Madeleine frowned. She had rather gotten used to the idea, overnight, that no one would want her. And though it did feel bad to be a disappointment to her family, at least it spared her from having to worry about the possibility of her curse claiming more lives. Now, Uncle Joseph was saying she would have to try again next year, and she didn’t want to do that. She wanted to let it end.
“I don’t think anyone will forget,” she said. “I don’t think you really think that either, Uncle Joseph.”
“But we can’t give up on the idea of a future for you,” her uncle said. “I can’t simply let you grow old on your own.”
“I wouldn’t be on my own,” Madeleine protested. “I would be here with you.”
“That’s no life for a young lady, Madeleine. And what becomes of you when I die? Then youwouldbe on your own. You have no other family.”
He said this as gently as possible, but it still hit Madeleine like a punch straight to the gut, of course. He was quite right. Everyone who cared for her was quite a bit older than she was, and when her uncle died, when Horatia was gone, shewouldbe alone in the world. It was difficult to think about, and she realized now that she had deliberately stopped her mind from wandering too far in that direction. She had been unwilling to face that fact.
“But what can I do?” she asked. “You don’t really think that people would forget. I’m sure you don’t. Maybe if it was someone else, they would, but I’m the cursed lady. No one is going to forget unpleasant news aboutme.They haven’t forgotten about the fire in all these years. The gossip about that has only gotten worse.”
“Do you think it’s gotten worse?”
“I know it has. When I first arrived here, it did seem as though people might be sympathetic to me. I believed there would be some generosity among the ton, that some people might understand that even though what happened was frightening, it frightened metoo.”
“Of course it did,” her uncle said gently. “I don’t think anybody denies that.”
“Perhaps not aloud, but you know they don’t really care,” Madeleine said. “No one worries about what I go through. Even though they might believe that I am to blame for the fire—”
“You’re not.”
“Even if they do believe it, though—even when I believe it myself—I can’t forget how horrible it was to wake up among the flames. I still have nightmares about it all the time. And I would have thought there would be those who would have sympathy, even if they thought I was cursed. I would have thought there would be those who believed I had suffered enough, even if they wanted to keep their distance from me.”
“You don’t think that’s the case.”
It wasn’t a question. And Madeleine didn’t think it should have been. “I don’t think it is,” she agreed. “And I don’t think you think so either, Uncle Joseph. I think you know exactly how people talk about me, and it doesn’t surprise you anymore at this point. They have no sympathy for me. I don’t think they ever will.”
Her uncle sighed. “I think you might be right,” he admitted. “It pains me to see it.”
“So why would they forget about a scandal I was involved in?” she asked. “It’s so much more fun for them to remember it. To go on talking about it. I’m sure they’ll spend the next year making the whole thing sound worse and worse. Why, it’s already been turned into something completely different from what it was. I told you Lady Cecily accused me of trying to seduce the Duke when I wasn’t doing any such thing.”
“You told me.”
“If I disappear now, the stories will get worse and worse. I’d be willing to wager that by next year, everyone will be saying Iwantedto kill him with my curse, and that’s why I was trying to entrap him in a marriage that, of course, he would never want.”
Uncle Joseph gasped. “No one would say such a thing, Madeleine.”
“Of course they would. They care more about having an outlandish story to tell than they do about the truth. They wouldn’t hesitate to say something cruel and untrue if it made for good gossip. And you know that I’m a very appealing subject for them to gossip about because…”
“Because why?”
“Because none of them care about me. No one will defend me.”
“Madeleine.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself,” she said. “But it’s the truth. There’s no one among thetonwho would speak on my behalf. There’s no one who would put a stop to stories like that if they were being told.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t write everyone off so easily.”
Madeleine sighed. “Uncle Joseph,” she said. “They are the ones who have written me off. You know it’s true. What we need to do is accept it. We need to stop trying to force something to happen that will never be possible. It’s already been decided. No one in this city is ever going to welcome me. To them, I’ll always be the cursed lady.”
“Then we’ll leave,” Uncle Joseph said suddenly.
Madeleine stared at her uncle. “What? What do you mean, leave?”
“If you can’t find a husband in London, I see no reason for us to remain in London.”
