem to appreciate the cutthroat tactics of the nobility.
He turned toward me. The sun filtered between distant tree branches to freckle his face with light. “The pairing could have been worse though. Right?”
His smile was a timid entreaty. “I think we could learn to like each other, regardless of titles and obligations.” Even though he didn’t pose this last part as a question, it was one. Would I be willing to give our union a real chance and make the best of a difficult situation?
He waited for an answer, tension creeping back into his limbs the longer I took to reply.
Finally, I smiled. “Of course. We can find a way to make this work. As you say, it could have been worse. Much worse.”
“You have no idea. My parents tried to arrange marriages with other girls before you. All the alliances fell through. Thank God. I met the girl that was to be my fiancée in the most recent marriage negotiations.”
“What was she like?”
“Oh she was terrible. Well, perhaps not terrible, but I was terrified at the thought of a life with her.”
“Why?” Unlike most young ladies in my position, I didn’t enjoy gossip. Still, I couldn’t resist my curiosity.
“All she spoke of was the latest fashion, her hair, her makeup, and the silly comings and goings of those in our social circle. When my parents took me to meet her, she spent an entire half-day speaking of a scandalous affair at the King’s court. I thought I would die from boredom and acute lack of interest right then.”
I smiled, this time a genuine one. He smiled back, mimicking my warmth.
“Why did your parents reject her, and the other prospects, as your bride?” I asked, although perhaps the answer was an obvious one.
Samuel shrugged. “I think it had much to do with your father making mine the better offer. Now it will probably be my brother’s fate to marry that girl. As soon as Father marries me off, he’ll be onto Winston next.”
“Oh, poor Winston then. If this girl is as trivial as you say she is.”
Samuel tensed, inexplicably, I thought. “Yes, well, Winston can take care of himself. I’d worry more about the girl than him. I’ll pity whichever unfortunate girl ends up marrying my brother.”
I turned to him, green eyes alive with inquisitiveness. I didn’t connect much with three of my sisters, the middle ones, but I liked them even though we were different from each other. Samuel didn’t sound as if he liked Winston at all.
Samuel shrugged again in answer to my unspoken question. “He’s unkind,” he said, then looked away, beyond the manicured shrubbery of the gardens, gazing at memories of other times. “He’s always been quite purposefully cruel to me and our younger sisters. Even when he was a boy. I’m two years older than him, but he’s the bully in the family. He’s always had this mean streak in him. He enjoys causing others pain.”
There was a long pause while I considered how fortunate I was to have the five sisters I did. Sure, we fought just like any siblings did. But none of my sisters had ever done anything to hurt me on purpose.
Samuel visibly reined himself in from unpleasant recollections. “Thankfully, Winston has nothing to do with our alliance. And I’ll have no interest in continuing any kind of relationship with him once we’re married. If we’re lucky, once you meet him at the wedding, neither one of us will ever have to see him again.”
I nodded, not knowing what else to do in response to this terrible brother I hadn’t heard of until just then.
Samuel grew silent again for another minute, and when he continued speaking, he was wistful. “I’d given up on thinking that my future wife might be someone whose company I’d enjoy.”
“You’re the first of my potential suitors that I’ve met.”
“Let’s hope I’m also the last.” He reached a hand toward mine, snuck a glance behind his shoulder—no sign of Maggie catching up to us—and squeezed and held my hand in his. “I think that we may enjoy a life together.” A pause while he searched my eyes. “Do you?”
With the sun hitting them, his eyes were the color of Father’s favorite brandy. “I do.”
Samuel grinned. “Good. Then that’s settled.”
It was a futile attempt at reclaiming a bit of the power our parents had taken from us. We were going through motions that would have no effect on our parents’ negotiations, but it still felt nice to think we had some choice in the matter that would determine so much of our future.
Samuel bounced up from the bench we sat on, pulling me up with him. “Now, why don’t you show me a bit more of the gardens before your lady’s maid finds us?”
He led me by the hand into the hedge-trimmed labyrinth. I followed, giggling. We were two children at play, locked into the roles of adults by our parents.
We separated in the labyrinth, hiding from each other, tumbling into shrubbery and losing our way, and then finally laughing until our sides hurt when we discovered each other. Our cheeks flushed pink as much from excitement as from the cold.
In the late afternoon, we took a carriage ride through the countryside, bundled in blankets. We ignored the scenery as Samuel told stories of his childhood, and I relished the adventures only boys were allowed to have.
“Don’t worry,” Samuel had promised, “once we marry, I’ll teach you how to fish. We can slip away without telling anyone where we’re going. When we are lord and lady of our own house, we won’t have to give any explanations about anything. We can spend our days fishing if we want to.”
“Really? That sounds fabulous. Mother never lets my sisters or me do anything fun. We’re only allowed to do ‘ladylike’ things. And I’ve discovered that ladylike activities are rarely fun.”
“We can spend our days fishing and traipsing through the mud if you desire it.” Mischief flashed across his face, and I realized it was unlikely that he’d been allowed to traipse through the mud much either. If his parents were anything like other counts and countesses I’d met, children were meant to be kept mostly out of sight and always impeccably proper and clean.
Samuel instructed the driver to pull over by a small pond. We fed ducks some bread Samuel had stashed in his pocket with the hope of finding exactly these interested parties. When the bread ran out, Samuel took my hand, and we ran away from the ducks together.
The ducks followed us all the way up the hill to the carriage before they relented, which was a good thing, because neither Samuel nor I could stand straight from so much laughter. We would have been easy pickings for a belligerent duck.
Even Maggie, sitting next to the driver up front, had a smile on her face as Samuel helped me back onto my seat. When the driver turned the horses back toward Norland, the sun began to set, coloring the sky and my heart with hopeful colors.
When Father sent Samuel and me to the library again that night, we didn�
��t sit on different armchairs as we had the night before. We shared a loveseat, though we sat at an appropriate distance from each other under Maggie’s supervision—with the knowledge that a parent could walk into the library at any time.
We settled comfortably into the stuffed upholstery and the knowing that good fortune had finally shone upon us. Our parents would obligate us to marry, but we would enjoy pleasant companionship and a chance at a good life together.
When the guests’ carriage pulled away the next morning, Samuel waved to me out the window. I watched the carriage long after Father and Mother had gone in, until Samuel’s face became a speck in the distance and I could no longer see his smile. Then the horses turned at the end of our long drive and pointed toward Chester.
Chapter 4
I’d grown used to the idea: Samuel and I would marry in springtime. Mother and the Countess of Chester were consumed with the punctilious details of a wedding celebration worthy of our status, exchanging almost daily correspondence with an urgency I didn’t share.
My life hadn’t changed at all in the present. My days were occupied with the usual lessons—geography, literature, Latin, French, Italian, and piano—under the tutelage of our demanding governesses. My sisters and I were escorted outside for fresh air in the afternoons, allowed to remain in the gardens for longer than before now that the days were beginning to warm up. Spring was just around the corner.
In the evenings, our governesses led us through interests appropriate to young women with the destinies we all shared thanks to our birth: to become good wives of the nobility. We embroidered flowers on all sorts of doilies while our governesses reminded us that we should learn to find fulfillment in these kinds of things.
But even as my life hadn’t changed in the immediate, the idea of my future loomed above me with all the threat of dark and foreboding clouds, harbingers of a violent thunderstorm. As much as I liked Samuel and was at ease knowing I’d escaped a much worse fate with a much worse groom, there was no denying the nearly-constant jumble of nerves in my stomach.
My life was about to become nearly unrecognizable.
Our entire family would travel to Chester. I would marry, and only my parents and sisters would return to Norland Manor. I’d remain behind to begin a life with my new husband. I would be under the tutelage of my mother-in-law, and she would teach me the duties of the wife of a potential future count and duke.
I had no more of a say in the planning of my future than I did of my present or my past. However, I’d managed one small victory. Although to Mother it was next to nothing, a decision she made quickly for reasons entirely free of emotion, it meant the world to me.
Maggie and I had gone over how I would say it dozens of times. I practiced precisely what I would say and precisely how I would say it. However, as I prepared to knock on the open door to the study where Mother was bent over her desk writing the Countess of Chester, my nerves wouldn’t settle. All of a sudden, my collar felt too tight, my corset unbearably oppressive, and my palms sweaty.
I knocked. Without looking over her shoulder, Mother told me to wait a minute. That minute expanded into at least thirty in my mind before Mother gave me her full attention and gestured for me to take a seat next to her.
“What is it, Clara?”
“Well, Mother, I, um, was hoping to speak with you about something.”
“How many times do I have to tell you, Clara? ‘Um’ is so unladylike. Omit it from your speech.”
“Yes, Mother.”
She cast a regretful glance at the correspondence I interrupted before sitting back in the high seat of her chair and folding her hands across her lap.
Her eyes were fixed on me. A rivulet of sweat began to snake its way along the bones of my corset.
“I was thinking, perhaps it would be a good idea for Maggie to accompany me once I settle at the Court in Chester.”
Mother arched her eyebrows. I hurried on. “Maggie knows so much about the ways of the nobility, having been guided by her mother, your own lady’s maid, who learned it all from you. Maggie would help me with how I should dress and behave once I marry Samuel. She would make sure that I adjust to the Court there well.”
Mother’s face was immutable.
“I trust Maggie to always guide me in a way that supports my best. And the family’s, of course.”
Something crossed Mother’s eyes then, and I secretly commended myself for thinking to add the point about Maggie being able to guide me toward the well-being of my parents whom I represented even after I married. Maggie and I hadn’t discussed my saying this in all our rehearsals. But of course it would all come down to this. How did my actions and choices benefit Mother and Father? Wasn’t that what all my life had been about?
“Perhaps you have a good point, Clara,” Mother said, as if that was unexpected. “The ways of the court and the nobility have never mattered enough to you. It’s as if you have no idea how fortunate you are to lead the life of a lady.
“Having Maggie there with you can only help. You’ll need to be very careful to do exactly what is expected of you as Samuel’s wife. It’s imperative that everyone at Court accept you so that your transition into your future life and its titles will be guaranteed.”
Mother studied me, and I did my best not to wonder what she saw as her eyes swept me up and down. “Yes, Maggie will go with you to Chester.”
She turned her attention back to her letter. “Shouldn’t you be studying right now, Clara?” she said to her desk.
I retreated from the study, confused. I’d achieved the small victory I set out to accomplish, yet I didn’t feel victorious. Around Mother, I never did.
Maggie would have to leave her mother and everything familiar to her behind, but she thought the change of scenery might be good. She’d never ventured far from Norland.
“Perhaps I’ll meet a boy there that likes me, and he and I will marry.” She and I were behind the closed doors of my chambers, where Maggie became a different person. “Wouldn’t that be amazing, Milady?”
I didn’t think marriage was much to look forward to, but Maggie saw it as an escape from a life spent attending to others. It made me sad, and I wished I could do more for her than share encouragement I didn’t believe in.
“I will be very happy for you to meet a boy you can love and marry.” I mentioned love; she hadn’t. She considered me a romantic for thinking love played any part in marriage. But what kind of life would it be if it were devoid of love? “And I do hope you meet him at the Court in Chester. It will be so very nice to have a friend there. I’ll miss home terribly, especially Gertrude.”
I was trying not to think too much about what it would be like to leave my favorite little sister behind. Just remembering that I only had a few more weeks to share with her made me anxious.
Of course, I would miss my other sisters too, but Gertrude and I shared something that we didn’t with the others. She and I were similar. We yearned for excitement in life. We found beauty and intrigue in that which our sisters did not.
Gertrude and I had spent countless hours together—when our governesses deemed it appropriate—in the garden and lakeside. We examined plants and animals with an enthrallment our sisters didn’t understand.
“I think I’ll like to stay at the court in Chester, Milady. Chester sounds interesting, and I’ve never gone from home before.” Maggie’s eyes were dreamy. I envied that she could look forward to what I dreaded.
Even knowing that Samuel was a nice boy didn’t make it much easier to leave the only home I’d ever known and the sister I loved more than anyone else.
“I wonder what he’ll be like,” Maggie said in a wistful voice I didn’t hear often.
“Who?”
“The boy I’ll marry, silly! I mean, Milady.”
I smiled softly. I’d asked Maggie to stop calling me “milady” while in my chambers many times, but she insisted. She feared that she might get overly used to it and address me improperly in publi
c. I didn’t like the formality between us, but I couldn’t blame her. Mother dealt with impropriety harshly, and I didn’t wish her attention on Maggie.
“Well, he’ll be handsome, of course,” I indulged her. “He’ll be kind and fun. And he’ll have lines that crinkle around his eyes from so much laughter and sunshine.”
“Yes! He’ll be all of that!”
“And he’ll like to kiss you under the moonlight,” I teased, but Maggie loved it. Her wistful eyes grew rounder, and she was lost to her dreaming.
Then there was a knock at the door.
Maggie jumped up from her usual seat next to the hearth, straightened her uniform, and opened the door with her composure properly in place.
The woman on the other side of the door looked very much like Maggie, although age had softened her features. Years of service had taught her to accept her life as it was and to find joy wherever she could.
“Hello Margaret,” she said with a smile.
“Hello Mum.”
“The Countess would like to see Lady Clara as soon as possible.”
Maggie nodded. “Yes, Mother. I’ll tell her now.”
The woman’s kind eyes clouded over. “There has been news from the Court at Chester.”
“Mother? You called for me?” I stood at the entrance to her chambers.
“Yes, Clara. Come in.
“Take a seat. Warm yourself by the fire.”
Mother searched my eyes. Had I heard the news already? “We received a missive from Chester this morning.”
A flutter of hope rose within me. Maybe it was a letter from Samuel for me.
“There has been a change in circumstances with the Count’s eldest son, Samuel.”
Hope forgotten, I waited for it. I struggled to keep my body from shaking with nerves and emotion. I knew my parents’ ways too well.
Mother turned to look out the window as she continued. “One of Samuel’s earlier prospects has unexpectedly come into wealth and the Count and Countess of Chester find themselves obligated to entertain a new offer the girl’s family has made them. The family is able to offer the House of Chester substantially more than we are.”