Gwen buttoned her lip. Her mother waited a moment to be sure that Gwen would not interrupt, and then she began to speak with all the gravitas of a Shakespearean tragedy.
“Today is your twenty-eighth birthday. On this day, I have come to tell you that you are a fully grown adult.” There was a long pause where Gwen wondered if she should say something. There was no easy way to explain that her mother’s pronouncement came years too late. Gwen had viewed herself as an adult for a long while. Fortunately, her mother didn’t remain silent. “You are no longer my child,” she declared.
Gwen gasped, horrified. Was she being cast out? Disinherited?
“No, no,” her mother rushed to say. “Not like that. I mean you are no longerachild.” She gestured vaguely toward where the nanny was now ushering her charges away. “I cannot be vigilant with you anymore. It gains nothing and sets us constantly at odds.”
“I have grown weary of our battles,” Gwen offered.
“Don’t interrupt,” her mother admonished, then she frowned. “And yes, I am tired of them, too.”
Gwen acknowledged the statement with a nod but knew better than to say anything more. It was a tedious thing, though. Usually her mother wouldn’t shut up and Gwen was able to easily ignore whatever was said. But this slow, halting speech was strange and therefore captured her attention. As did the way her mother’s eyes sheened with tears that she refused to shed. Her mother always enjoyed her tears. She let them flow with dramatic effect. Except, apparently, this morning.
“Mother, you begin to alarm me.”
“Well,” she said, “it is an alarming thing what I am about to say.” Then true to her contrary nature, the woman didn’t say anything, but shoved the package into Gwen’s hands.
“What is this?”
“Yours,” her mother said. “They’re sketching charcoals. I know how much you enjoy it.” She sniffed. “You’re an adult now.”
She kept saying that word—adult—as if it were something terrible. But rather than address her mother’s illogic, Gwen gently unwrapped the paper around a beautiful package of new charcoals. “Thank you, Mama,” she said, completely mystified. Of course, she enjoyed sketching, though in truth she was bad at it.
“You may draw whatever you like now. I won’t pester you to sketch appropriate things.”
“Thank you—”
“You never listened to me anyway.” She blew out a breath as she looked away to the sky. “In ten years of seasons, you never listened to me. Ten years, hundreds of dances, and three offers. Many more if you’d given the slightest encouragement.”
“They were idiots.”
“They were wealthy. Two were titled, and they would have taken care of you.”
Maybe. But Gwen had found she could care for herself just as well. “Our children would have been stupid. I could not abide—”
“So you’ve said!” her mother snapped. Then she caught her breath and modulated her tone. “It’s done now. I have failed to ensure your future.” She gripped her fingers together. “If only you hadn’t fought me so hard!”
Gwen stared at her mother, old fury boiling up. “Then you would have married me to someone I hated as you did to Diana. I would have been trapped, just like Diana. I would have—”
“Diana is blissfully happy now!”
It was true. Her older sister had finally married someone of her choosing. But that came after twelve years of marriage to someone of her mother’s choosing. A man who’d been nearly three times her age and had finally died the year before. His death freed Diana to find love with someone who honored and respected her.
“When a woman is able to choose for herself,” Gwen said firmly, “she often chooses brilliantly. As Diana has now.”
Her mother shot her an angry glare. “I have not forced you to marry anyone,” she said. “I don’t know why you hold Diana’s marriage against me when it wasn’t you who had to marry Dunnamore.”
But her mother would have forced her into any one of those other marriages if Gwen hadn’t fought tooth and nail against them. Despite her mother’s threats and myriad coercion techniques, Gwen had told the gentlemen “no” and watched in satisfaction as they left her alone. Not so her mother, who then turned her sights on different gentlemen, different marital prospects, despite Gwen’s absolute declaration that she had no interest in a husband.
But rather than argue old territory, Gwen lifted her chin and said, “Thank you for the birthday present.”
“You’re welcome. I’ve decided it’s best if we try to get along. We’ll be living together for a very long time now.”
Gwen frowned. “We’ve been living together my entire life, Mama.”
“Yes, but I’ve recently looked to our future. Elliott and Amber will happily house us, of course, but I cannot think a newlywed couple would want us bumping elbows with them. We’ll need to retire to the dower cottage. It’s small but should serve our needs.”
Live with her mother forever? The thought horrified Gwen. The two of them could barely speak more than ten minutes without arguing. The idea of aging alongside one another in the tiny cottage equated to Gwen’s image of Hell.