Page 3 of The Gentlewoman Author

A piercing cry erupted from the crib. “She should still be napping. Sophia will not be pleased.” Charlotte rushed to pick her up and began bouncing around the room. “I have news that may distract you from your troubles.” She shouted over the baby’s cry, her hand over Rachel’s ear. “We dined with Stephen last night, and he insists that Louisa marry. There was an uproar such as I’ve never seen. Though I am very sorry for him, widower that he is, I do not agree…”

“Charlotte, sit down and let me hold Rachel. You’re making me dizzy.” She wasn’t, but she ached to hold the child. “You can tell me what happened once you are settled.” Mary took the baby and sat in a rocking chair, the tiny bundle warm and perfect against her chest. In a few moments, Rachel was calm, and her eyes began to droop.

“What was I saying? Oh, yes. Even if our poor brother is a widower, I do not believe he should force his daughter into marriage.” Charlotte settled into a settee.

Love was essential, and all young people deserved a felicitous marriage. Most of all, Louisa, a girl of deep feeling, required the happiness an affectionate match promised, though Mary doubted the girl was prepared for marriage.

Rachel’s little head against Mary’s chest caused a familiar heaviness to tug Mary’s insides. This joy, the enduring pleasure of children and grandchildren, was never to be hers. She was the center of one person’s world only, and she’d buried him.

“To whom is Louisa engaged?”

“I don’t know. Stephen only said he had no patience for a coming out and that an arranged marriage accomplished the purpose as well or better than any other method of finding a husband. He’s already chosen the man. It seems he’s corresponded about it for some time. A son of an old acquaintance.”

Heaven, in her divine goodness, had sent Mary an escape. Louisa’s problem offered a solution for her own predicament. Helping her niece find a match was an impeccable enterprise for a widowed aunt. “Well, I shall intervene.”

“How?”

“I want a holiday, and Louisa needs to find a husband. Bath is the perfect place for us. I have not been there since I was sixteen. Surely in Bath they have better things to do than read A Woman Who Loves, and they certainly won’t associate me with the author. Louisa will fall in love, and I will be saved. By the time we return, everyone will have forgotten about the book, and life can go back to normal.”

Charlotte furrowed her brow. “If our brother can be persuaded.”

“I will coax Stephen into agreement. Leave everything to me.”

Modesty is the very characteristic of the female sex, as courage is of the other; as a man without courage is said to be no man, so a woman without modesty is unnatural.

The Whole Duty of a Woman, An Infallible Guide to the Fairer Sex, 1737

Chapter Two

The lantern threw odd shadows on the narrow, circular staircase as Daniel Fletcher followed his father into the castle’s battlements. Their steps landed in a comforting shuffle that awakened childhood memories. How many times had he scrambled up these very steps, sword in hand, ready to defend his fortress? Once atop, he pushed his knees against a parapet and gazed through the darkness, straining to see the fields around him. Tiny pricks of light from the tenant cottages shone at him. Soon, with the money he’d saved and the investments that continued to earn for him, those glowing dots would multiply. With his return home, the castle he loved so well would gain its former glory.

“Here we are. Magnificent.” His father gestured at the sky.

Frigid air penetrated Daniel’s superfine wool coat. “It’s freezing for April.” He did not expect a response from his astronomer father, who cared more for the heavens than anything on earth.

“See that? Look, there. Do you observe…” Daniel’s father said into his telescope, a favorite possession his mother acquired twelve years prior to celebrate her husband’s birthday. It demonstrated her love for her husband, a fact that no one doubted. If nothing else, his parents loved one another, but their love led them to unscrupulous behavior. The purchase had been made in lieu of repairing the roof, and Daniel had not forgotten the long winter that followed wherein he and his family dined on potatoes and withered apples. Nothing of that sort would ever happen again. He would make sure of that.

“You brought me here to discuss something. What is on your mind?” That morning, Daniel arrived home after a ten-year absence. A week since, he’d received a letter requesting his return home on account of Father’s ill health. But he found the man well and as energetic as ever. The lie existed among many, and it should not have stung as it did. He reminded himself that it didn’t matter since he’d already been wrapping things up with the bank in preparation to return home for good. Since his arrival, the conversations between him and his parents were stilted. They were keeping something from him.

“Ah, always too clever. A step ahead of me, eh?” Father’s tone was good-natured, but the comment was a jab. A self-educated man, he had never wanted Daniel to attend school. However, since his maternal grandfather had paid his way, Daniel attended university, and his father disparaged the Cambridge education any chance he could. Perhaps Father felt embarrassed by his own lack of formal education. More likely, it was due to having not gotten his way. “It is simply that you must marry.” Father continued looking through the reflector. “I won’t live forever, and I want to see my grandchildren running about the castle.” Daniel sat on a parapet and faced his father, who remained hidden behind his brass contraption. “Your mother and I are finished with your moping. That episode with Miss Jensen happened long ago, and it is time to leave her in the past.” Stiff white hair brushed his shoulders as he turned grey eyes to Daniel. “I found you a wife. You will marry and stay in the castle.”

“I retired from the bank and plan to stay home.” He was saving this surprise announcement, but his father robbed him of the celebration by expressing no pleasure at the news. “I’ll stay here, but I will not marry.”

“If you don’t wed the lady of my choosing, I must appoint another heir. The castle is for families, children—not single men.” Father looked back into the reflector. “Andrew will do.”

Daniel stood. “What?” He could not be earnest. Was this another lie? The stakes were too great to make that assumption, but he did not trust his father’s word.

“So bright tonight. Always steady in its course. Enchanting.” Father’s tone turned whimsical, and Daniel doubted he’d get anything further by way of serious conversation.

“After everything I sacrificed to preserve the castle, you would disinherit me?” Disinheritance it must be, for he would not involve himself with any woman, not after Miss Jensen’s betrayal, though he certainly no longer mourned it as his father implied.

No response.

Andrew Chapman, a vicar and member of Father’s lunar society, married Daniel’s sister, Emma, and was as featherbrained as they came. The silent, glacial night folded Daniel into its solitary darkness, opening a familiar chasm in his chest. Though only a few feet away, his sire may as well have been floating among the stars.

The injustice of the threat simmered. Daniel’s money ran the estate. The very battlements upon which they stood had been repaired with his funds. He sat and rested his head on the cold wall behind him, pressing his hands against the ancient rocks that supported him.

“Come! Look at this. You’ve never seen Venus so bright.”