Beatrice sighed and looked down at her fan. “The trouble is not whether he cares,” she said. “It’s that he thinks caring gives him the right to command.”
Lark frowned.
Beatrice sighed. Loudly. “It doesn’t matter,” she finally said. “At least we still have the Vigilance Society. I was thinking we ought to schedule another meeting for later this week.”
Lark remained suspiciously quiet, causing Beatrice to turn to see her expression.
Her friend was wincing. “About that…” she began apologetically.
“What?”
Lark glanced toward the other side of the room. “Lady Blackwell caught Calliope and Persephone practicing a few of the maneuvers this morning.”
“Oh, dear. I don’t suppose they convinced her it was the latest new dance?”
“Not at all. And Calliope, of course, told her everything. And now, well, Lady Blackwell is keeping them on an incredibly tight rein.” Lark withdrew a folded slip of paper from her glove. “Persephone barely managed to pass me this.”
Beatrice took the note.
The handwriting was small and careful.
Mother has forbidden Calliope and me from attending any further lessons or meetings. Please accept our apologies. We hope you are able to find other ladies to strengthen the society in our absence.
Most sincerely,
Persephone Rensleight
Beatrice simply stared at the words.
Then she folded the paper again, slowly. “Why would a mother deliberately keep her daughters incapable of defending themselves?”
Lark gave her a sideways look. “Don’t you know, Bea?” she asked. She then turned to Beatrice, pitching her voice, sarcastically of course, to sound like a breathless debutante. “Ladies are meant to be delicate. Dainty. Dependent. What sort of man wants a wife who can defend herself? Such a woman might become difficult to manage.”
Beatrice’s mouth flattened.
“If she learns to hold her own physically,” Lark continued in her normal voice again, “she might begin to think she can hold her own in other ways as well. She might insist upon being heard. She might object. She might decide some matters men prefer to manage are, in fact, her own.”
“That is ridiculous.”
“Yes,” Lark said. “It is.”
And yet Beatrice knew the truth of it.
Her own mother had done all she could to discourage Beatrice’s archery, or anything that made her less ornamental and more inconvenient.
She’d failed, of course. Dieu merci.
Across the room, Persephone glanced up. She must have felt Beatrice looking, because her eyes found Beatrice’s at once, then her gaze dropped to the folded note in Beatrice’s hand, and her face pinched with regret.
I am sorry, she mouthed.
Beatrice nodded, a small motion. Forgiving, she hoped.
But disappointment came nonetheless.
“She could at least try,” she muttered to herself. Not quietly enough, however.
“Not all ladies are as mule—” Lark stopped abruptly and pressed her fingers to her lips.
