Papa’s mouth was flapping, as if to speak, and Lolly was almost out of words. But not quite.
“I love him, Papa. I want the life he offers me. One that is dedicated to people besides myself. Or my family. You can’t talk me out of this. You can’t stop me. I will marry Lord Preston, with or without your permission.”
The room was silent for a moment. Everyone stared at her. Lolly was hot and out of breath. She had never spoken her feelings so clearly or loudly before. It was an exhausting enterprise.
Then Charlotte squealed, “Oh, but it is so romantic!”
“It’s not romantic, it’s foolish!” Louisa hushed as Mama turned to them with a scold, “Off to your packing, the both of you.”
Papa squared his shoulders. He was no longer red, no longer sputtering. He was pale and so very in control. “If you marry against my wishes, the consequences are clear. You will no longer receive your dowry. You will no longer visit our family. You will no longer be my daughter.”
Lolly had heard of this type of punishment. When a daughter ran off with the footman, or if she paraded herself naked through the streets. She had imagined her father might strike her off the family tree when she fled to Boston.
But never for marrying the man he had forced her to accept in the first place.
It hurt in a physical way, squeezing her heart and stomach and lungs into a vise. Yet it did not change her mind. The tableau had changed – Louisa and Charlotte now being ushered out by Norton, Mama holding smelling salts to her nose, and Papa waiting steely-eyed for her response – but it was still the aristocratic family protecting itself.
Without examining what it protected itself from.
Lolly stepped back from her parents. “Disown me if you so choose. You must make your decisions, and I must make mine.”
“Lolly, you don’t mean that,” Mama cried. Papa wrapped his arm around Mama’s shoulders. For the first time, he looked old. Frail.
She couldn’t regret this. Couldn’t regret choosing Martin and the Chows and all that was good over her family.
But Lolly wished it didn’t have to be this way.
“I love you,” she said, “no matter what.”
And then she walked away.
?
Martin heard it all. He had tried not to; Lolly had clearly wanted to speak to her father alone, so he had turned towards his own rooms to change out of his riding clothes. But their voices had carried, arresting him on the landing.
Now Lolly came flying down the hall, pale as death. She didn’t see him, nor did she seem to have a destination. She only fled.
I love him,she had said. At the price of her family.
He caught her into his arms as she passed him. She fought him off at first, until her eyes focused and she realized it was him. Then she froze, taut as a violin string. “I won’t have a dowry.”
Martin didn’t care. “I love you too.”
“They won’t speak to us again.”
“You’ll change their minds.” He rearranged his arms, pulling her closer against him, and finally Lolly relaxed a little. Her palms rested on his chest. “You had to have inherited your stubbornness from somewhere, after all.”
In the guest suite, there was a crash of furniture falling, followed by a curse that would make a sailor blush. Lolly closed her eyes. “What if they never forgive me?”
Martin wanted to promise her that it would all resolve itself. He wanted to offer to fix it himself, or guarantee that his love would be enough to replace her family. His heart was so full from her declaration that he felt as if he could change the world, starting with Turner’s cruelty and ending with every imbalance in the economy.
He curtailed the impulse. “Will you forgive me for making you choose?”
She shook her head. “You didn’t make me choose.”
“If I turn the Chows out now, your father would make peace with us.” He held his breath, knowing he couldn’t do it.
“That would be the worst thing.”
