“Yes,” Elinor drawled. “If this doesn’t provoke him to divorce me, I don’t know what will.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Thaïs, who was lounging on a sofa in a corner, eating a tart clearly stolen from the heaping tray at Elinor’s feet. “Once he sees you posed like this, he might want you back.”
“He can’t have me,” Elinor said with a rather mysterious smile. “I’ve decided to declare myself to another.”
Sera glanced at Cornelia and Thaïs, wondering if she had missed something during her week of convalescence, but they both looked equally confused.
“You don’t mean—” Sera ventured, and Elinor nodded before she could finish the thought.
“I have decided that if I’m going to be publicly condemned for having a love affair with Jack Willow, there is no reason not to actually have one. I’ve sent my maid out to invite him to visit me in Surrey. If he comes, I shall tell him how I feel about him. ’Tis up to him, of course, but hopefully he is fond enough of me to give weight to Lord Bell’s suspicions.”
She beamed at them. Sera could not remember her looking so happy in months.
“You love him,” Sera said softly.
Elinor blushed in a way that made her look years younger. “Yes. I think I always have.”
“I think you are very brave,” Thaïs said solemnly.
“And very reckless,” Cornelia added, her face decidedly less enthusiastic. “If Bell finds out . . .”
Elinor sighed. “Girls, there is a time for caution, but sometimes we must take a risk for the heart. It’s a lesson I wish I had learned much earlier in life. One I hope you will not have to learn at my age, looking back at what might have been.”
She looked meaningfully at Seraphina.
Sera glared at Thaïs and Cornelia. All week, they had pestered her to tell them what she had discussed with Adam. All week, she had resisted saying much at all.
It was not that she did not welcome their opinions. But her own feelings on the matter felt so new and unfamiliar that it made her hesitant to air them. Like if she named the fears she had, or the hopes that blossomed up in her better moments, she might discover that the whole thing had been a dream.
She didn’t want to ruin it.
“Well, I do have some news. I had a meeting with my solicitor this morning. He’s done the accounts. We’ve raised ten thousand pounds.”
Cornelia stopped painting. “You’re joking.”
Sera shook her head. “I’m not. I looked at the statements myself. We have made a real start on the institute.”
“More than a start,” Thaïs cried. “Why, that’s a fortune! We can buy a piece of land, with funds left over!”
“And commission an architectural design,” Cornelia said pointedly, looking at Sera. “I don’t suppose you know any good architects?”
Well, perhaps Elinor was right. Perhaps if she waited too long, she would find she had run out of time.
“I’m considering asking Adam for his help,” she said, feeling as though she was abandoning herself to fate. “But you see, there is another matter between us, so before I raise the matter . . . well, I’m considering taking a trip.”
Thaïs wrinkled her nose. “A holiday? But you despise holidays.”
“It would not be a holiday so much as an experiment. You see, Adam has gone to Cornwall to finish his work there. He wants me to join him.”
Cornelia dropped her paintbrush. Thaïs stopped chewing. Elinor popped up from behind the cake, realized she was indecent, and rushed to fetch a dressing gown off a hook.
“And what did you say?” Cornelia prodded.
“I said I would consider it. And I have spent days thinking of it from every angle, and I still have no idea what to do.”
“Ah, philosophers and their thinking,” Thaïs said, rolling her eyes. “Allow a lowly, uneducated woman of the night to help you with the riddle—go.”
“Why?” Sera asked.
“Because the mere fact that you would consider going there means you want to be with him,” Thaïs said.
“Part of me does want to . . . well, try, I suppose. But I don’t want to leave our work. Not when we’ve made so much progress.”
Elinor cleared her throat. “Darling, you have had an extraordinary few months. You’ve written a book, you’ve fought for me, you’ve stood up to Pendrake and Bell and Trewlnany. You’ve raised an incredible sum of money for our institute, solicited so many pledges of support. You deserve time to yourself. Leave the rest to us.”
“The portraits will take months,” Cornelia added. “And we’ll have to arrange a showing, solicit more models, drum up interest. We can do all that while you’re away. And when things are in order, we’ll write and demand that you stop lazing about and come home to watch us have our moment.”
They made it sound so much simpler than it was. “There is also his family to consider,” Sera said. “If I spend time with him, openly, it becomes harder to leave them out of the scandal.”
“Too late,” Thaïs drawled. “You are going to have a baby together.”
“Well, yes, but his family—”
Thaïs held up a finger. “That makes you his family.”
She had never thought of it like that. She’d been framing the question in terms of the impact she would have on him, and he would have on her. Not how they might move through the world together. Looking after each other’s interests, like a team.
Thaïs was wearing an impossibly smug smile. “I have out-reasoned her. Huzzah!”
Sera gave her a level stare. “What if I go, and it’s terrible?”
“Then you will come back to me and say, Thaïs, you jackal, you tricked me with your feeble logic of the slums. And we will gather together, the Society of Sirens, and curse the wicked men and this cruel life. And then we will dry our tears and find our next adventure.”
“I think,” Cornelia mused, “Thaïs is right.”
Thaïs clapped her hands. “I am always right. It has taken you a decade to make your peace with it.”
Cornelia groaned. “My apologies, oh wise one. But, Sera, the worst that could happen if you go is that it doesn’t feel right, and you come back. But what if you go, and it’s wonderful?”
It felt dangerous to even consider such a thing. Dangerous and tempting.
“Darling?” Elinor said. “Do you miss him?”
Tears rose in Sera’s eyes. “So much,” she whispered.
So much that there wasn’t really any choice to make at all.
She shrugged. “Very well.”
“Very well what?” Cornelia asked.
Sera laughed softly, scarcely believing what she was about to say. “I’m going to go.”
Thaïs ran up and grabbed her by the shoulders and kissed her on both cheeks. “Brave girl,” she said.
Cornelia wrapped her arms around them both. “We’ll miss you.”
Elinor joined them in the hug. “I’m so proud of you, darling. You’ve fought so hard for us. Now go there and fight for the happiness you deserve. And remember—nothing would be a better revenge than you being madly in love with a man who adores you.”