“What do you mean?”
“I mean that it’s his intention to go off and live in his country house as soon as he possibly can and to leave the manor to me.”
Arabella gasped. “You mean—he’s going to leave you all on your own?”
Prudence laughed. “It’s not as dire as you make it out,” she assured her sister. “I’ll have the whole staff with me. And in the meantime, there will be no obligation to make a duke happy. No obligation to perform any of the duties of a wife. I suppose I’ll still have to learn how to be a duchess, and that doesn’t much appeal to me, but a person can learn to find pleasure in anything, and I’ll figure this out just as I would any other challenge. The fact that Leonard is not going to be sharing my home though… to my mind, that’s nothing but good news. I’m glad I’ll be able to live my life without his constant interference.”
“Oh, Prudence… you say that now, but you can’t possibly know what you’re giving up,” Arabella murmured. “I truly believed that the two of you would get to know one another and that you would eventually find…”
“Find what? Love?”
“If not love, then at least companionship. You know that I didn’t expect to marry my husband. William married me to spare me from the possibility of a scandal.”
Prudence nodded. She remembered all too well the morning when William had come to propose. She recalled how little Arabella had seemed to want it. To the three sisters, the whole thing had felt like a horrible punishment for something that hadn’t really been Arabella’s fault.
“It’s the same with me,” she realized now. “I fell into a scandal through no fault of my own, and now, I find myself forced into a marriage with a man in whom I have no interest. And come to think of it, the same thing happened to Caroline, didn’t it? We were all forced into these situations. None of us chose for ourselves.”
“You’re right,” Arabella agreed. “And yet, look at me and William now. Look at Caroline and Levi. Just look how happy we all are. You have to admit that things have worked out for the best for all of us.”
“I suppose that’s true,” Prudence said. “But that doesn’t mean that your situation is the normal one, Arabella. You got lucky. So did Caroline. I have no illusions that the same thing will happen to me. Of course, it won’t. Lightning doesn’t strikethreetimes.”
“So, you’re content to simply let your husband run off to the country? You won’t even try to persuade him to stay with you?”
Prudence sighed and threw up her hands. “You saylet himas if I had any control over the matter when you and I both know that none of this has been up to me,” she said. “If I had my way, Arabella, I wouldn’t have married the man at all. If what I wanted was a factor in this, everything would look different. So how do you propose I prevent him from taking himself off to the country?”
“The only way to stop a man from doing something is to make him stop wanting to do that thing,” Arabella told her. “That’s something you learn as a wife. All you need to do is to convincehim that he would be happier if he remained in London—with you. If you can persuade him of that, he’ll be sure to stay.”
“Well, this all presumes that I want him to stay,” Prudence said. “And I don’t. I’m looking forward to the day he takes his leave. I’ll have a beautiful home, an allowance to spend on things I need, and the freedom to live as I see fit.”
“Oh, Prudence,” Arabella sighed. She took a sip of her tea. “You are simply too stubborn to allow yourself to have anything good in your life. Do you know that? This could be a wonderful change for you. You could learn to love this man. You might find yourself in a marriage like mine—unexpected, yes, butgood. That is the way things happen. You don’t always fall in love before your wedding day. You don’t always know before you say your vows what something is going to be. In fact, marriage is such a big adventure for two people to go on together that I would be willing to bet it’s almostneverlike that. There will always be something you didn’t expect.”
“That sounds dreadful.”
“All I’m saying is that I think you should leave yourself open to the possibility that it might be something good. May I give you some advice?”
“I’ve never known you to ask first.” Prudence was beginning to feel a little cross with her sister. Why couldn’t Arabella just be happy for her? After everything she had been through, this new turn of events—Leonard going off to live in his country house—was the best thing she could have asked for. It was objectivelygood news, and even if Arabella didn’t agree with that, at the very least she could have tried to be happy for Prudence, seeing that Prudence was happy for herself.
Or maybe, she couldn’t. Arabella was a wonderful sister, and she had always been unfailingly kind and caring, but she did have a way of thinking that she was always right about everything. Perhaps it would be best to simply hear whatever advice she wanted to dispense so that the two of them could move on. Once Arabella had gotten to speak, maybe she would be able to drop the subject.
Arabella sat back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. “I know that you don’t believe you want to convince the Duke to remain in London,” she began.
“It has nothing to do with my beliefs. Idon’twant him in London. I will be much happier on my own, Arabella.”
“Well, perhaps that’s true,” Arabella agreed. “But will you pretend with me for just a moment? Pretend that you did want him to stay here with you. How would you convince him to do it?”
“I can’t possibly imagine.”
“You see? This is why you need my help, Prudence. You need someone to help you figure out what to do.”
“I need someone to help me figure out how to keep a man in my life who I don’t want to have there?”
“Oh, Prudence, it’s very easy for you to say that, but you can’t have even thought very seriously about what you want. You can’t know what would make you happy without having considered it. You’re so eager to push this man out the door that you aren’t even allowing yourself to ponder any other possibilities. If you can’t give serious thought to the question of what it would be like to have him in your life, you can’t possibly decide that you don’t want him with you.”
“I’m telling you that Ihaveconsidered this,” Prudence said. “I’ve made a decision. I don’t want him around. I’m happy he’s leaving. I wish you could take me seriously, Arabella.”
“Well, all I’m going to say is this. A lady must use her charms if she is to keep a gentleman interested. Now, that’s something I know you know how to do, Prudence. You may not have spent much time concerning yourself with gentlemen, and you never had the patience for balls and other such things, but I have seen you in social situations often enough to know that you have an understanding of how to charm a man. You know how to flirt. You know how to keep their eyes on you. You’re better at that than either Caroline or myself—if you were not the youngest, and so impossibly stubborn, you would easily have been the first of us to marry, and we all know that. I won’t tell you what to do, and I won’t try to persuade you, but should you decide that you want your husband to stay, Prudence, that is the way to make it happen. Charm him. Make him see what he will be losing if you step out of his life—or if he steps out of yours. Make sure heknows what he’ll gain if he stays. If you can do that, you stand a very good chance at keeping him in London.”
Prudence started to object.
