LITMIR.BIZ

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sisters of a marriageable age—would be tarnished.’

      He moved to the window, looked out, shook his head and returned to her. His smile was directed inwards, but the question in his eyes was for her alone.

      ‘Can you not think of another solution?’ she asked.

      ‘Not at this moment. If I could, I would give it.’

      His words rested in her like a wooden ball rolling down a stair, clunking to the bottom.

      ‘If you do not wish to wed,’ he said, ‘I understand. But, Sophia will be damaged if you do not. So will my other two sisters and my Aunt Emilia. My father will manage to consider Cousin Sylvester his heir. I will be tossed from my home. At least half of the servants will be without employment.’

      ‘You do not play on someone’s sympathies...do you?’ She brushed her fingertips over the sleeve of his coat. They had only met the night before, but they were not strangers. Nor friends. Nor enemies. But they had shared a moment of decisions together that few ever faced and her life would plunge one direction or the other based on her response.

      ‘And there is the fact that I found you a place to stay last night. Although I understand if you have no wish to marry,’ he said. ‘I certainly can understand that. Perhaps better than anyone.’

      That he could understand her wish not to marry ‘perhaps better than anyone’ was not a resounding push in his favour.

      ‘I must give this some thought,’ she said. ‘But you should give it a great deal more consideration as well. Marriage is about love and holding the other person in the highest esteem. At least it is for me.’

      ‘As a governess you would not be allowed to have a marriage.’

      ‘I can eventually leave a governess post. Or I might fall in love with a tutor, or stable master, or linen draper—on my half-day off. And if that person loves me back, just a little, it is more than you’re offering.’

      ‘I’m wealthy.’

      She paused. One shouldn’t marry for money. But one shouldn’t overlook funds either. ‘How wealthy?’

      ‘My children will have a governess. A tutor. And if you wed me—’ He shrugged. ‘Your children will have a governess. A tutor.’

      ‘My son would be a viscount,’ she mused.

      He frowned. ‘Bite your tongue. There is never any rush for that.’

      ‘He would. Just not until he was very old.’

      ‘So we will wed.’

      ‘My daughters would be able to have the finest things.’

      He nodded. ‘I can also ensure that you have reputable avenues for your talent. I would consider it a way of thanking you for taking on the misfortune of marriage.’

      ‘I don’t— Marriage is not such a thing.’ She turned away. ‘As your wife I wouldn’t wish to sing. That’s over for me and I can accept that easily.’

      ‘You would be giving your chance at love away, but it would enable more choices for the children you might have. A sacrifice, for sure.’

      The clouds inside her head cleared. A mother did such things, or should.

      ‘You may wed me,’ she said. She could pretend. Perhaps if she didn’t pay attention to the marriage words they would not quite count as much and she could pretend to be a governess with the children away on holiday. That could be pleasant. And she would not mind to have a little family for herself. And if the boys favoured him, oh, she would preen, and it would not be a problem for the daughters to inherit her hair colour or his.

      ‘I don’t see that either of us have many other choices. You are all the things a woman would want in a husband,’ she said, giving a smile that didn’t reach her heart. ‘And all the things she would not.’

      * * *

      Isabel sat at the writing desk which had been moved into the room. She didn’t feel like opening the ink bottle. She’d never written a letter while wearing a borrowed chemise, but the garment would do her well to sleep in and by the time she woke, her own laundered dress would be dry. She didn’t have to worry about choosing matching slippers, as she should be pleased her slippers were mostly free of the muck.

      She would be quite the lovely bride in the patched-together dress. Her marriage would take place some time the next day as William was getting the special licence and telling all his friends how delighted he was to be married.

      She could marry, or, she could go home in disgrace.

      She chose to take the stopper from the ink bottle. The letter would be easiest. She would write her parents of how wonderful everything was as she had met the man of her dreams... She shut her eyes and tapped her closed fist at her forehead. Oh, this news had to be delivered in a letter. They would never believe it if she said it to their faces.

      Or they might.

      She remembered her father picking daffodils for her mother each spring. Roses in the summer. Walking hand in hand in the crisp autumn air and calling her the best gift of his life—one he could hold each day of the year.

      Her parents loved her. She knew it. But when they looked at each other an affection shone in their faces, along with something else. It was much like a clockmaker might want to see how the mechanisms worked to turn the hands of a timepiece. Isabel had imagined how it would feel when her own husband cherished her so.

      When she had realised that she was being trained to be a governess and a governess didn’t have a husband, she’d felt tossed into a rubbish heap. She could never be loved in the same manner her parents loved each other. She’d put all of her spirit into her song the next time she sang—the very first time she had noticed tears in a listener’s eyes. Her dreams had soared. Singers could marry. They could have their own family.

      She imagined the devotion she wished for. She began to write. The man she wrote of in the letter was so deeply devoted that he could not bear to be away from his beloved one moment more. He had cherished her from afar...

      She tapped the nib against the inside of the bottle, planning just how it would have been.

      Her parents had missed one of the events where the school had let her sing, so that was where she had met William. And he had been instantly smitten. Tears had flooded from his eyes—no, scratch that. He had shed one lone, intense tear as he had thanked her for the overwhelming performance and called her a songbird. She smiled when she penned the word songbird. He had called her Miss Songbird.

      She dipped the pen again. He’d begged, yes, begged that they might correspond. She had refused, most assuredly, but he had managed to get his letters to her, and after great personal dilemma, she read them. Slowly her heart had melted—but, no, she’d insisted, she could not neglect her dream to become a governess. Over time, however, his devotion had overtaken her and she had agreed to wed.

      * * *

      William stared at the darkened ceiling in his bedchamber. The ceremony would be in a few hours.

      He’d not slept at all. He’d kept remembering the deep love his parents had had for each other and then his mother had died. The world had gone silent that night after her last breath. Then he’d had to remove her cherished ring from her finger. None of them had been the same after that night. His father began to substitute liquid for air.

      Love had destroyed his father. Took him from them in the guise of drink. But William didn’t blame his father for that weakness.

      William had heard the noises the second night after his mother’s death and crept to his mother’s room. His father had been huddled on the floor, arms around himself, rocking. He’d been crying out his wife’s name over and over.

      William had pulled the door shut and walked the hallway. Silence had followed, and permeated deep into the walls around him. In the days afterwards, he’d

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