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But I feel that truth in my heart, cutting me open from the inside.
There's more than one person in my life, more than one woman, who's been ruined. It doesn't matter how many rights we're given or how far into the future we fling ourselves.
Some things stay the same.
Keeping our legs tied shut until marriage is one of them.
"Thank you for the warning," I say. She gives me a disgruntled look.
"It took me months to find you. Do you think I'd risk that again? I don't have time to be child-rearing, now that my own are grown." She opens the door, and the day continues, unfurling out in front of me. I'm exhausted by the time Madeline is ready for her afternoon tea. I sit with her in her bedroom while she drinks, and she makes up tea for me as well. It's herbal, lavender, flavored deeply with honey, and the biscuits we eat with them are iced with flowers.
"It's so pretty," she says, looking down at the cookie in her hands, decorated to look like a field of tulips.
"Don't eat too many, or you won't have room for dinner," I tell her. She wrinkles her nose but doesn't argue or complain. I'm right, too, because she's hungry enough for her dinner later, taken in her room since the duke and the marquis have guests.
Bring Madeline down to read by the fire in the drawing room.Mrs. Harris texts me shortly after we're finished eating, and one of the maids has come up to get our trays. I stand and hold my hand out for the little lady. She looks up at me with the same green eyes that belong to her father and uncle.
"Are we going down?" She asks, her voice hushed with excitement. I nod.
"As long as you promise to be good."
"I swear it," she says and sticks to my side like a burr. The drawing room doors are flung open, talk and chatter from inside spilling out as we approach, and I lead her in. We're ignored by the adults, clustered near the roaring fire, drinks in their hands. There are women standing inside, the high-born sort, in long evening dresses, shawls over their shoulders and drooping from their arms. They talk to men in suits worth more than a month of my salary.
"Over here," Madeline says, tugging on my arm. I follow her to another fire opposite the big one, a chaise in front of it perfect for curling up. "My books are over there." She points at a low bookcase with candlesticks decorating the top. I pick out four to read and sit with her. She's instantly curled at my side and insists on reading for me. "I like this one," she says, pulling out a picture book written about the first king of America.
I settle back, the chaise cradling me, and I could get used to the warmth of the fire washing over me and the quiet in this corner of the room.
There's laughter over by the adults, and I lift my head to look at them. They look so different and alien to me, like a strange group of people, separate from myself. But they're not, even though I'm sure they all have titles, and I don't.
In the end, we're all the same, right? The first King, King Johnathon, had been the son of a farmer. I'm the daughter of one too, but that doesn't matter now. If things had been different, and the first President of the United States hadn't been the last, I could've been more than I am today. The whole of society would look different.
But it's not.
Madeline shuts the book with a snap, done reading, and looks over at the adults too.
"Their dresses are pretty," she says, sounding tired. I wrap an arm around her, and she lets me. She leans into me, her tiny body a curl of warmth against my ribs.
"Are you tired? Do you want to go up?" I ask her. She shakes her head but lolls it against my shoulder, her eyes sliding shut.
I hold my breath for a moment and don't move. A minute stretches out, and I realize she's out cold. Today has been long for her, it's been long forme, and I'm not a five-year-old trying to learn which fork to use and which war was Napoleon's best and then writing poems about it.
"You're very good with her," that familiar voice, like warm honey, pours over me, and I look up from where Madeline issleeping against me, her eyes closed tight.
The marquis is standing in front of me, the fire behind him crackling softly and silhouetting him in a glow.
"Children are easy, if you listen to them as much as you ask them to listen to you," I say, trying to figure out how I should be getting up to curtsey to him, without dislodging my sleeping charge.
"Don't move," he says, shifting to sit beside me on the deep couch. Madeline sighs and turns her head into the pillow. "I don't want her to wake up and have my brother give you daggers."
He looks over at where the duke is holding court in the far corner of the room, a grouping of men around him, talking business with drinks in their hands. The sparkling women I'd seen earlier are there, in their long gowns, listening attentively. Only Benedict is here with Madeline and me, and it doesn't seem like any of them have noticed that he's gone.
"So, is this what happens every night?" I ask, curiosity boiling inside my stomach. Reading a book to Madeline after dinner here by the fire seems like an excellent way to end the day, even if she might be cranky when I wake her up to go to bed later.
"Pretty much. We dine and entertain guests. My brother strengthens his alliances over meat and potatoes and then cements them with whiskey later." Benedict reaches over to touch one of Madeline's curls.
"The duchess doesn't like to join for meals?" I ask, and Benedict pauses for a moment before pulling a blanket off the back of the couch and tucking it over Madeline's dress. She doesn't even make a sound, sleeping deeply.
"No," Benedict said softly, "she does not." He looked intently at Madeline and then lifted his gaze to meet mine. "You should probably get her to bed. Why don't I help you? I can carry her."
