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“ W ell, it is good to see you, of course, Arabella,” her mother said the following afternoon as the two of them sat down to tea in the sitting room of Highgate Manor. “But I’m afraid I don’t know what this is about. Has your husband sent you? Is this to do with his business with your father?”

“Nothing like that,” Arabella replied, feeling slightly stung. “Can’t I simply pay a visit to my mother without there being some strange motive behind it?”

“You could,” her mother said. “You never have before, though, so you’d forgive me for questioning what’s really going on here. I just want to know what’s motivated you to come back home after all this time.”

“You’re my mother. I wished to see you,” Arabella protested.

Her mother sighed and set down her teacup.

“Arabella… darling, I am your mother, and you’re always welcome here, but you and I both know that’s not the way things are between the two of us.

You never cared to spend time in my company before you married, so why would you want to do such a thing now? ”

Arabella flushed. Her mother was right. They had rarely spoken, and when they had, their interactions had been barbed and largely unpleasant. “I know we haven’t had a good relationship in the past,” she said. “I’d like to see if that can change.”

“Well, I know it’s my fault,” her mother said, sipping her tea. “I know I wasn’t much of a mother to you. But, Arabella, truly, you were such a strange child. You never needed a mother the way your sisters did.”

Arabella stared. “Of course, I needed a mother,” she said. “What on earth do you mean by that? Is that what you’ve told yourself all these years? That I didn’t need to be cared for?”

Why does everyone think I don’t need to be cared for?

“You’ve always tended to your own needs,” her mother told her. “Your sisters—they were more helpless than you ever were. They needed someone watching over them. But you were the resourceful one.”

“Because I had to be!” Arabella exclaimed.

“I was a child, Mother. I was still a child when father acquired his title, when we became a part of London society. I was a girl who couldn’t fit into the new world I’d found myself a part of.

I never had a hope of doing so, for I didn’t have the financial resources of the other young ladies, nor did I have a supportive mother to guide me through social situations.

I navigated everything for myself because I had no other choice.

And yes, I do agree with you that I did well—but let us not act as though it all happened because you looked at me and decided I was too competent to need the help of a mother. That was never the case.”

“Did you come here to scold me?” her mother asked her.

Arabella sighed. “I didn’t,” she said. “I don’t want to do that. You know that I care for you, Mother. And I know that you care for me in your way.”

“Well, of course, I do,” her mother said. “And, you know, in spite of all these things you say about how hard it was for you, you have done rather well for yourself, haven’t you? Married to a duke! You’re a duchess now. What better outcome could you have asked for?”

“I would rather have married for love,” Arabella replied feelingly. “I would rather have married a gentleman who truly cared for me, even if he was poor.”

“Don’t say that,” her mother snapped. “You know what your father’s miserable finances did to this family—would you truly wish such a fate for yourself?”

“I wish I could have hoped for a marriage of love,” Arabella said. “That is truly all I’m saying, Mother, and you act like it’s so scandalous.”

“Arabella, you are already married, and most advantageously at that! You certainly cannot afford to go around making comments about marital situations that might suit you better just because you’re frustrated with your current circumstances.

You are expected to be happy with the husband you have. He is a good man, is he not?”

“Well, yes, he is,” she was forced to concede.

“Then I hardly see what the difficulty is.”

“Would it not trouble you to be married to a man who cared not at all for you? Who pushed you away at every turn?”

Her mother narrowed her eyes at her. “What do you mean, he pushes you away?”

“I mean that he holds me at arm’s length. And every time I feel as if I might be drawing close to him at last, he only retreats again. I can gain no ground.”

“Are you worried that he might leave you?” her mother asked.

“I—” That truly hadn’t occurred to Arabella until now. He had been the one who’d been so insistent on marrying in the first place. Surely, he wouldn’t leave.

But then, he had initiated that kiss, and he had pulled away from her after that was over. She couldn’t trust him to know his own mind.

“I don’t know,” she admitted.

“You don’t know?” her mother repeated. “How can you not know, Arabella? This is your husband we’re speaking of—your marriage. Are you telling me now that you may lose it? Is that why you came over here, to report to me that you have failed as a wife?”

Arabella was shocked at the way her mother had turned on her. “That’s not what I’m saying,” she protested. “He hasn’t said anything about leaving. It’s just that sometimes he seems a bit distant, and that is concerning to me.”

“Well, you simply must make him stay, Arabella. This is your responsibility now. You cannot allow your marriage to fall apart. You know the Duke’s money has changed this family’s fortunes drastically.”

Ah, so that’s what this concern was really about.

Arabella didn’t know why she was surprised by it.

Of course, her mother cared more for money than for anything else.

“How am I to make him stay?” she asked, not really seeking the information but hoping to make her mother see how unreasonable the demand was.

“You must give him an heir at once,” her mother said.

Arabella was shocked by the bluntness. “You—you wish that I should have a child?”

“You can’t possibly be shocked by that. It’s the primary duty of a duchess. I’m sure the desire for an heir is the reason he married you.”

“I don’t think that’s the reason,” Arabella countered. “He’s been fairly clear with me about the fact that he’s not interested in a child.”

“What?” Her mother sat up straighter, staring at Arabella. “He told you he didn’t want an heir?”

“That’s what he said,” she confirmed.

“You must change his mind at once!” her mother insisted. “What do you imagine people will think as years go by and no heir arrives? What do you think they’ll say about you?”

“Oh, Mother,” Arabella sighed. “If I allowed the words of gossipy society ladies to trouble me, I would never have had a moment’s peace in my life from the day we came to live here.

You must know that. Surely you realize that my reputation in London society has always been a shambles thanks to Father’s debts and the fact that I’ve had no way to blend in with the ladies who were meant to be my peers?

Now, they’ll have one more thing to disparage me for. That’s hardly a concern.”

“Well, it should be!” her mother insisted. “And you aren’t thinking, Arabella. If you have it in mind at all that your husband may tire of your marriage, you must immediately take steps to keep him engaged and excited. Your duty is to make him want to stay.”

“And an heir will do that?”

“Of course. I don’t know why I have to explain these things to you. I know that you didn’t grow up in society, but neither did I, after all, and I still know how the game is played. Honestly, I believed you to be smarter than this, Arabella.”

That stung. Her intellect was one thing she had always prided herself on. “I don’t think it has anything to do with not being smart,” she argued. “Besides, the Duke respects my mind.” She was confident about that. “He always says how clever I am.”

“Oh, Arabella, for heaven’s sake, the man didn’t marry you for your mind,” her mother snapped.

“Honestly, every word out of your mouth leaves me more convinced that we’re quite right to be worried about him tiring of this arrangement and seeking greener pastures.

He could do it, you know. There are ways a man can end a marriage.

And even if he didn’t have the bond dissolved, he could still leave you on your own.

He could very easily take himself off to France or somewhere like that, and you’d be left alone in London with no husband and no explanation for what had happened.

You would be in disgrace, and there would be nothing I could do to help you. ”

Arabella had grown accustomed, over the years, to her mother’s barbed comments. She understood what was happening. Her mother spoke to her this way, not out of hatred but out of fear. She didn’t want these terrible things to happen to Arabella, and she truly believed they would.

It wasn’t entirely altruistic, of course. Her mother was certainly worried about the shame of a daughter who couldn’t hold onto a husband. She was worried about what that would do to the rest of the family.

But Arabella was worried about the same thing, so it was hard to hold it against her mother too powerfully.

If it turned out her mother was right about all this—what would happen then?

What would the scandal do to her sisters?

They were the ones Arabella cared about more than anyone else in the world.

If it had been only her own fate on the line, she would have been willing to take risks.

But if losing William meant doing harm to Caroline and Prudence, that changed everything.

“Do you really think the situation would be helped if I was able to go to him and tell him I was with child?” she asked her mother.

“It would change everything,” her mother insisted. “No man is going to turn against his wife when she is giving him a child—or at least, none but the very worst men would do so. And we’ve established that the Duke is not a bad man. Not a heartless man. Perhaps a dissatisfied man.”

Arabella frowned.

What her mother was describing—it didn’t sound right to her at all.

She didn’t want to think that William was heartless of course—that idea hurt her to consider.

It also called forth a painful recollection of what had happened the last time she had confronted him, when she had levied a similar accusation at him.

He had taken it very much to heart. She didn’t think she could have insulted him any more powerfully even if she had been trying to—which, of course, she hadn’t.

If he had been asked, she could only assume, he would say that he wasn’t heartless at all. That he did feel things.

But then—was her mother’s other potential suggestion the problem? Was he dissatisfied in some way? He hadn’t expressed any dissatisfaction with her. And he had told her that he didn’t want an heir…

No, he didn’t say that, she recalled suddenly. Or rather, he did—but only after I set it as a condition of marriage.

Had that disappointed him? Had she ruined this right from the very start?