“You don’t think I enjoyed your father?”
He didn’t, as a matter of fact. “You married him because it was what your families wanted.”
“Well, don’t be naive. I wanted it too. I wanted it just as Lady Hannah wants to marry you. You act as if there’s something shameful about the fact that she wishes to become a duchess, but why shouldn’t she want that? Why would you want to marry someone whodidn’twant that role? It’s good that she wants it. You should be pleased, and that should make her more of a suitable choice for marriage, not less.”
“I don’t mind that she wants to be a duchess,” Nicholas said. “What bothers me is that I believe that’sallshe wants. All she cares about is the title and the status she stands to gain if we marry. She has no interest inme—in being my wife, or even a friend to me. How could I possibly get excited about the prospect of a marriage like that?”
“You’re being childish,” his mother informed him. “You ought to know that the kind of marriage you’re talking about—one based on mutual affection—is something that only happens in storybooks. When people marry in reality, it’s always because each of them has something they hope to gain. You’ll see that for yourself when we attend Jacob’s wedding, I’m sure. You’ll see that he and his wife aren’t head over heels for one another the way characters in stories so often are. It will be a marriage of practicality, one that will enable Jacob to produce an heir and will elevate his wife’s status in society. Those are the reasons people marry, Nicholas. You’re a fool to hold out hope for anything else.”
“I’m no fool,” Nicholas countered. “And you can’t speak to me that way. I’m the Duke of Nightingale now, not a child for you to scold. I think the things I hope for in my lifearereal. You only think they’re not because you and Father didn’t have a marriage like that—but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, Mother. It can be found. And if I am to marry, it will be on my own terms, and it will be for the sake of love, not for social advancement or for any other such businesslike reason. I don’t want an uncaring marriage like the one you had. I know my duty. I must marry. But I will find a wife for myself. I won’t take the first one you push on me.”
“Even in my youth, I was practical,” his mother countered. “I always knew that romance was for stories, and that real life called for something more. I think youneedsomeone like Lady Hannah in your life, because she seems to know that too, and you clearly do not. I think a marriage to her would benefit you in all sorts of ways. It’s something you should take seriously, Nicholas, if you’re to have the best life you possibly can.”
“I’m not going to marry Lady Hannah,” Nicholas said. “You may as well give up on that idea right now. It doesn’t matter how many times you suggest it to me. It’s never going to happen. What you think doesn’t matter.”
“Then I can only hope you’ll find someone else suitable,” his mother said. “Perhaps at the wedding you’ll encounter a lady who meets your exacting standards.”
“Hope whatever you’d like. That’s your business, but don’t trouble me with it. There is nothing unrealistic about my standards,” Nicholas said. “It will be easy for a lady to meet them, in my opinion. The only thing I insist on is that the feelings between the two of us be genuine. I suppose that must be a big thing to ask for. But to me, it doesn’t seem as if it should be. It seems like the very minimum a person could realistically want out of a marriage. If it can’t be love, at least there will be respect. I have no respect for a social climber like Lady Hannah. She’s unfit to be my duchess.”
“Well, I wish you luck in finding it,” his mother said with a sigh. “It seems to me that you’re chasing fairy tales rather than focusing on what you have right in front of you—a perfectlyacceptable young lady who would be more than happy to marry you tomorrow if you asked her.”
“Your opinions are your own, and you are entitled to them,” Nicholas said. “But you may as well get used to the fact that this is my decision to make and no one else’s. I owe you neither obedience nor explanations.”
He rose from the table before his mother could say anything further. He was tired of this argument and wanted to retreat to his study so that he could be alone with his thoughts.
He knew they would all be about the lady in the peacock mask. Those were thoughts he couldn’t seem to escape these days, no matter how hard he tried. And though his mother might wish he would focus on marriage, the very topic made Nicholas’ mind return with painful clarity to a lady he knew he could never have.
CHAPTER FIVE
“To be perfectly honest with you, Eleanor, I think you’re lucky,” Marina said.
The two sisters were in Marina’s bedroom, which was the nicer of the two. Eleanor knew that her parents would say Marina had gotten the bigger room and the finer things because she was the eldest, but Eleanor didn’t think it was true. It was because Marina was always so well-behaved. That was why their parents favored her, and why they always would.
Eleanor didn’t mind so much, if she was being honest. It seemed to her that being the favorite daughter came along with pressures she didn’t know if she would want. “I suppose I am lucky that Mother and Father haven’t married me off yet,” she agreed. “It’s over a month since Father threatened that, and every day I’ve worried that he might come home and tell me he’s found the gentleman—but it doesn’t seem to happen, and now I think perhaps he’s forgotten.”
“Do you really think he would forget about that?”
“No,” Eleanor admitted. “I suppose that’s just what I tell myself to put my mind at ease. But I don’t really believe it—how could I, when Father has made clear that seeing us married is the most important thing in the world to him?”
“I agree,” Marina said. “He isn’t going to forget. But that’s not why I thought you were lucky anyway.”
“Then why did you say that?”
“You’re lucky because you have Father to make the arrangements for you,” Marina explained. “I know how you hate the idea of going through the ritual of courtship, Eleanor. You don’t want to attend parties and put on manners for the sake of impressing people.”
“I want to be myself,” Eleanor said. “I’ve never understood why that bothers our parents as much as it does. Am I someone so impossible to love?”
“Of course you aren’t. But so many gentlemen want to believe that marriage is going to be easy for them, Eleanor. They don’t think of it as the kind of thing where they would be happy to be challenges by someone who considered herself to be their equal.”
“Shouldn’t they?” Eleanor asked. “You’re about to marry Jacob in just a few days. Would you say he thinks of you as an equal?”
“Yes, I think he does,” Marina said slowly.
“And don’t you enjoy that?”
“I do. But it’s different for me and Jacob, Eleanor.”
“I don’t see what’s different about it. Unless you’re suggesting that you should be happy and I shouldn’t, but I know you well enough to know that that isn’t what you mean.”
