by Megan Bryce
Collin said, “Might I remind you that his successful trade is in India!”
George nodded. “It did not escape my notice. I also met a woman who had scraped together a life and a living when very few women can.”
Collin’s mouth fell open. “You. Are. Joking. Scraped together!”
“My point is not that I want to follow in either of their footsteps but that there are options I had no idea existed.”
Collin looked around the tiny room, then flung his arms out wide. “What options? They’re not here!”
“No, they’re not here.”
Honora didn’t get out of bed the next morning.
She felt oddly empty, as if she was floating. As if she was watching her own life disintegrate around her shoulders.
As if ridding herself of all her lies had somehow deflated her.
A maid came to check on her and Honora stayed in bed, sending her away without unlocking the door.
Aunt Beatrice knocked, and Honora didn’t want her sympathy. Didn’t want her aunt to stroke her hair and tuck her covers around her. Honora didn’t want to be comforted.
She missed breakfast, took no tea, and dozed.
She was awoken a little while later by Fanny knocking lightly on the door.
“Honora? Mr. St. Clair is here to see you.”
Honora blinked the sleep from her eyes and said to the ceiling, “How strange. Did he bring the magistrate?”
A long silence greeted her question and then finally a key was put in the lock and her stepmother pushed the door in.
Fanny looked at Honora, lying listlessly in bed, and closed the door behind her. She sat down next to Honora’s hand and said quietly, clearly worried about young ears listening when they shouldn’t, “Why would Mr. St. Clair bring the magistrate to see you?”
Honora woke up the rest of the way, thinking she might give lying up for good. Her secrets were spilling from her at an alarming pace.
Fanny shifted, jostling the bed. “There has been enough drama in this household, Honora.”
Honora closed her eyes. “I know. I’ll leave.”
“I think I would prefer the truth.”
“You really wouldn’t.”
Fanny said nothing and when Honora opened her eyes again, her stepmother was looking down at the skeleton key in her hand.
“I was only a few years older than you when I married your father and everyone told me that you would be a challenge.”
“I do so hate when I prove everyone right.”
“I’m so sorry, Honora. That I was too young to be a true mother to you after you had lost yours. That I was too overwhelmed with Temperance to see that you were in trouble before it was too late.”
Honora shifted uncomfortably. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for, Fanny. Including marrying my father.”
“I have everything to be sorry for because you have suffered, and I have raised Chastity, and not for one moment have I wished that I could change your fate because that would mean losing her.” Fanny stood up and walked toward the door, then stopped. “Thank you for her, for my brave little girl who sees the world like no one else does. Her life was worth all you lost, Honora. But if you can have it back, take it. Be brave.”
“I can’t have it back.”
“Then why is Mr. St. Clair here? With or without the magistrate?”
Ten
Honora didn’t know. And when Fanny left the room, that question hung so heavily that eventually Honora forced herself to her feet to find out.
And when she entered the sitting room, George took one look at her and jumped to his feet to wrap his arm around her waist and gently guide her to the sofa.
Fanny went to the other side of the room, leaving them as much privacy as she could without actually leaving them any.
And the woman may indeed have been happy to raise Chastity but she obviously had no intention of giving Honora any chance to do it again.
“Are you all right, Twiggy?”
Honora looked into George’s eyes. “It has been a trying couple of days.”
“I’m sorry. If I’d seen her. . .”
If he’d seen her, Honora would have had a few more years most likely but their conversation would have happened.
The ability to be where one shouldn’t was also something Honora had passed on to Chastity.
Honora leaned toward George and whispered, and was reminded of happier days when she’d sat next to him and whispered, “George, please. Whatever you’ve come for, let’s get it over with. I am utterly exhausted.”
He looked at Fanny, not very far away at all. Looked behind him at the open door.
“Perhaps we could go out to the garden. The sun will do you good.”
“There’s sun today?”
“A little. Would your siblings like to join us outside as well? I’d like to know where everyone is at all times.”
“You’ve figured us out already.”
He helped her rise. “I have.”
The girls and Freddy were rounded up and they all went outside to play in the sun.
A blanket was tucked around Honora, as if she was an invalid, and she wondered just how terrible she looked.
How empty.
George sat next to her and when everyone was visible, yet far enough away, he said, “I loved a good woman once. Not you.”
Honora smiled and closed her eyes.
“The clarification was unnecessary.”
“I loved her, and I just sat and waited for her to realize that she loved me. I just sat and watched her marry my brother. I’ve been destroyed by love twice now.”
You, and he didn’t have to say that she had been the second.
“You’ve come back for thirds?”
“I sincerely hope not. I came for the why.”
“And I’ve already told you. A few stolen minutes, two lives destroyed, and very few options.”
The bird twittered again and George waited until she opened her eyes again to say, “Minutes? Does it change anything if I wish you’d thrown away your virtue and future for at least an hour or two?”
She looked sideways at him.
He repeated, “I wish it had been worth it. I wish it had been worth all you suffered.”
Honora watched four young children running in circles around their mother, remembered how Fanny had said Chastity’s life was worth all that had been lost.
Perhaps she had been worth it.
George watched them too, and he asked, “Was your child’s life destroyed by that minute?”
“Minutes, plural. You don’t need to make it worse than it actually was.”
“You don’t need to make it worse than it actually is, either. Did you give her the best possible life out of very few options?”
Honora leaned toward him, the blanket suddenly stifling her, and she whispered hotly, “Yes. And I refuse to be so helpless ever again. I would do it all over– take bits of security from every man until I had enough. Until I would never have to make that choice again.”
“So that is the why,” he said and nodded. “Now I want to know if. I loved once, before you. And I still don’t know what was true. If she’d ever loved me back. And I don’t think she could even tell me, not now. So I want that truth. From you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “You want a liar and a swindler, someone you could have hanged at the snap of your fingers, to tell you that she really– no, really she did– loved you.”
He took a deep breath, leaning back in his seat and closing his eyes.
He nodded again and she watched him for a long moment.
“What are you doing?”
“Listening.”
Honora looked around, as if she could hear with her eyes.
“To what?”
“The birds,” he said, and Honora could suddenly hear the twittering in the tree tops.
“The wind,” he said, and Honora could hear the leaves rustling.
“The children,” he said, a
nd Honora could hear the giggles and whispers.
“You,” he said.
“I love you,” she said with all the disgust she could muster. “And it’s horrible.”
“Love is.”
“I didn’t mean to. You were going to be the last, a payment so large we’d be comfortable for the rest of our lives.”
“And then you realized you could have more as my wife.”
“And then I realized I could have everything as your wife.”
And even she could hear that. The truth.
She could have had everything with him. And here he was.
She whispered, “Why are you here?”
He opened his eyes.
He didn’t look at her, just stood up and adjusted his coat.
“Thank you,” he said.
And he walked away.
Honora huddled beneath the blanket after he left, cursing all men.
George. The six who’d come before him. And the one who’d necessitated them all.
She watched Chastity running around, playing with her sisters, and thought maybe her stepmother was right.
She’d been worth all that was lost.
You can have it back. Take it. Be brave.
Be brave? She’d be angry.
George had come here and made her say the truth to him and then he’d left?
When he loved her, the real her, in return?
The only one who ever had, and he’d left?
Honora flung the blanket off and called, “Chastity. I need your parasol.”
She’d go find him and poke at him until she had him right where she wanted. York was a small city; he’d found her, surely she could find him in return.
Her father called out behind her, “Honora,” and when she turned, there was George standing next to him.
Honora blinked and Chastity ran up to say, “Should I go get it?”
“I don’t know.”
Charles called for all his children to gather round and held his hand out to his wife and when they were all in front of him, he smiled.
“I have given my permission to Mr. St. Clair to marry Honora.”
Fanny gasped and covered her mouth, the girls squealed with delight, and Honora stood absolutely still.
“. . .You said I could marry him?”
“We had a long conversation,” he began and Honora sucked in a breath.
Her father continued over her. “And I am assured that not only does he know you very well, he also loves you.”
Fanny pulled her handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at her eyes. “Oh!”
“And I’m not going to say no to a viscount’s son, even if he is currently profession-less. He seems like a man with a plan.”
Honora finally met George’s eyes and said, “He does?”
“Oranges. And cigars.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “Steam?”
George curled his lip. “Trade. But it is better than the alternative.”
She whispered, “Marriage,” and he smiled.
“It seemed better than the alternative.”
When the girls had stopped squealing and Honora’s stepmother had stopped crying and her father had stopped thanking God for his good fortune, George held out his arm to Honora.
They walked slowly around the perimeter of the garden and when they were far enough away from young ears, Honora said, “That was the worst marriage proposal I have ever heard of; you didn’t even ask me. I think you should do it again.”
“How many times have you been proposed to, Honora?”
“Including both of yours?”
He nodded and she said, “Eight. And your two were, by far, the worst of the bunch.”
“Eight is enough.”
It was hard to argue with that even if she wanted to.
She said, “You could have told me instead of leaving me there, alone. To worry. To get angry.”
“I’ve been plenty worried and angry the last few months. I find I am more petty than I previously suspected.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. For the future.”
He glanced down at her and she said softly, “Forgive me?”
“Never. I will never forgive you for making me fall in love with you.”
She swallowed, blinking back happy tears. “Petty, indeed. Haven’t you ever read Matthew 5:7? Blessed are the merciful: for they will be shown mercy.”
He reached out, catching a lone tear with his thumb. “Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh. Luke 6:21.”
And she did.
She looked behind her, at her family watching them, and gestured at the flower beds as if they were talking about the garden.
She said, “They’re never going to leave us alone, not until the marriage deed is done, or else this would be a perfect moment to kiss you.”
“Since I am no longer a man of the cloth, that is probably for the best. You are far too tempting for me to be kissing before we’re married.”
“Father can get us a special license.”
George shook his head. “No. No special license. The banns will be read and we’ll do this right.”
She lifted an eyebrow at him because they hadn’t done anything right and he said, “Besides, it will give me time to hear from my father. I’ve proposed a business enterprise to him. If he says no, we’ll visit him after the wedding so you can change his mind.”
“Does this enterprise have something to do with your steam?”
“Our steam. We’re going to America. If my good friend Sinclair can take his bride to India and send back trinkets, I can take my bride to America and send back cigars and oranges.”
Honora stopped and blinked, and George said softly, “You can’t stay here. In York. In England. Moffat will discover all your sins and then find you. A woman does not steal a man’s honor though the opposite happens with regular frequency.”
“And you’re going to leave your home and family for me?”
“I am.”
“Because you love me?”
“Because I never truly believed in God, or his love, before you. I studied and I knew the words and I knew what I should feel, but I never did. And then I found you and realized that He’d made you just for me. He made you hardened and cynical and unafraid. He made me heartbroken and prideful and slow to forgive–”
She pointed at a tasteful grouping of trees and started walking toward them, tugging him along. “You forgot sour.”
He smiled. “Sour, too. All so that when I met you, I would be able to do anything for you. So that when I had a choice to make, I could recognize it. So that I would know the difference between no choice and a hard choice.”
“America,” she said slowly, never having considered it before. Then, “My aunt and uncle will be coming with us.”
“I have family of my own that will need to be accommodated. Collin would benefit from their older, wiser touch because he seems far too interested in the idea of American women. Although, I don’t see that they ever had much luck with you.”
“Don’t hold it against them.”
“Oh, I think I’ve placed the blame squarely where it is due,” he said and she laughed.
“I want Chastity to come to America, too. When she’s older. When she wants to. When we’re settled. I will never be her mother, I gave that up ten years ago, but I want to know her and I want her to know me.”
And then she said, truthfully, “I’m afraid I don’t even know who Honora Kempe is.”
“And I don’t think you should waste any more time on it. It is of far more importance to me who you decide Honora St. Clair will be.”
She pulled him behind the nearest tree trunk, sliding her hands inside his coat and pulling his body tight against hers.
He cupped her face with his hands, tracing her eyebrows with his thumbs and murmuring, “How was that proposal? Any better?”
She nodded, a smile transforming her face. “Much better.”
“Was that a yes?”
“Was that a question?”
“Oh, yes. My Honora.”
She sighed happily, going to the tip of her toes to meet George’s lips with her own.
Her father called her name, telling them both to come out from behind that tree, and the children giggled loudly.
The wind whipped the leaves of the trees into wild applause, the birds sang, and the sun shone brightly down on them.
And she said, “Yes.”
To George Sinclair, his wife Elinor, and their two lovely and (I am sure) wild children,
I am sorry, old friend. I will not be joining you in the east. I am, as I write this, boarding a steam ship to the west. To America.
One, it’s a shorter (thirteen days!) and faster (ten knots!) journey. And two, they make better cigars.
I’ll send you some with the birth announcement. Honora assures me there is no chance of that happening before the ship makes land, and she usually says it with cutting droll, so I am forced to believe her.
I am convinced you would love her– nearly as much as my Father does– which is reason number three we are heading to the opposite end of the world. I, at least, made certain your bride would never be tempted by me.
Your friend, in love,
George St. Clair
* * *
from To Catch A Spinster (The Reluctant Bride Collection)
Olivia Blakesley, self-proclaimed spinster extraordinaire, is quite happy with her life. She has her studies and her duties, what need does she have of a husband? With five sisters married she knows the reality does not live up to the promise, and does not need to personally experiment with the state to know she would be ill-suited to it. However, she finds herself envious of at least one aspect of marriage. But to experience the physical side of marriage, one doesn’t need a husband, all one needs is the right man. . .
Nathaniel Jenkins knows his duty. Marry a young girl from a respectable family and father an heir, no matter how cold the endless parade of suitable girls leaves him. But a shocking proposal from a scholarly spinster leaves him wondering if unsuitable is just what he’s looking for. Can he convince his spinster that marriage is the greatest experiment of all?