And Lucie thought, with a sudden dizzying lurch, of Lady Rivenna in her study. Of that whole vast architecture Lady Rivenna claimed to have built—the launch arranged like a debut, the guest list with its careful measure of human families among the fae—and of the thing she had said with such maddening, unshakeable calm. That change came slow and stubborn, one grudging inch at a time. That it was not only the fae who might, in time, come round.
Lucie had found it difficult to believe. She had nodded and let it pass over her, another item filed away among the many things she was not sure she dared hope for. And here, in the low light of Elmrow Lane, with the smell of someone’s supper drifting out on the evening air, was one grudging inch.
For every person on this lane who thought,How dare she reach so far above her station, there might—might—be a Mrs Dunbar, who thought instead, quietly,And why should they not be allowed to love each other?Exactly as Lucie herself had thought. Exactly as, it turned out, Lady Rivenna had thought all along.
“Thank you,” Lucie managed, and to her mortification her voice was not entirely steady. “Truly. That is—it is very kind. Thank you, Mrs Dunbar.”
“Kind, nothing.” Mrs Dunbar reached out and gave Lucie’s arm a brisk pat. “It is only sense. Now go on home, my dear, your mother will be wanting you.” She retrieved her armful of linen from the fence rail and turned back toward her door, and then paused, and added over her shoulder, “And you tell that young lord, if you happen to see him, that Elmrow Lane thinks a good deal better of him than certain grand houses might.”
And she went inside.
Lucie stood a moment in the lane, blinking rather rapidly at nothing, and then walked the last little way home with the golden feeling back in her chest, chastened and quieter now, but climbing again all the same.
She let herself in, heard the sounds of the hollow knock of a wooden spoon against the rim of a pot as she removed her shawl, and paused. Who was cooking? Her mother was not expected home until much later.
She followed the sounds through to the kitchen and stopped in the doorway, blinking. “Mother?” She was at the stove with her sleeves pushed up, stirring something in the big pot and reaching for the salt. “I thought you would still be at the shop. Surely there are gowns—the masquerade is tomorrow night. You said you would be there until much later.”
“There are one or two small things left.” Her mother did not turn from the pot straight away. She gave the contents a final stir, tapped the spoon against the rim, and set it down. “And I decided that even if I had a mountain of work twice the height of this house, I should still have to come home and make the time to speak with you.” Now she turned. She reached behind herself, untied her apron, and drew it off. “So. I have made the time.”
Lucie’s stomach gave a small, uncertain turn. Here it was, then. The conversation. The one that had been so studiously not happening for a week, built around and stepped over and buried beneath a wall of fine gowns.
“We shall sit down,” her mother said, “and we shall talk. Come. The parlor.”
“The parlor?” Lucie glanced at the stove. “We could stay in the kitchen. There is something on—you have only just—it will want watching, surely, and?—”
“It will keep.” Her mother said it gently but with the particular finality Lucie knew better than to argue with. “I do not want half my attention on a pot, Lucie. I want to sit with you somewhere there is nothing to tend and nothing to stir and no reason for either of us to be forever getting up. I want you to have the whole of my attention.” A small pause. “You have not had nearly enough of it this week. I am aware of that.”
There did not seem to be anything to say to this, so Lucie followed her mother through into the parlor.
They sat down together on the sofa and Lucie, who had been holding herself carefully upright since the garden a week ago, found that she did notespecially want to hold herself upright any longer. She reached for one of the small cushions and hugged it against her chest, and was visited, quite without invitation, by the memory of the night before the launch. Of Kazrian arriving at the door, and of herself toppling over in her fright into a great soft castle of cushions and blocks. She had been mortified at the time, but now she could not help but smile thinking of it.
The cushion was a comfort, and after a moment she did the other thing she had wanted to do in Lady Rivenna’s study and had been too well-bred to do there—she drew her feet up onto the sofa, tucked the cushion snug between her knees and her chest, and wrapped her arms around her shins.
Her mother watched her do it and said nothing, only shifted a little to make room.
“Part of the reason,” her mother began, then stopped and started again. “Part of the reason I have not spoken to you before now—it was not only the gowns. I have been trying to work out what to say. How to say it.” She smoothed a hand over her skirt. “How to apologize.”
Lucie’s head came up. “You? Why wouldyouneed to apologize?” The words came out half a laugh, incredulous. “Mother, if anyone in this house is to apologize, it is I. I am the one who—it should be me. It is entirely me.”
Her mother gave her a look. A long, level, faintly exasperated look. “For having fallen in love with someone?”
“With the wrong someone!” It burst out of her before she could stop it, all the pent week of it. “You have always made it so clear, Mother. Where the lines are, where our place is. You have said it my whole life. And Iknew. I have always known exactly where the line was, and I?—”
“Yes.” Her mother’s voice was quiet. “And that is rather the trouble, is it not.”
Lucie stopped.
“I have spent your whole life, Lucie, teaching you two girls to be perfect.” A rueful softening at the corner of her mouth. “Charlotte, I grant you, appears to have slipped the lesson entirely and gone off to be exactly as much herself as she pleased, and I have long since given her up as a lost cause and a great trial and my own dear delight, all three at once.” The smile faded. “But you. You took it to heart. Every word of it. You have been so careful, all your life. So very, very careful never to want the wrong thing, never to reach past where you were told you might reach, never to let a single soul down.”
“Do not be sorry for that.” Lucie freed a hand from around her knees, reached for her mother’s, and closed it tight. “They are good rules, Mother. They are good rules to live by.”
“They are.” Her mother turned her hand over and clasped Lucie’s between both of her own. “They are good rules. But even good rules can be carried too far. And I fear I taught them to you far, far too well.”
She was quiet a moment, looking down at their joined hands.
“I was always more careful than most,” she said. “You know why. You know about your aunt.” A small, old grief moved across her face and was gone. “What your father’s sister suffered—the way fae society spoke about her, about this whole family, over a match they decided was beneath them. I watched it and I learned from it. I learned that a family like ours could not afford so much as a toe over the line. That if we ever put a foot wrong, it would not be a small thing quietly forgotten. It would be ‘that Fields family. Reaching above themselves again. Never did learn their place.’” Her mouth tightened. “So I made very sure we always knew ours.”
“I know,” Lucie said softly. “I understand why.”
