It was his turn to shake his head in confusion. “Sorry? For what?”
“It’s my fault. I should never have come to you to begin with. I’ve ruined everything. The Jade burned because of me. Because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut about Mary.”
He grinned, which seemed about as unlikely a reaction as she could imagine. “I don’t care about the Jade.”
“But that’s not true. You care about it more than anything. You told me as much yourself. It’s everything to you.”
“I don’t care about the Jade,” he said again, the smile disappearing as he tightened his grip on her arms and dipped his head so that they were eye to eye. “I care about surviving. I can’t breathe when you’re not around. I didn’t realize I wasn’t breathing until you came back, and then suddenly, there was air.”
What was he saying? The ground beneath her was shifting so that she couldn’t find her footing.
“You were going to leave, weren’t you? To teach at Catharine’s school?”
“I heard you talking to the investors. I didn’t want to be the reason you lost the Jade. I couldn’t be.” She hung her head, unable to keep meeting his burning eyes. “But I was, anyway.”
He tilted her chin back up with one hand before returning it to its former spot on her upper arm. “I don’t care about the Jade,” he said, speaking slowly and articulating each syllable. “Everything I was looking for all these years was you. I love you.”
She began to crumple then. Was this what it was like not to fight? Did she know how to be in the world without struggle?
Somehow, impossibly, he heard her doubts, knew her fears. He spoke into her hair as he pulled her close, straightening her sagging knees as he held her against him. “We know how to survive, you and I, to fight for life. We did it before, and we’ve just done it again. I think twice is quite enough.” He kissed her hair. “Now I think we should just live. You asked me recently why I thought we survived. I couldn’t have known it at the time, but this is why I sent you away from Seven Dials all those years ago. So we could live now. Just live. We were saving each other for later.”
He pulled back and searched her eyes. “Marry me, Lucy. You needn’t give up anything. I’ll build a new hotel for you to manage if you like.”
“How? You’ve lost everything.”
“Ah, but you’re forgetting the ships. And the mines. These things make money. I can sell them, and then we shan’t need any investors this time ’round.”
“Yes, but, if you didn’t want to sell them the first time, why would you—”
“But perhaps another hotel isn’t quite the thing.” He struggled to keep his face serious as he interrupted her. “Perhaps my true calling is to carry your bags around as you crisscross the country on a speaking tour on the rights of women. You choose. It shall be as you like.”
Just as she was about to speak, to capitulate, he held up a finger. “One more thing. I promise marriage to me will not result in suicidal despair or anything like it, so if you utter a single word about Mary Wollstonecraft’s unworthy husbands, I’ll—”
Her laughter interrupted him. She reached behind her neck and unclasped her necklace, slid the Jade off the chain, and placed it on her own left ring finger.
For once, she hadn’t been thinking of Mary. She’d only been going to say: “Yes.”
Epilogue
One year later, Essex.
“Welcome to the Owl and Rose!”
Trevor looked up from his table in the inn’s tavern, where he was puzzling over a column of figures that wouldn’t quite square, to watch his wife greet their latest guests.
“Oh, it’s you!” she exclaimed, her face lighting up.
Catharine and Emily floated in on a wave of chatter and laughter—and the squalling of an infant Catharine carried in her arms. The ladies were followed shortly by the less exuberant but still smiling Blackstone and James.
Trevor got up and moved behind the bar to stand behind Lucy. A glance down showed him she had been going over the same figures that had been confounding him—and that she’d found the error. Naturally.
“I thought we were meeting for dinner later,” Lucy exclaimed, “but it’s so wonderful to see you all! You’ve been in London too long—we’ve missed you so!”
“Yes, we’re overdue for a meeting of the Essex branch of the Ladies’ Society in Support of Mrs. Wollstonecraft, aren’t we?” Emily said.
“We’ve a new plan,” Catharine called, pitching her voice so it could be heard over the insistent vocalizations of her baby daughter. “Emily and I are going to stay here while the gentlemen go hunting!”
“Assuming you have room,” said Emily, looking down at the babe with affection. The others followed her gaze, and even Blackstone’s usually taciturn demeanour softened. Trevor took advantage of the opportunity to squeeze his wife’s bottom. She jumped but did not move away. He watched the tips of her ears color. Would he ever grow accustomed to the notion that he could just touch her whenever he liked? That she was truly—and finally—his?
“Yes,” Catharine said, dragging her attention from the baby. “We’ll have an adventure—just the three of us ladies.”
“Four!” Emily said. “Don’t forget the baby!”
“Oh, but Clareford Manor will be so much more comfortable for you,” Lucy protested. “This is just a humble country inn.”
“Yes, but it’s your humble country inn,” said Catharine, handing the baby to James and shrugging out of her spencer.
Trevor couldn’t help but agree. He had sold his mines—after marrying Lucy he’d found his appetite for the relentless accumulation of wealth was simply not as voracious as it had been—and used the money to buy the inn outright. No investors, no one to make happy except themselves: it was a slice of heaven.
“It will be an adventure,” Emily asserted. The men will be out in the hunting box shooting defenseless creatures, and we’ll be cozied up here.” She grinned. “I think we should drink some ale!”
Trevor refrained from pointing out that they rarely shot defenseless animals on hunting excursions. In fact, they would very likely pass the three days languishing about Blackstone’s luxuriously appointed hunting box playing cards and drinking scotch.
“But not before I’ve had a chance to consult Lucy on the curriculum changes I’m thinking of making at the school,” Catharine said in mock sternness. “Curriculum first, ale second.”
“Before you ladies incite a revolution—or get foxed—I have some news that will interest the Baileys,” said Blackstone, producing a newspaper. He set it on the bar in front of them and pointed to a short article entitled “Galsmith Found Guilty.” As a peer, Galsmith had been tried by the House of Lords, and the story had been everywhere over the past year. Trevor and Lucy, having decamped to Essex shortly after the fire—and their marriage—had mostly ignored it, though they did have to travel back to town to give testimony.
“What’s the gist of it?” Trevor asked, not wanting to waste even a moment reading about Galsmith. The man didn’t deserve an iota of their attention.
“The gist of it is that he’s on his way to Australia,” Blackstone said.
“Good.”
“But what about his family? The girls?” asked Lucy. Tenderhearted Lucy. “They haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Galsmith’s wife was the daughter of an earl,” said Catharine. “They’ll be fine. The trial has no doubt ensured they will never be received in polite society, but they won’t starve.”
“They’ll have to make their own way,” said Emily. “Like you, Lucy.”
“Perhaps I can send them some reading material,” Lucy said, reaching down and squeezing Trevor’s hand below the bar where none of the rest of them could see.
“Yes,” Trevor said, rolling his eyes teasingly. “Perhaps you might know of a reading society they could join.”
Emily took the paper from the bar and made a point of handing it back to her husband. “What a relief to have t
hat behind us. Now, what kind of ale do you have?”
“Wait!” Lucy cried. “If you’re to be guests of the Owl and Rose, you must have the official welcome biscuit!” She turned and lifted a cloth from a basket that stood on a shelf behind the bar.
While she was distributing the treats, Trevor filched one. She’d meant to replicate the childhood treat they’d so adored in Seven Dials, but her creation had far surpassed the original.
As long as he lived, he could never get enough of Lucy’s now-famous lemon biscuits.
She shot him a look over her shoulder as she began pulling pints—she always knew when he was stealing biscuits.
He smiled through a mouthful and amended his previous thought. As long as he lived, he could never get enough of Lucy.
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Acknowledgments
Thank you to my friends Sandra Owens and Erika Olbricht for reading this book and making it immeasurably better with your good counsel. Thank you to my friend Audra North for reading my (many, many) emails and making my life immeasurably better with her good counsel. Thank you to Courtney Miller-Callihan for generalized awesomeness, as always, but also for talking about this book with me while strolling and driving around Ontario—when are you coming back? Thank you to Tracy Montoya, for once again putting her finger on what I meant to say, and leading me to say it better. And finally, thank you to Professor Lisa Disch, who introduced me to Mary Wollstonecraft many, many years ago in Intro to Political Thought. I sat silently in that lecture hall all quarter, but apparently some of it stuck. (Everything else I just made up, and isn’t her fault at all.)
About the Author
Jenny Holiday started writing at age nine when her fourth grade teacher gave her a notebook and told her to start writing stories. That first batch featured mass murderers on the loose, alien invasions, and hauntings. From then on, she was always writing, often in her diary, where she liked to decorate declarations of existential angst with nail polish teardrops. Later, she channelled her penchant for scribbling into a more useful format, picking up a PhD in geography and then working in PR. Eventually, she figured out that happy endings were more fun than alien invasions. You can follow her on Twitter at @jennyholi or visit her on the web at jennyholiday.com.
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