Page 33 of Eliza and the Duke
“Do you suppose he knows the meaning of the wordseduce?” she blurted out.
The laughter stopped and everyone was silent. Jenny raised her hand and settled it gently on her shoulder. “Oh, Eliza.”
“I wouldn’t count on it, darling,” Fanny said, setting her newspaper and coffee aside. She rose and joined them on the sofa, sitting on Eliza’s other side. “If it helps, Charles didn’t know, either.”
“Ugh!” Eliza groaned at the same time Jenny said, “Mother.”
Fanny rolled her eyes. “You both behave as if you were raised by Puritans. Sexual congress between two people can be pleasurable; it should be pleasurable. We’ve talked about this.”
“Yes, we’ve talked about this, but I don’t want to know anything about Mr. Hathaway,” Jenny said.
Fanny sighed. “In this case it is important. Charles is no viscount, but he is from a prominent family. That’s applicable because he believes himself to be better, and his family and everyone around him fosters that sort of belief.”
“Why is that important?” Eliza asked.
“Because it means that he was accustomed to everyone handing things to him. He never had to work for anything and that includes women. You see it with handsome men often. But in Charles’s case he was both handsome and wealthy, and not by his own means. He came to me with a sort of expectation. He expected to be served, if you will.”
They both groaned.
Fanny rolled her eyes again but carried on. “So I made him serve me instead. No one had ever done that before. Made him work for anything, I mean. He thrived on the praise and rose to the challenge well. He was very good at—”
“Say no more!” Jenny said.
“Fine,” Fanny said. “All this to say, don’t discount your viscount yet. It is entirely likely that he may come around.”
Eliza did her best not to focus on the content of hermother’s words. Instead, she turned her attention to the sentiment. “But isn’t the opposite also possible? That he won’t rise to the challenge? He’ll already have me, so to speak, so there will be no need to challenge himself.”
Fanny gave a nod of agreement. “It’s possible, but we don’t know him well enough to say.”
Eliza was afraid that she did know him. She feared very much that she was walking into this marriage with her eyes wide open and she knew exactly what she would be getting.
Fanny must have seen her fear, because she took her hand. “Do you remember when we went to Paris and bought you girls those gowns?”
After Cora had married, they had gone to Paris to visit Mrs. Wilson, Fanny’s friend who had taken over Jenny’s musical education. While there, they had paid a visit to House of Worth to have ball gowns made. Fanny had never been very clear on where the money for those gowns had come from, but the inkling of suspicion that had tugged at the back of her mind then raised its head.
“Yes?” Eliza asked.
“I paid Charles a visit. I tried to reason with him. Cora had married Devonworth and I assumed…well, I hoped that an earl would be enough to placate him. I reminded him that you girls deserved your inheritances from your grandmother and you shouldn’t be required to marry as he sees fit to receive them. I’m certain you can imagine his reply. He did fund the gowns, however.”
“Our father, our hero.” Jenny’s voice dripped with sarcasm.
“My point is that you have two choices, darling,” Fanny continued. “Marry Mainwaring and receive your inheritance, or don’t. If you do choose to marry him, then go into the marriage hopeful for the best. You never know what could bepossible, and you’ll only give into despair if you expect anything less.”
Eliza was as confounded as she was uplifted by her mother’s eternally upbeat outlook. Despite growing up with few advantages, the woman had managed to live a full life that had seen her children taken care of and educated and one of them married to an earl. It wasn’t a life Eliza would have chosen for herself, but it was a life that had seen more happiness than sorrow, and she didn’t know if anyone could ask for more than that.
“What will happen to us if I don’t marry him?” she asked.
Her mother shrugged. “Don’t look too far into the future. It only leads to sadness.”
“But someone must. Mama, this is more money than most people see in a lifetime.” This is what happened when she allowed her good angel to win. She asked responsible questions about the future. “Did you ask Mr. Hathaway about Bedford College again?” Eliza had very reasonably offered to take less of her inheritance if her father funded her college attendance.
“The same. I’m afraid he’s got his mind set on noblemen and he won’t entertain any other sort of future for you girls. He doesn’t even want to hear that Jenny is a mesmerizing soprano with perfect pitch.”
“Then I don’t have a choice, do I? What will become of me if I don’t get my inheritance? What will become of you and Jenny?”
“Darling, Jenny will have a fine career. You don’t need to worry about her.”
“And…” Jenny grinned. “Our mother has caught the eye of a certain Lord Ballachulish.”
