Chapter 3 A House of Pretenses

Beatrice

By the middle of breakfast, I had begun to understand that the Fitzgerald family possessed a particular genius for watching without appearing to watch.

Every time Abel leaned toward me, every time his hand brushed mine, every time I answered him with a calm smile instead of the truth, I could feel their attention sharpen and settle. They looked at us the way people look at a painting they have already decided to admire. A handsome bridegroom. A quiet bride. A marriage arranged neatly enough to hide the scandal that had come before it.

Abel played his part well. He drew out my chair, asked whether I would take tea, and once, when Lady Odessa's gaze lingered too closely on me, rested his hand lightly over mine as though it belonged there. To anyone else, it must have looked tender. To me, it felt like stage direction.

Still, I played my part well enough. I smiled when spoken to, answered carefully, and lowered my eyes at the proper moments. If I had learned nothing else in my parents' house, I had at least learned how to survive a meal under inspection.

The rest of the day passed more quietly than I had expected. People minded their own affairs. Or pretended to. Lady Odessa disappeared into some business of the household, the elder Fitzgeralds retreated to their rooms, and the servants moved through the halls with such discretion one might almost believe the house ran on silence alone.

By late afternoon, I found myself in the garden with the strange relief of a woman who had endured her first day in a new home and discovered it had not yet swallowed her whole.

The air was cool, the last gold of evening thinning across the lawns. Gravel crunched softly beneath my shoes as I walked between clipped hedges and pale roses beginning to close for the night. From here, the mansion looked almost lovely, its tall windows catching the fading light, its stone walls softened by ivy and distance.

Today was not so bad, I thought. Which was, perhaps, the saddest measure by which to judge a marriage.

"Mrs. Fitzgerald!"

I turned. A young woman hurried toward me across the path, lifting her dress just enough to keep from tripping. She was slight and fair, with bright eyes and the air of someone whose thoughts traveled faster than her manners.

"Julia," she said, as though I ought already to know her. "Though I suppose I must say Sister now, mustn't I? That sounds dreadful. I should rather call you Beatrice, if you do not mind."

"I do not mind," I said.

"Good. I should hate to begin our acquaintance with stiffness. There is already far too much stiffness in this family, and most of it wears my mother's face."

Against my will, I almost smiled. Julia saw it and beamed. "There. I knew you looked like a person who might be coaxed into life."

"I was not aware I looked dead."

"Not dead. Only newly married." That sobered me at once, though Julia seemed not to notice.

"I wanted to speak to you earlier," she said, falling into step beside me. "But breakfast after a wedding is always dreadful. Everyone stares and pretends not to. Aunt Lenora kept looking at you as if she expected you to blush, which is very silly, considering..."

She stopped. 

I turned to her. "Considering what?"

Julia bit her lip. "Oh dear. I have done exactly what I always do."

"And what is that?"

"Speak before I know whether I ought."

A pause opened between us. Then she said, more quietly, "You do know about Abel." It was not a question.

"I know enough," I said.

Julia's expression changed at once. The careless brightness dimmed into pity.

"Oh," she said. "Then it is true. They forced this on you both." A sharp little hurt moved through me. Not because I had not known it already, but because hearing it from someone else made the humiliation plainer.

"And your family knew?"

Julia looked away toward the hedges. "Of course they knew."

The words landed harder than I had expected.

"And still they insisted on a wife."

"They insist on many things," she said with a small shrug. We walked a few steps in silence.

"They say he is weak," Julia went on. "That he is too soft, that he does not command a room the way Elwin does. Mother says a man who cannot master himself cannot expect to master anything else."

For the first time all day, I felt something shift beneath the neat misery of my own thoughts. I was still angry, still hurt, still humiliated. But now another feeling crept in beside them, the reluctant understanding that Abel, for all the damage he had done me, had not escaped this house unscathed either.

"I should not have said so much," Julia murmured. "You must think me unbearable."

"Not unbearable," I said. Only dangerous, I thought.

Julia brightened again at once. "Well, that is a mercy. I had hoped we might be friends. There are so few interesting people here, and fewer still who look as though they might survive Mother."

I let out the smallest breath that might almost have been a laugh.

"I had better go," she said. "If I am late, they will say I have been climbing trees again, and unfortunately this time I have not."

Before I could answer, she leaned closer and lowered her voice.

"For what it is worth, I am sorry."

Then she was gone, all quick steps and loose words, vanishing back toward the house. I remained where I was, staring after her.

They had known. All of them, in one measure or another, had known.

---

The fire had long since burned low. The house had gone quiet around me, settling into the soft groans and whispers of old wood after midnight. I sat at the edge of the bed in my silk nightgown, staring at nothing. Sleep would not come.

At last, I rose, reached for my robe, and tied it tightly around my waist. If I could not rest, I might at least breathe. The air in the chamber felt close, heavy with roses and things better left unremembered.

I slipped into the corridor as quietly as I could.

My bare steps made almost no sound on the carpet. I kept one hand closed over the neck of my robe as I made my way toward the terrace doors at the far end of the passage. At the corner, I nearly ran into someone.

I caught my breath. A man stepped back at once, lowering his head. He was dressed plainly, dark haired, broad shouldered, with the look of one of the household servants.

"Forgive me, ma'am," he said quickly.

"No, it was my fault," I answered.

He glanced up then, only briefly, and there was something steady in his face, something alert but kind.

"Good night, ma'am."

"Good night."

I moved past him without another word and continued down the corridor. The terrace doors opened with only the slightest sound. Cool night air met me at once, brushing my face and lifting the loose strands of hair at my neck. I stepped outside and drew a long breath. I had only just reached the balustrade when a voice behind me said,

"Pretty little bride."

I turned too quickly. One of Abel's uncles stood a few paces away, broad through the middle and flushed in the face, his evening coat strained over his pot belly, his smile loose with drink. I recognized him from the table, though I had done my best not to.

"I wondered where you had wandered off to," he said. I stepped back. "I was just returning inside."

"So soon?" His eyes moved over me in a way that made my skin crawl. "A new bride ought not spend so much time alone."

"I assure you, sir, I am quite capable of deciding how to spend my time."

He laughed. "Sharp too. Abel does like a challenge, then?"

The remark turned my stomach. I moved to pass him, but he shifted into my path with surprising quickness for a man of his size.

"Forgive me," I said, my voice cooling. "You are blocking the way."

"And if I am?"

The wine on his breath reached me before his hand did. He caught my wrist. For one stunned second, I could only stare at him. Then I pulled hard. "Let go."

Instead, his fingers tightened.

"Come now," he said, lowering his voice as if we shared some private jest. "No need to act offended. A woman knows what she is about when she walks alone at this hour."

Rage flared so fast it burned through fear. I twisted, but he only stepped closer, his damp grip biting into my skin.

"Unhand me."

"Your husband is too cold blooded to appreciate you," he murmured. "That much has always been plain."

Something in me went still. Then very calm. I lifted my free hand as if to push him away. He leaned in. And I drove my knee upward with all the force I had.

The breath burst out of him in a strangled sound. His grip vanished at once. He doubled over, both hands flying downward, his face gone purple with shock.