“I could look past the illegitimacy,” the jovial fellow from earlier said. “If a woman were pretty enough.”
“A pretty face is not enough,” Talbot reprimanded him. “We, as the best that this country has to offer, live by a certain set of rules. Without them, everything descends into chaos. If members of the peerage started marrying courtesans and actresses, what would become of theTon? Of the bloodlines that have led this country for centuries? Have some pride, Pratt, for Heaven’s sake!”
Elizabeth and Amelia left after that, both silent and lost to their own pain. Lizzie couldn’t see where they were going; she was too consumed by repeating Talbot’s cutting words to herself over and over again.
He compared marrying me to marrying a courtesan,she realised angrily. She was torn between wanting to go back and hurt herself further by hearing more of what was being said and wanting to go back to smash a vase against Talbot's head.
Amelia knocked on the door of the billiard room, and Duke Hawkins was immediately sent out to meet them. They found Sophie, made their excuses to the hosts, and left before thedancing even started. She didn’t want to be there any more. And she certainly didn’t want to see the Duke of Norwich ever again.
Elizabeth was relieved that neither Nicholas nor Sophie had noticed her inner turmoil on the carriage ride home. She couldn’t feel her fingers; they were cold and numb, and she kept rubbing them to warm them up.
Nicholas was softly murmuring something into Sophie’s ear and wiping her brow with his handkerchief. Elizabeth felt such a strong wave of hatred for them both that she was disgusted with herself.
Dear God, please help me recover from this feeling,she prayed fervently.Please let this shame and pain stop. Please let me fall asleep and wake up and have this be a dream.
She remembered the man who had called herthe daughter of a whoreand realized that those words had hurt less because they’d been delivered by a stranger.
Everyone feels entitled to use me as a cesspool in which to dispose of all their asperity and bitterness and foulness because I am fatherless and have no protector in this world,she thought sadly, feeling as if she were adrift out on a vast sea without anyone to come to her aid, more alone than she’d ever been.
“You’re back early,” Mrs. Barlow said when Lizzie stumbled into the house.
“Sophie wasn’t feeling well, so we left early,” she replied calmly.
“Who was ill?” Jane called from the kitchen, so the two women joined her in there.
“Where is Ma?” Lizzie asked as she sat down next to Mary, who was chewing something.
“She went to bed. Who was ill?” Jane asked again.
“Duchess Sophie,” Mrs. Barlow explained.
“Yes, we were at the ball and were going to get some food, and then she got this ghastly pallor and had to sit down. I was out of my mind with fear, but she seemed unconcerned.”
Mrs. Barlow and Jane exchanged a look.
“Why areyouacting so strange?” Mary frowned at her.
“I don’t know,” Lizzie said weakly. “Maybe the same illness plagues me and Sophie.”
Mrs Barlow laughed. “I don’t think so.”
*
Elizabeth cried off going to Almack’s the following Wednesday under the pretence of being ill. Instead, she sat with Mary in her room and talked about what to do next while Mary dusted and combed her hair before bed.
“I say you tell him,” Mary insisted.
“Tell him what, Mary? That I don’t want to be his friend anymore? It feels so silly. I’m not even sure why I got this upset; he didn’t mislead me about his intentions or break an engagement, or anything of the sort,” Elizabeth said nervously as she pulled on a thread on her sleeve.
“Lizzie…” Mary sighed and put her hand on Lizzie’s shoulder gently, as if to let her know that she wasn’t exasperated byherbut also to prevent her from pulling on the thread further. “Of course you’re upset. Furthermore, you need to bemoreupset. You should be enraged; you have the right to be. The dukeling could have simply said that he wasn’t courting you instead of insulting you behind your back to a room full of potentialsuitors. Imagine if the Corporal had been there? And why bring courtesans into the story when talking about you? Appalling!”
Lizzie’s heart was warmed by her friend’s indignation on her behalf.
“You’re right,” Lizzie sighed. “The next time I see him, I shall tell him that I heard what he said and that I have no interest in cultivating our friendship further. I had forgotten that I have only one objective for being at all the balls and events, and that’s matrimony, not friendship.”
“You’d better,” Mary said sternly. “What he said was vile. Especially since he was the one sending you the cheese and those books.”
“That’s the part I don’t understand. He did those things of his own volition. I never reciprocated, nor did anything similar.”
