Her friends goodbyes washed over her as she fought to keep the smile on her face. When the door closed behind them, she began to pace, unable to keep still a moment longer.
“Harriet?” her mother’s voice made her jump.
“Oh!” Harriet clutched a hand to her chest. “Mama, I… I thought you left with the others.”
“I could see you were getting overwhelmed earlier, and I wanted to make sure you were all right.” Her mother perched on the end of Harriet’s bed and gently patted a spot beside her. “Sit with me a moment.”
“I do not think I can.” Harriet swallowed, the lump in her throat swelling to twice the size of before. “I feel like I can hardly breathe. I keep fretting that I have forgotten something or that there is something I am not remembering or thinking about. Am I making the right decision?”
“Only time will tell, darling.” Her mother followed her movement as Harriet continued to pace. “And it is normal to feel a little jittery before one’s wedding. The day before I married your father, I woke up in cold sweats thinking I had mixed up the dates and slept through the entire affair.”
That stopped Harriet in her tracks. “But you and father always seem so sure of each other, so in love.”
“We are, but that did not mean I was not nervous.” Harriet’s mother gave her a warm smile that undid the knot in her shoulders. “Marriage is an enormous decision, a life changing one, only a madwoman would not be a little worried about it. And so long as you do not do what your Aunt Anne did, we should all be fine.”
Harriet laughed. “I do not think I have the strength to rip my wedding dress, let alone tear the thing from my body and run screaming, nearly naked from the church.”
“And yet even she is happily married now. Though it did take three attempts.” Her mother sighed. “I hope your wedding will be less dramatic.”
“So do I.” Harriet plopped down beside her mother. “It feels like there is so much more I should know. He wants me to be a mother to his niece but I do not know the first thing about motherhood.”
“Darling, none of us do. We are all just muddling along, hoping we get it right.” Her mother leaned forward and added, in a conspiratorial whisper. “So long as you treat her with kindness and compassion, and patience to spare, you will do wonderfully.”
“I wish I shared your faith.”Why does everyone seem so convinced I can do this when I am not?Harriet kept the thought to herself, tracing her fingers along the stitching on her quilt. “None of this is what I expected.”
“I know.” Her mother took her hand in hers, and rubbed small circles against her knuckles, calming Harriet as she had when she was young. “It is unusual, but he is a duke and though he may not be what any of us imagined, he does not seem unkind. Your father was rather impressed with him.”
“I just… I feel as though there has been a great weight thrust upon me, and I worry that I will crumble beneath it. No, that is not quite right. It is more… It is like…. I am supposed to be a wife, to be a mother to a child who has lost her ownandto be a duchess. How do I do all of that?”
Her mother stiffened beside her, and to Harriet’s confusion she saw her cheeks turn red. “Ah… Well… I suppose such conversations are a mother’s duty.”
Harriet frowned as her mother cleared her throat and stood up. “It is usual to um… fumble one’s way through intimacy. At least at first. Though men are usually given to… Well, you will not have to figure things out unaided.”
“Some men perhaps, I doubt Theodore will be much use.” Harriet shook her head. “I just do not understand him. He is cold, distant and yet clearly he adores his niece. And when he asked me to marry him, he genuinely gave me the choice. It feels mad, but I truly believe he would have accepted my word if I had rejected him.”
“Do you wish you had?” Her mother asked quietly.
“No.” The answer surprised Harriet, and she twirled her hair round her finger as she pondered it. “I was too curious to decline his offer. I think if he had tried to bully me into it, I might have felt differently. But he did not. And yet…”
Harriet stood and moved to the window, her heart beating faster and faster. “I… What if…” The lump was back in her throat,beating in time with her racing heart. “What if the woman he sees when he looks at me is not the woman I am? What if he sees not Harriet, but a duchess, a mother.”
She could see days stretching before her, the long, dark hall of Irondale surrounding her. Empty save for her footsteps. “I am supposed to offer comfort to a little lost girl but… but I do not want to lose myself as well.”
She felt a tear roll down her cheek and leaned her head against the cool glass of the window. The sound of footsteps told her that her mother was moving, and a moment later, she felt her mother gently turn her to her.
“I am so used to fading into the background, Mama, to escaping notice…”What if I am invisible in my own marriage?She could not make herself say the words, it would make them too real.
Her green eyes flashed in the flickering candlelight, full of a quiet intensity and determination. “Then you must let yourself shine, my darling girl.”
“I do not know how.” Harriet whispered.
“Then I shall tell you a secret.” Her mother drew herself up to her full height, every bit as regal as the Queen. “When you walk into a room, do not try and command the attention of everyone. That is overwhelming, and no one can manage such a thing.”
Harriet arched an eyebrow at her. “You do. Everywhere we go, people are drawn to you.”
“That does not mean I am trying to command all of their attention at once. I focus on one person, and one person alone.” She held up a single elegant finger to demonstrate. “That person is the one I want to see me, but more than that, I pretend they are the only person in the room. Everyone else ceases to exist, and so the room becomes mine. It becomes ours.”
“But I do not understand.” Harriet wiped a tear from her face. “Why would that make anyone want to look at you?”
