“Yes, Mr. Markham. And I wanted to give you my most sincere thanks—”
“I don’t want your thanks. This is not going to be an easy place for a young woman to live. It’s dark and hardly modern, and I’m afraid that grief and isolation have turned me into a creature of baser needs, not capable of entertaining young ladies and certainly not capable of polite company.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. “My condolences for your loss.”
He leaned forward suddenly, eyes glittering like glass. I noticed his port was drunk; I raised mine to my lips and savored the sweet, spicy taste. “Did you know her well?” he asked. “My late wife?”
“No.”
He leaned back in his seat. “I see.”
“We met as girls. I remember her being lovely and…vivacious.” That was the kind word for girls who smoked cigars and kissed village boys, right?
He stood abruptly, going to pour himself another glass of port. “Vivacious. Yes. She was that.”
“Mr. Markham, please allow me to express my gratitude for your hospitality. Were it not for your kind offer, I would have nowhere to go.”
“No other family at all?”
“There was talk of a half-aunt in India, but she never answered our letters and it wasn’t known if she was even still living. At any rate, I’d never met her and she didn’t know me from Eve. I don’t know that she would have taken me in even if she were still alive.”
He sat again. “So you would have had to work.”
No sense in dissembling. “Yes.”
“As a governess?”
“Yes.”
“And would you have detested it?”
I took another sip. “Yes. But not for the reason you are thinking. I am not afraid of work. But I am afraid of being trapped.”
“Trapped?”
I made to answer, but then Mrs. Brightmore entered in again, clad in a nicer, newer dress. In the better light, I could see that she was younger than I originally supposed; like Mr. Markham, she seemed to be in her early or mid-thirties. It was the severity of her face and mien that made her seem so like the middle-aged housekeepers from the dour modern novels that my brother had loved to read.
“Supper is ready, sir,” she said.
“I’ll take it in here.” Mr. Markham kept his eyes on me the entire time he spoke. For some reason, I felt pinned by that gaze, unable to move or look away.
“But, sir—”
“In here, Mrs. Brightmore.”
She glared at me, as if Mr. Markham’s dinner preferences were somehow my fault, and left in a swish of starched fabric.
I found my port glass refilled.
“So, Miss Leavold. You would feel trapped by employment?”
“I didn’t mean to make myself sound indolent. It’s only that I’m used to keeping my own hours, my own company. Having my life be at the whim of another’s would be almost unbearable.”
“And yet there are those who find more solace in imprisonment than they ever have in freedom.”
“Show me such a person,” I protested, then stopped. Here I was, only a few moments into meeting my benefactor, and I was contradicting him in precisely the sort of way that used to vex Thomas so.
“Is not marriage like this? Strictures and bindings that can become pleasurable?”
