Rose’s gut twisted. “I was certain you would have heard the whole sordid tale.” When Abby shook her head, Rose exhaled through pursed lips. “Fern met a student from Oxford at our family’s ball and was smitten, but he thought he was dancing with me the entire night. Despite her feelings, Fern thought he would suit me better and encouraged him to court me instead. Alex was kind and clever, and I thought he was going to propose. He had been helping Fern prepare for her university entrance exams the entire time, but they never told me. She—they—” She swallowed hard. “They fell in love. And they left me.”
Fern had sent letter after letter from the moment of her betrayal, first begging for Rose to attend their wedding—a ridiculous request, what was she thinking!—then to see her off to Boston, where Fern would study maths. Rose never believed her twin would leave without her, let alone cross the ocean and stay there. Letters postmarked from Boston arrived weekly, then slowed to monthly. Three months ago, after Rose refused to see Fern when she and Alex had visited their families in England, the letters stopped altogether.
Her parents and sisters had no issue welcoming Fern back into the fold when she visited that summer, as though she had done nothing wrong. Her mother begged Rose to come around, to forgive her sister so they could be a family again. But Rose had beenwronged, and she would not be made to look like a fool. As long as Rose could hold on to her anger, she could ignore the question constantly pulsing in the back of her mind.
Why was I so easy to leave behind?
Abby dropped the skirt she was folding and took Rose’s hands, squeezing them gently. “I’m so sorry, Rose.”
“I’m not.” Rose released Abby and cleared her throat. “And I, of all people, would never judge your choices.”
“I am surprised you haven’t married,” Abby said. “My mother wouldn’t stop talking about you during my first season, how beautiful you were, how you were certain to be the most desired debutante in memory. I, unsurprisingly I suppose, was an abject failure in society.”
Rose feigned nonchalance with a shrug of her shoulder, but a dart of pain landed in her chest. Her first season had been a dizzying array of ballrooms, dances, an endless stream of callers that left her flat. Her mother insisted Rose was still recovering from Fern’s betrayal and encouraged her to try again. In the following year, dozens of boring, pasty gentlemen lined up to ask her to dance. Every one praised her beauty and poise, cataloged each feature as though her eyes, her hair, her swan-like neck was the sum of her worth. She never let any man claim a second dance. Her mother was the only one surprised when Rose did not receive an offer of marriage.
When the season came to a blissful end, her family was on the brink of financial ruin and the society pages had turned on her. She’d become a joke to the very people she lived to impress. A lifetime of belonging in a space that would discard her as soon as she failed to meet its exacting standards.
“My mother and father are forcing me to marry,” she said. Abby was the first person Rose had said the words to out loud.
“They’reforcingyou?“ Abby’s hazel eyes, so like Fern’s they were painful to see, were wide.
“Well, strongly encouraging. They think if I marry well, my husband could solve our financial problems, or at least remove me as a burden. Either I marry or they’ll banish me to Hampshire to become my great aunt’s responsibility.” She hated the lack of fight in her voice, as though she’d already accepted her fate. For all their talk of wanting Rose to find love as they had, her parents were quick to discard her desires when their own needs became more pressing.
Abby huffed. “What bunk. A husband would be the worst type of burden.”
“Agreed,” Rose said, although she didn’t believe herself entirely. The notion of someone who was a partner, someone who would swear to love and cherish her, to choose her above all others… Well, so far, everyone who claimed to love Rose had chosen someone else over her. What was to prevent a husband from doing the same?
“There is an arrangement of sorts, more of an expectation, that I’ll marry Lord Timothy when I return. He’s newly come into his title as Marquess of Trembly.”
Abby wrinkled her nose. “Is Timothy the gangly one with the tawny hair that used to throw frogs at your older sisters?”
Rose laughed. “The very same.”
“Well, I assume he no longer tosses amphibians to interact with ladies if you plan to marry him.”
“I adore him, but not romantically.” Rose shifted on the bed. “We get on well, but…”
“You hold no attraction for him.”
Rose sighed with relief. “Not a bit. It wouldn’t be an unpleasant marriage—”
Abby smirked. “Except in the bedroom.”
The thought of lying with Timothy made Rose’s gut lurch. With his lanky build and golden hair, he was obviously handsome, but she saw him only as a friend. The heart of their friendship lay in knowing she would never desire him, nor would he ever desire her. Knowledge of each other’s secrets bound them together.
“How did you know,” Rose said, keeping her eyes down, “that you were… attracted to Cass?”
Abby barked out a laugh and dropped the blouse she was folding onto the bed. “As soon as I saw her, I couldn’t keep myself out of the kitchen. I made up excuses to be in there when she was cooking, then insisted I needed lessons. I would intentionally make mistakes to prolong our sessions.” She giggled, then flopped back on the bed, disrupting piles of laundry. “I was certain she despised me, but was only being polite because I was a lady of the household. But one night…” Abby squealed and wrapped her arms around herself.
“Have you always felt an attraction to women?”
“Definitely.” Abby threw Rose a grin as she sat up and started fixing the laundry she had mangled. “I had a young governess when I was twelve and I couldn’t stop staring at her bubbies. When I saw her bare legs one day, I could barely form complete sentences for a week. I suppose I realized then that my tastes may lie beyond the male variant of our species.”
Rose forced a smile and fiddled with the button on her sleeve as unwelcome jealousy burned. She had never experienced that thrill of attraction towards another person, the absolute knowledge of wanting someone completely. She was perpetually left cold and disappointed.
“Is Violet well?” Abby asked. “What of Lily and Marigold?”
Rose winced. “They’re well.” This statement about her sisters’ wellbeing had crossed from slightly untrue to a downright lie. Lily and Marigold were miserable in their marriages, and Violet…
