“I’m content, here,” Frederica whispered, returning to her work.
“Content. Funny choice of word, isn’t it?” Honora asked, striding into the room and sitting down primly in the seat beside her. “I’ve been content for much of my life, you know. When I first ran away from London, it was all I ever hoped for to be content.”
Frederica paused, knowing Honora never talked much about what had led her to retreating from London in the first place. All she ever knew was that it was a scandal.
“Contentment is good for a time, I can say that,” Honora said calmly. “After a while though, you start seeing what everyone else has and what you don’t. You see happy marriages, happy smiles, and you realize that contentment isn’t quite as good as happiness.”
Frederica sighed and put down the black paper. Sitting neatly on the white page, she had recreated Allan perfectly.
“What would you have me do, Aunt? There is no way back for Allan and me now.”
“You do not know that.”
“I told him I didn’t care for him, that I wanted out of the marriage.”
“He will forgive you that lie.”
“Would he?” Frederica was not so convinced of it. “Even if he did, he would be in danger from Lord Wetherington. I cannot take that risk.”
Judging it to be an end to the conversation, she reached forward and picked up the scissors again. In her haste, she chopped off too much of Allan’s hair. In anger, she picked up a fresh piece of black paper. She would now have to start again.
“Do you know why I left London?” Honora said quietly. Frederica stiffened, not daring to move, in case it spooked Honora into silence. “I… I fell in love.”
Frederica looked up, meeting her aunt’s eye.
“Oh, and it was wrong to fall in love, very wrong indeed.” She tried to smile, a way to shrug off the sadness, but the expression didn’t quite reach her eyes. “He was already married.”
“Married?”
“What made it worse was that he loved me too,” Honora whispered. She could no longer look at Frederica, so she stared down at the black paper in front of them instead.
“How is that worse?”
“Again, he was married,” Honora said very quietly, apparently afraid to admit it aloud. “We tried to avoid it, to avoid each other. Then, one night, it spilled over. All the tension, all the hope.” She released a juddery sigh. “It was one kiss. That was all, but we were seen.”
“Oh,” Frederica gasped.
“We were seen by Ernest,” Honora whispered in horror, shaking her head. “Not to mention about half a dozen of his friends, all of whom spread the rumor at once. Ernest was appalled. I had brought the family name into disrepute, and as for the man I loved, he was now scandalized by our weakness.”
She shook her head, clearly despairing of herself. “If I could have taken back that kiss at the time, I would have done. He would have been safe from a tainted reputation. He would have been happy.”
“So, you retreated here?” Frederica whispered.
“I did.” Honora nodded. “He couldn’t marry me to mend my reputation, and Ernest, as my guardian, disowned me publicly at an assembly.” Tears appeared in her eyes.
Somehow, Frederica didn’t doubt her father was capable of such cruelty.
She reached out and took Honora’s hand, gripping it tightly in her own.
“I have been able to be comfortable here with my own home as I was fortunate enough that one of my grandmothers left me an annuity,” Honora said hurriedly to Frederica. “It was a good thing, for Ernest took the money that was to be my dowry, saying I no longer deserved it. I have indeed been comfortable. I have been content, but such things don’t mend broken hearts. They simply live alongside them.”
Frederica found her own breath had hitched. She held back her own tears and offered a handkerchief to Honora, but she shook her head, choosing instead to breathe deeply, and fight those tears.
“I tell you this story not to make you sad, my dear,” Honora said gently, holding Frederica’s hand back just as tightly, “but to ask you to see that if you are offered the slightest chance of true happiness, you will take it. Not everyone is fortunate enough in this life to have that chance. Take it. You’ll live to regret it if you don’t, believe me.”
Frederica fought back the tears even more. To know that Honora had been through such pain and yet continued to bear it, living comfortably and contentedly yet at all times with a pain in her heart, made her ache all the more.
Frederica pulled her aunt close and wrapped her arms around her in a hug. Honora laughed into her shoulder.
