“It would be a waste for me to take the teller training,” she said, squaring her shoulders. “I’m not sure how long I’ll be allowed to keep my commission.”
Scarlett paled. There were very few reasons a woman would be forced to resign her commission. “What? Why?”
Constance fumbled her hands in her lap for a moment, then lifted her left hand to reveal a sparkling emerald ring. “Because I’ll be married.”
Scarlett’s fork fell from her hand, clattering against the plate.
Jameson, to his credit, didn’t move a muscle.
“Married?” Scarlett ignored the ring and locked eyes with her sister.
“Yes,” Constance said, as though Scarlett had asked if she wanted more coffee. “Married. And my fiancé isn’t exactly supportive of my role here, so I doubt I’ll be encouraged to keep it once we’re wed.” There was no emotion in her voice. No excitement. Nothing.
Scarlett’s mouth opened and shut twice. “I don’t understand.”
“I knew you wouldn’t,” Constance said softly.
“You have the same expression you wore the day our parents forbade you from marrying Edward until after the war.” Dutiful—that was it. She looked resigned and dutiful. The nausea returned with a vehemence as that foreboding feeling slipped from Scarlett’s chest to her belly. “Who are you marrying?”
“Henry Wadsworth.” Constance lifted her chin.
No.
Silence filled the kitchen, sharper than any words could have been.
No. No. No. Scarlett reached for Jameson’s hand under the table, needing an anchor.
“It’s not up to you,” Constance argued.
Scarlett blinked, realizing she’d spoken out loud. “You cannot. He’s a monster. He’ll ruin you.”
Constance shrugged. “Then he ruins me.”
If it dies, it dies. Her words as she planted the rose yesterday echoed in Scarlett’s mind. “Why would you do this?” She’d been home this last weekend. “They’re making you, aren’t they?”
“No,” Constance rebutted softly. “Mummy told me they’re going to have to sell the rest of the land around the house at Ashby.”
Not the London house…their home. Scarlett pushed past the pang of regret at the news.
“Then it is their fault for not managing their own finances. Please don’t tell me you agreed to marry Wadsworth in an attempt to keep the land. Your happiness is worth far more than the property. Let them sell it.” More importantly, Constance would never survive a marriage to Wadsworth. He’d beat her spirit to death and body close to it.
“Don’t you see?” Pain flickered over Constance’s features. “They’d sell off the pond. The gazebo. The little hunting cottage. All of it.”
“Let them!” Scarlett snapped. “That man will destroy you.” Her hand gripped Jameson’s.
Constance stood, then pushed her chair under the table. “I knew you wouldn’t understand, and you don’t have to. It’s my decision to make.” She strode from the room, her shoulders back and her head high.
Scarlett raced after her. “I know you love them, and you want to please them, but you do not owe them your life.”
Constance paused with her hand on the doorknob. “I have no life left for myself. All I have are memories.” She turned slowly, losing her polished facade and letting her anguish show.
The pond. The gazebo. The hunting cabin. Scarlett’s eyes drifted shut for the length of a deep breath. “Poppet, owning those places will not bring him back.”
“If you lost Jameson, and you had a chance to keep the first house you lived in at Kirton-in-Lindsey, even if only to walk through the rooms to talk to his ghost, would you?”
Scarlett wanted to argue that it wasn’t the same. But she couldn’t.
Jameson was her husband, her soul mate, the love of her life. But she’d loved him for less than a year. Constance had loved Edward since they were children, swimming in that pond, playing games in the gazebo, stealing kisses in the hunting cabin.
“There’s no saying the land would even be there by the time you wed.” Which hopefully wouldn’t be this summer—only a few weeks away.
“He’s purchasing them now, in good faith…as an engagement gift. It was all settled this weekend. I know you’re disappointed in me—”
“No, never that. I’m frightened for you. I’m terrified that you’re throwing away your life instead of—”
“Instead of what?” Constance cried. “I will never love again. My chance for happiness is gone, so what does it matter?” She opened the front door and stormed out, leaving Scarlett to scramble after her.
“You don’t know that!” Scarlett yelled from the pavement, stopping her sister before she reached the street. “You do know what he’ll do to you. We’ve seen it. Can you honestly give yourself to a man like that? You are worth so much more!”
“I do know!” Constance’s face crumpled. “I know it in the same way you do. I saw your face last night. Had it been Howie at your door, telling you it was Jameson who’d been lost, you would have been decimated. Can you look me in the eye and tell me you’ll ever love again if he dies?”
Bile rose in Scarlett’s throat. “Please don’t do this.”
“I have the power to save our family, to keep our land, to perhaps teach my children to swim in that very pond. We are not the same, you and I. You had a reason to fight the match. I have a reason to accept it.”
Scarlett’s mouth watered, and her stomach convulsed. She hit her knees and lost her breakfast into one of the bushes that framed their doorway. She felt Jameson’s hand at the nape of her neck, gathering her unpinned hair as she heaved, emptying her belly.
“Honey,” he murmured, rubbing circles on her back.
The nausea subsided, gone as quickly as it had come.
Oh God. Her mind scurried, trying to trace an invisible calendar. She hadn’t had a moment’s peace since March. They’d moved in April…and it was May.
Scarlett stood slowly, her gaze meeting Constance’s wide, compassionate one.
“Oh, Scarlett,” she whispered. “Neither of us will be Section Leader by the end of the year, will we?”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Jameson asked, his hand steady when Scarlett felt like the slightest breeze might send her back to the ground.
Scarlett looked up at him, taking in those beautiful green eyes, the strong set of his chin, and the worried lines of his mouth. He was about to worry a lot more.