a frown as she also sat. “Well enough is not exactly glowing.”
Edith shrugged a shoulder. “I rarely glow, as ye well ken. I’ve been worse, and I’ve been better.”
Henshaw stared at her, the frown remaining. “Edith, what’s going on?”
The somber note in his tone told her he knew more than he was letting on; the only question was how much did he know, and how much was he speculating?
She exhaled slowly and folded her hands in her lap. “Ye ken Archie’s will didna leave me much to live on.”
Henshaw nodded brusquely. “I do. Much as I have tried to argue that point, the solicitors have that locked at every bolt.”
“Yer efforts have been most generous.”
She smiled with real warmth at this goodhearted giant of a man that had taken her under his wing from the moment he had met her in London. He took such care of her, and she knew full well that had led to a great deal of speculation where the pair of them were concerned, yet he had never uttered a word of complaint about it.
“So…?” he prodded, and Edith shook herself from ruminating on his goodness.
“So,” she swallowed once and forced a bland smile, “Archie’s cousin, the heir, has come to London, and Sir Reginald… Well, he’s rather cut from the same cloth, ye might say.”
“How pleasant.” Henshaw shook his head, exhaling roughly. “What does he want?”
Me.
Edith bit the response back and kept her strained smile where it was. “He’s hemmed and hawed aboot, but it seems he’s no’ inclined to extend any generosity there. Which is as I expected, so I canna say I’m especially disappointed.”
Owen watched her from the doorway, raising a brow at her. It was a very simplistic view of the situation, she knew, but there was nothing to be gained by going into the details of everything with someone who was powerless to change the situation.
“Yet you have decided to enter Society,” Henshaw pointed out. “Officially. What changed? You were never so inclined before.”
No, she hadn’t been, and the truth of it was that she was not especially inclined now. She was only determined, and that changed everything.
Edith nodded once, swallowing again. “I ken that all too well,” she murmured. “But I have decided that I’ve had enough of the men of the Leveson family dictating every move I make. I aim to change my situation by my own hand now, Henshaw, and I need Society to do that.”
There. If that didn’t make her plan clear to him, nothing would. She had just enough pride left to avoid stating anything more obvious, or more desperate, though she really was not above much anymore. Her finer associates might not understand that, which was why she would keep those details to herself.
But Henshaw nodded slowly to himself, his frown fading as his understanding sank in. “Edith, I’ll say this once, and I hope you will take it as it is intended…”
She tilted her head in question.
“If it will do you any good at all, help in any way, I’ll marry you.”
The breath rushed out of her lungs at the offer, and her first thought was to adamantly insist against it, to laugh off his thoughtful nature, as she had so often done before. Henshaw had offered to marry Grace only last year, though he had been teasing, and she would not be surprised if he had offered the same to one of the other Spinsters at one time or another. He was the sort of man that knew the way of the world and the skewed nature of it. Yet, he would offer himself as a way to surmount such an obstacle, even if it were made in jest.
But there was no jest here, and it was that solemnity that kept her from reacting as that first thought called for.
Marrying Henshaw would solve everything. Absolutely everything. His offer was utterly genuine, without condescension or heroism, and made with what he thought a full understanding of her circumstances. There was no judgment, no prejudice, and no indication that he believed her anything less than capable of managing her problems on her own.
To alleviate her suffering, to give her peace of mind, this man would give up any of his own prospects for future happiness and marry her.
Her chest tightened, slowly clenching with emotion, and her eyes burned with the same. She smiled at him, beyond words for the time being, and wishing, faintly, that she could accept such an incomparable offer.
“Alas,” she managed