The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,87

moment. “This is yours, isn’t it, Mrs. Griffin?” Her smile was calm, poised, but the light in her eyes was just a shade too steely. She knew what she was doing, handing that bauble back.

Agatha closed her hand around the ring and felt the chill metal leach the heat from her palm. “It is mine, and was my mother’s before that.”

Eliza nodded. “You wouldn’t want to lose it, then.”

Sydney’s eyes darted back and forth from his mother to his . . . His what? Beloved, but not betrothed?

Agatha’s head spun, dizzy from the speed of revelations. “I had rather hoped to have a reason not to wear it much longer,” she said weakly, then pressed her lips together and tried to resurrect some maternal fury. “I’d hoped you might be the one to wear it instead.”

Eliza tilted her head. “But it would get tarnished, or dented, in the course of my work. I couldn’t risk it.” One quicksilver glance flashed to Sydney, and then her gaze was back to clash with Agatha’s. “Something so precious is worth being thoughtful about. Once damaged, it might be impossible to repair.”

Her eyes begged Agatha to understand what she was trying not to say.

Agatha could only shake her head. The conversation had gotten so beyond her she didn’t know how to grasp it. There was a time for delicacy—and there was a time to heave delicacy aside like so much rubble and get right to the heart of the matter. “Sydney tells me you two have decided . . . not to get married.”

Eliza nodded quickly, visibly relieved. “That’s right, ma’am. We’ve been talking about it for a few months now.”

Agatha’s eyes narrowed. “Just talking?”

Eliza had the grace to blush.

Agatha’s teeth ground hard. Foolish girl. Foolish, stubborn, thoughtless . . . She rode this new wave of anger, grasping gratefully at the invaluable clarity of rage. “Do you love my son, Miss Brinkworth?”

Sydney started a defensive reply, but cut it off at a sharp glance from Eliza.

The apprentice squared her shoulders to face Agatha, tucking her hands behind her back like a disgraced soldier at a court-martial. “I love your son dearly, Mrs. Griffin. I expect to love him for the rest of my life.”

Agatha snorted. Such confidence meant nothing at seventeen. “Then why not marry him?”

Eliza’s reply was quiet, and sure, and utterly devastating: “Because if I made that choice, I would lose the right to make too many other choices in my life.”

Agatha’s heart all but stopped beating.

“Marriage is a legal prison, from a wife’s perspective,” Eliza went on. Softly. Inexorably. “You’ve said so yourself. And I’ve read Wollestonecraft and Godwin and Wooler, among others, and I find myself strongly persuaded against the whole institution. Your son loves me enough to trust my decision on this. I would like to continue loving him—but I can’t do that so earnestly if I marry him.”

She bestowed upon Sydney a smile of such pure and profound affection that Agatha half expected the boy to keel over on the rug from the force of it.

Eliza’s face when she turned back to Agatha was still composed, except for a slight tightness at the corners of her eyes. “I know this must be painful to hear, but I’m quite determined, and I hope that you can find it in your heart to understand in time.”

Agatha could find no reply to this. After a moment, Eliza turned away and walked down the hallway toward the dining room. Her spine was straight, her step unhurried. Everything calm and collected.

It was the calm born of unsurprise. She’d known the argument with Agatha was coming. She’d prepared for it, and now that it was here she’d weathered it, and not let it sway her from her chosen course.

Agatha would have admired that if she hadn’t wanted so badly to seize the girl by the shoulders and shake her until all her philosophical ideals fell to the floor like so many loosened hairpins.

She rounded upon her son, an equally appealing target. “What do you intend to do about this?” she demanded.

“Nothing,” Sydney replied shortly.

Agatha choked. “That is unacceptable!”

Her son’s frown deepened. “We talked about this, turned it over from every side. For months. She doesn’t want to marry me. It’s her choice to make. What kind of man would I be if I pressed my suit after she so firmly refused?” Sydney spread his hands, misery writ plainly on his face. “I love her. I’ll take anything she chooses to give me—but not