Page 31 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

A pause. Pearl, two steps behind, pressed forward. “Speaking with Father about what?”

Tamsin looked at them both. Then at Daphne, who had appeared at the top of the staircase, only her head peeking around the banister. The seventeen-year-old had evidently not yet decided whether what she had sensed from three rooms away warranted coming downstairs.

“Come with me,” Tamsin said with a sigh.

The sitting room was mercifully empty of small children, which unfortunately begged the question where they were.

Once her older sisters were inside, Tamsin closed the door. The three of them arranged themselves in the attitudes of women who intended to receive information and intended to receive it thoroughly: Seraphina on the settee with her hands folded, Pearl perched on the arm with her feet not touching the floor, Daphne standing against the wall near the door, as if she might slip out the moment the conversation grew dull.

“I had best say it simply, as I do not entirely understand it myself. Lord Hartwell asked me to marry him.”

The other young ladies produced sounds that were high-pitched and rather delighted.

“When?” Pearl demanded.

“During the drive.”

“Which drive? The one today? There has only been the one time⁠—”

“Yes, the one today.”

“And you said—” Seraphina leaned forward, brow furrowed deeply for one so young.

“Yes.” Tamsin took in a short breath. “I said yes.”

Another cacophony of surprise emitted from all three. Daphne pressed both hands over her mouth, emitting a most unladylike, smothered scream that marked her youth.

Tamsin dropped into the chair across from the couch, because sitting seemed like the appropriate response to being exclaimed upon. “You may ask your questions. I can see that you have them, and I will do my best to answer.”

They had plenty. Did she love him? No, not yet. Did he love her? She couldn’t say with certainty, but she did not think so. Did she find him terribly handsome? He was handsome, yes. Was he kind? She believed so. Did she want to marry him, truly? And here Tamsin paused, because this was the question which mattered most to them, and she owed her younger sisters—already hoping for matches of their own—an honest answer.

“Yes,” she said. “I want to.”

Seraphina’s expression shifted from surprise into something softer. “You are remarkably calm about all this.”

Yes, Tamsin found it odd too. “I know.”

Pearl had cupped her own cheeks in her hand, eyes large as saucers. “You should be more—I do not know, should you not be more⁠—”

Her struggle to find the right word was most unusual.

“Tumultuous of spirit or mind,” Seraphina supplied, patting Pearl on the hand.

“Yes.” Pearl relaxed somewhat. “Distraught. Plussed. Befuddled. Aflutter!”

Tamsin nodded. “I thought I would be. I am still waiting for something other than this.”

Seraphina huffed at the same time Pearl asked, “‘This?’ What is ‘this?’”

Tamsin considered her feelings carefully as she looked from one sister to another. “I…girls, I have been managing this household since I was fourteen. A decade and one half. I think that perhaps I recognize a workable arrangement when I see one.”

“A workable arrangement,” Pearl repeated, in the tone of someone who found this deeply insufficient as a description of one’s own engagement. “Oh, Tamsin. It is a mercenary marriage, then? Are we that destitute?”

“Mama would have a string of gentlemen coming through the house for us all if we were,” Seraphina muttered.

Daphne’s brow furrowed as her lips pressed together. “It isn’t because of my coming out?”

At once, Tamsin raised her hands, attempting to calm them. “No. No, it is not a mercenary marriage.” She continued, quieter. “No. We are not destitute—though I believe Lord Hartwell intends to assist the family in a few matters. He said he would speak to Papa about them.” She returned her hands to her lap. “There is more to my contented agreement than that, but I cannot think how to put it all into words. It is all quite sensible, I promise you.”