Page 59 of The Gentleman’s Leading Lady

Cerys wondered how much the older woman knew—how much any of them knew, in fact. It was not the custom of earl’s sons to go about extending invitations for entire theater companies to lodge in their house, entertaining as those players might be. But likewise it was odd to think that the influence of her friends might extend so far.

She’d run away, after all, even if they knew exactly where she was, and regularly sent packages. Surely she’d left some resentment behind for her selfishness and ingratitude, and the work she’d left on everyone else’s shoulders.

She let the magazine lie open in her lap. “I think my family will indulge my whims a bit longer. But I do not know if Dorsey’s company plans to keep me. They seem to think I will scupper off with the first protector who catches my fancy.”

She hadn’t realized this still rankled, but it felt like pulling a thorn to confide in her ladyship. A relief to let the grievance spill out. She’d made the same sacrifices, suffered the same slings and arrows of fate as the rest of them for the past two years, and they still doubted her loyalty.

Diana tilted her head to the side, an attitude of consideration. “Plenty of women leave the stage once they get a better offer. Though they’re not all the Duke of Clarence that will make her give it up. And many a husband will permit his wife to act, if she fills the boxes.”

Cerys shook her head. “I don’t see either in my future. I expect that sooner or later my family will decide my freak should have run its course, and they’ll bid me back.”

“And you expect you’ll go. But what would you choose for yourself, child?”

The same question Mame had asked her. Cerys still did not know the answer. “Not to become a man’s mistress, and live at his whims.” She was still certain of that, through it all.

But the way Dante Manelli kissed her—she understood now why women would sacrifice everything to follow a man. Passion was powerful, and hope more powerful still.

As to her own future, she’d not given thought to having a companion of her own the way her mother did, or Gwen. A man who was not only protector and provider but a source of laughter and a repository of confidences. She’d not met a man who had seemed likely to offer her any of these things.

But she could imagine wanting them from Dante Manelli. Even if he didn’t seem a man prone to bouts of laughter.

Diana tilted her head in the other direction. She called to mind a bird, listening for the movement of worms in the soil, waiting for the chance to pounce. “Marriage?”

Marriage. Belonging entirely to someone else, and not alone to herself, as she always had. There would be a husband to answer to and look after. A home she would be expected to keep, rather than spending her days and nights at the theater. And in the general run of things, marital relations often led to offspring, whose care and keeping would fall to her as well, allowing even less time to act.

Marriage would mean the end of one dream, and the beginning of another.

“I have not thought of marriage for myself,” Cerys said in all honesty. Marriage belonged to other women, women from conventional homes with conventional notions of their future. She had also seen women devastated by the outcome of a bad marriage or the cruelty of a spouse. She had seen that all too often.

And yet she also knew a fair number of women who were happy in their matches. Her mother. Gwen. Lady Vaughn. Eilian, who had come to Newport to open a pie shop and ended up becoming a midwife at St. Sefin’s. Even Prunella, who visited Newport from time to time and caused a stir when she did, a dowager viscountess turning up in a place not overflowing with nobility.

Those were examples that marriage could be successful, for some.

Cerys set aside the magazine. “What would you advise?” she asked, for it was clear Lady Diana wanted to dispense her opinions.

Diana sat back in her chair. “I married late. I was five-and-thirty.”

Cerys schooled her expression of surprise. That was late, for highborn women. For common women, who were saving to afford a home of their own, they often waited later for the marriage lines, if not for the children.

“And you married for love?”

Diana snorted. “I married for security, to keep my place in the world. My mother passed away just before I reached my majority. There was a man I fancied at the time, after all my balls and seasons, but he married elsewhere while I was in mourning.” Her eyes narrowed slightly, her eyes distant as if peering into a memory, one that still held the power to hurt. “In the summer of 1782, my father was ailing, and I’d never met the cousin who stood to inherit. I knew he had a wife and four small children, and I’ve not the disposition to be a doting spinster aunt.” She shrugged. “So I chose Sir Michael. I liked him for his fine figure and love of poetry, and he liked me for my inheritance.”

“I hope you were happy?”

Diana plucked at her ruffled cuff, as if plucking an invisible string. “Our seasons in London made me happy. Michael was amusing and had a broad acquaintance. A complete profligate, very dedicated to fashion. I admit there was more than once I was on the verge of demanding a complete separation. But I adored being mistress of Rydal Hall.”

Cerys had the vague impression that her ladyship’s seat was far in the north, the Lake District, perhaps. Lady Diana, like others, had come to Cheltenham for the waters, but had the good fortune of nearby family to house her. “Have you plans to return there?”

“I could, and live at the whim of my daughter and her husband, Michael’s cousin.” The face she made resembled a grimace. “But I find I am not adept at living at the whims of another. I am too independent.”

Cerys reflected on this. She had never in her life been independent. Self-reliant, yes, but she went from living in one merry, odd community to traveling and living with another.

“So the lesson is, do not marry simply to make an arrangement,” Cerys reflected aloud.

“Have you not been listening, child? The lesson is, make an arrangement you can live with.” Diana straightened in her chair as another woman came through the tall, paneled door of the salon. “Oh, good. Niblett said I wanted you?”

“Do you still, if you have our Cerys?” Mame asked mildly. Mame’s morning ensemble was a Flemish jacket trimmed with points of white cord and a petticoat of cerulean blue poplin. Modest, matronly, but still a bit dashing, particularly with her Parisian mob cap set back over her curls. Diana gave her a careful survey, followed by an approving nod.