“Lovely,” Amelia said, but her clipped voice told Augusta that she found it less than lovely, indeed. “Did you know that my husband beat me near to death when he discovered I wanted to attend university?”
Augusta went cold at the image. “I am truly sorry.”
Amelia cocked her head. “Not sorry enough to join the cause, though?”
There were no words that Augusta could choose which would get her out of this awkward conundrum. She looked at Dr. Pinkton for help, but he simply pursed his lips as if to say, “You are on your own here.”
There it was. If she was going to dig her way out of this hole, she was going to do it alone.
She cleared her throat.
“I simply don’t believe that we need to cast off all men. My own brother has been an excellent caregiver to me, and my husband is a good man.”
Amelia looked at her with a blunt expression. “And what if he wasn’t?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean precisely that - what if he was not a good man? What if he was cruel, or selfish, or simply believed you to be unworthy of his care? What recourse would you have, hm?”
The words stung Augusta in the way that only the truth could; deeply and without mercy.
“I…well, I do not know what I would do.”
Amelia narrowed her eyes at Augusta, who distinctly felt that she was about to receive the final blow. “You walk around as a lady of society with such proper airs because you have never known what it is like to be cast off.”
The room went so silent that Augusta was not sure anything could break through it. Then, finally, it was her own voice that managed to crack through the barrier.
“I…suppose you are right.”
She had not quite expected herself to say it, but it certainly made Amelia relax. Her shoulders dropped, and her expression softened toward Augusta.
“I only mean to say that if someone as fine as you were to speak for those as unwelcome as us, perhaps everything would be different.”
To that, Augusta could offer no denial.
Sensing that now, finally, it was time to let things cool off, Dr. Pinkton jumped in with some anecdote or another, which got the ladies focused on some topic that was no longer centered upon Augusta or titles. The women laughed together, and it had such mirth that Augusta, too, was forced to participate.
But Amelia’s harsh truth sat with her the rest of the night, so that even as Dr. Pinkton walked her back out to the courtyard later on, she found herself as distracted as ever.
“Have much to think on, do you?” he asked.
“Yes. If I am being quite honest, I truly have not given your proposal for the speech as much thought as these women deserved from me. I have thought greatly of myself first and foremost. But…oh, it is just so different now that I am married.”
She rubbed along her brow, wishing she could stamp out her own thoughts.
“I understand,” Dr. Pinkton said, much softer than his usual business-like tone toward her. “Please know that, although I wish for you to speak at the rally, if you choose not to then it will not affect our working relationship. You would still be welcomed wholly as my apprentice.”
Augusta knew that the man meant for it to be a comfort. It was, in a way, but it also served as a reminder that a man as good as him deserved great commitment from her. He deserved that speech at the rally.
But Sebastian did not deserve the inevitable wreckage.
“I shall let you know soon,” she promised, resolved to make it so. “Formally, and whatever I choose, I swear I shall see it through. Is that enough for now?”
“Yes, of course.”
At the sound of the carriage approaching, Dr. Pinkton slipped back into the shadows of the courtyard garden, leaving Augusta to her swirling thoughts.
Chapter Eighteen
