Page 36 of Ladies in Hating (Belvoir’s Library Trilogy #3)

It felt inconceivable to explain what she needed—to admit where she’d gone wrong. To admit that all her desperate clinging to independence was a lie. That she wanted too much. That she had lost her way.

Edith had never seemed disappointed by Georgiana’s choices.

She had supported Georgiana when Georgiana had told her—softly, secretly—that she did not ever intend to marry.

She’d played along with Georgiana’s false front to the ton .

She had read Georgiana’s books again and again—had long passages of The Tale of Josiah Raven memorized, for heaven’s sake.

But somehow, it was still impossible for Georgiana to believe that her rejection of societal expectations had not disappointed her mother. Even if Edith did not say it.

And Georgiana did not want to make it worse.

“It’s not—” she said, and then paused and tried again, blinking against her hazed vision. “It’s not about money. Everything is fine with the books. With my career. We’re perfectly secure.”

Very lightly, her mother squeezed her fingers. “Georgie, my love. You know that I am immensely proud of you.”

“I—yes. I do.”

“Then know, too, that I mean this as gently as possible: security is not the most important thing to me.” Her mouth tightened, just a little. “Not anymore.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I should have said this years ago,” her mother said. “I think of speaking every day.” Her voice sounded wry. “Strange, is it not? That it should be so hard to say the words to one’s own child. I’m sorry, Georgiana.”

Georgiana turned, surprised, to face Edith more directly. “What do you mean?”

“I’m sorry that I did not do better by you and your brothers.

I’m sorry that I was not stronger.” Edith’s jaw was still as sharp and precise as a young woman’s, and she was not looking at Georgiana.

“I married your father because I believed it to be an advantageous match, and I stayed with him for as long as I did because I did not know what else to do. But if I could live my life over—oh, my dear. I would have taken the three of you and fled. No matter the cost.”

“Mama,” Georgiana murmured. The name felt strange on her lips—she had not said it since childhood. None of them had.

There had been no authority for her mother to appeal to. The laws had been on Alistair Cleeve’s side. Georgiana could still recall the way she’d listened at the door when her mother had spoken, tearfully, to the rector, the day after Alistair had nearly broken her wrist.

The rector had told Edith to stop sinning if she did not wish to feel the rod.

“I told myself that I was doing the right thing by remaining there,” Edith went on.

“By letting the three of you grow up with every advantage. With security. But in truth I think—I think that I was afraid. Of how difficult it would be. That you would come to despise me, if I took you all away. Oh, Georgie. I was afraid of everything then.” Edith ran her thumb lightly across Georgiana’s knuckles.

“But you have always been so much braver than I.”

Georgiana drew back from her mother’s words. “Me?”

“I have never been so proud of anything as I was when I saw you stand up to your father in the library,” Edith said quietly.

“For all the times you told me that you meant to live independently, I don’t think I truly believed it was possible until that moment.

” She breathed out, the barest hint of a laugh.

“And I was proud of—myself, too, I think. That you should be mine, and that some part of your courage must have come from me.”

“I was so afraid,” Georgiana whispered. “That day.” Every day .

“I know.” Edith stroked the top of Georgiana’s knee. “You had meant to publish five more books first. You had it all worked out. I remember.”

“Not—that. Not the money.” Though she’d feared that too, of course. They both had. “I was afraid that you would come to regret it.”

Edith turned more sharply toward her. “Regret what?”

“Leaving Woodcote. Choosing to stay with me.”

The words felt strung tight, vibrating like a wire in the air. For how long had she kept that notion in her chest, curled and protected in some shadowed corner she did not like to look at?

Years. Years and years of speechless guilt and regret.

But somehow, it was not beyond her power to speak. Not now. Not like this, with her mother’s hand on her knee, and her eyes pinned to Bacon, and her heart too raw for anything but truth.

This was the core of her fear: that she would lead the people she loved into a disaster of their own choosing. That the people who cared for her would be too loyal and foolhardy to disentangle themselves from the hurt that Georgiana had caused.

That she would love too much, too ferociously—and that her love would bring nothing but pain.

To her mother. To Percy.

To Cat.

“My darling,” Edith said, “I have never regretted it. Not for one single moment.”

The words landed like a feather. Like a knife. She realized she was crying again, a sharp burn in her eyes and nose. “Not even when—when we could only afford tallow candles?”

Edith laughed, very softly, at the memory. “And I did not know how to use them? And I spilled wax all over my dress, and I smelled like a charnel house for weeks?”

“And the”—her own voice was a trifle hysterical—“and the room kept filling up with smoke and we could not sort out how to open the windows?”

Edith laughed again, softly, lightly, and then her eyes came to rest on Georgiana’s face, and she sobered.

“Not even then. Oh, my darling, not even then. I had only fortitude to offer you, and so I gave it. But you were like a torch—so brilliant and ardent in your vision of the future that everyone who knew you believed in it too.”

Her mother’s face was so familiar, like looking into a glass.

But her words did not feel familiar. They felt astonishing—like some great new physics that Georgiana could not get her mind around.

“You saw the future you wanted,” her mother went on, “and you brought it into being. Despite your fear. Despite the risk. I only followed your light.”

Edith’s words felt both true and not true. Georgiana had wrested herself free of the path laid out by society. By her father. She had dragged herself through sheer stubborn force of will into independence.

But had she not, by the same set of decisions, resigned herself to a life without love?

You saw the future you wanted, and you brought it into being. Despite your fear.

It sounded impossible. Her fears drove her onward; her fears were what ruled her life.

Only—

When she thought of her future now, all she could see in it was Cat.

Perhaps she had ruined everything, there in Cat’s gold-saturated bedchamber at dawn. Perhaps she had destroyed what was flowering between them. Perhaps Cat never wished to see her again.

Perhaps Georgiana had been too great a coward.

But could she not at least try ?

She looked very hard at the wrinkled mess of her skirts and the trail of white hairs that Bacon was depositing across the fabric. “The truth is,” she said to her mother, “I am in love.”

There. She’d said it. And the world had not fallen apart.

She peered up at Edith, whose face was evincing no expression whatsoever.

“Ah,” Edith said finally. “I must admit, I did not expect that.”

“With Lady Darling.”

“Oh!” Edith said, and there was a curious note in her voice before she hastily smoothed it out. “Oh.”

Georgiana took a careful breath. She had told her mother, many years ago now, that she would not ever marry. That she would never feel the proper sort of love and passion. About a man, she had said, slowly and precisely. And Edith had paused, and nodded, and they had not spoken of it again.

But she had felt certain that her mother knew and understood.

When they’d read Emma together a few years ago, Edith had remarked calmly that Miss Woodhouse seemed to fancy Miss Smith for herself.

And when a Piccadilly print shop had displayed a satirical cartoon of Louisa Strachan and Sarah Greville kissing in the park, Edith had only murmured, “I think they look very happy.”

They were reserved, both of them—reluctant to speak of their feelings aloud. But Georgiana had heard each measured remark for what it was. You are safe with me. You need not be afraid.

But even so, this was the first time she had ever declared her feelings quite so openly.

Courage, she thought, and light.

“Dearest,” Edith said finally, “if you should like for me to watch Bacon while you work up the nerve to declare yourself, you need only ask.”

Georgiana made a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “I think that might be very useful, yes.”

Edith brushed her hand over Bacon’s one drooping ear. “We get on quite well, you know.”

“Oh, Mama.” Carefully, cautiously, she tipped her head against Edith’s shoulder. Just as carefully, Edith patted back her tangled hair. “I’ve blundered so badly. I broke a promise. And I—I hurt her.”

“Then you will make things right.”

“I don’t know if I can. And I don’t”—oh God, it was so hard to say it—“I don’t know if she will…” Forgive me. Want me, broken and wrong-headed as I am.

“Dearest,” her mother said firmly, “I know you. It is not in your nature to give up.”