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Their mother rolled her eyes. “You all seem to think it should be easy to leave the place where I built a life with your father.”
Louisa slid closer to their mother on the sofa and put an arm around her. “We don’t think that at all, Mama. But you won’t be far away. I’m sure our cousin would love to have you visit occasionally.”
Meriel gave her a warning glance over their mother’s head, and even Victoria realized they couldn’t know such a thing for certain.
“Mama,” Victoria said, “I thought you would be happy not to see me working so hard in the house.”
She sighed. “Of course I am, dearest. Your marriage is something I’ve dreamed of for so many years. It’s just—I wish I knew what was wrong with me.” Her voice trailed off to a whisper.
Victoria felt her ever-present tears return. “We’ve had a terrible year, Mama, and we all have to recover.”
“Thank goodness for Viscount Thurlow,” her mother said.
Victoria almost bristled. Didn’t her mother realize that Victoria had sacrificed her freedom to make everyone safe?
Her own thoughts suddenly baffled her. How could she resent her poor mother, who’d suffered a terrible blow?
Then Mama looked at her sadly. “I’m sorry that this is so sudden for you, Victoria. I know you would have liked more time to prepare for marriage.”
Surprised, Victoria could only say, “It’s all right, Mama.”
Mrs. Wayneflete entered the drawing room, smiling as she approached their mother. “I have your new room all ready, Mrs. Shelby. Why don’t you come see it with me?”
The sisters watched sadly as their mother left, her shoulders still bowed.
Victoria sighed, then regretted it as both sisters turned to frown at her in worry.
Victoria lifted her hands. “I’m fine, I’m fine, just worried for Mama.”
Louisa frowned at her, then turned to stare towards the door through which their mother had disappeared. “She seems no better.”
“But she will be,” Victoria insisted. “We’ve all seen to that.”
“Mostly because of you,” Meriel said. “Vic, you’re not trapped in this house, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“Then let’s take a last walk to Willow Pond.”
Victoria was relieved. She assumed Lord Thurlow was still in the house somewhere, and she did not want to see him. She might burst into tears in front of her sisters.
The Shelby gardens were not as extensive as those on the Banstead property, but they were as familiar as Victoria’s own bedroom. She looked out over the grounds, letting bittersweet memories wash over her. She deliberately didn’t look at the stables in the rear of the gardens. Her father had died there, and she needed no reminder of that.
Holding hands like children, the three of them wandered into the remotest corner of the garden, which had become even more overgrown in the last year without a gardener to tame it. They bent low under the hanging branches of the willow tree and found the little pond. No one had kept the fish stocked, no one had cleaned the creeping greenery that had spread across the water’s surface, but there was still something magical about the place. With a high wall on one side, and trees and shrubbery everywhere else, the pond had made them feel that they were in the country, all alone. Roses of varying hues still grew in abundance, now wilder and more entangled than ever.
They’d told each other their deepest secrets here, had come out at night to escape the heat of midsummer, had hidden here when their father was angry with them. And they had alwaysconsidered it so romantic, because their father had proposed to their mother right here, sitting on this very bench.
But now as an adult, Victoria saw her parents’ marriage in the cold light of reality. And it had not been made of romance. Her own marriage was only a day old, and already it seemed to be following the pattern laid down by her own parents. She was still dwelling on the sadness of that when Meriel tugged on her hand.
“Is everything all right between you and Lord Thurlow?” her sister asked.
Victoria smiled. “Of course. Whyever would you ask such a thing?”
Louisa took her other hand. “Did everything…” Her voice died away, and she looked at Meriel with appeal.
“What she’s trying to say,” Meriel said forthrightly, “is was your wedding night…acceptable?”
Victoria sighed. She had known before coming here that her sisters would inquire. For the first time, Victoria felt that there were things she shouldn’t confide in her sisters. The fact that Lord Thurlow had a mistress was something to be worked out between them privately. And she didn’t want her sisters to worry more than they already were. She would discuss the wedding bargain, because it would make them go back to their lives feeling better about her situation.