Page 85 of The Runaway Duchess

So what if she loathed Cranbrook?

Her mother must have seen her sudden turmoil. Her face smoothed.

“I do hold the duke responsible for traveling with you too soon,” she said, gentling her voice. “You needed more time to recover from your fever. You must have been delirious when you got off the train. That’s what happened, is it not? You wandered off, in delirium. You collapsed and some passerby bundled you away to a doctor.”

Despite the softness of her speech, her mother’s tension was palpable. Her fingers had closed around the handle.

She didn’t want to know how Lavinia had spent the week.

She wanted to know that Lavinia could recite the right story, a story that might convince Cranbrook that she hadn’t bolted, humiliated him on the eve of his honeymoon.

She would act as Lavinia’s accomplice, but only on behalf of the marriage.

Lavinia felt herself trembling. Her emotions were so many tight and tangled strings, and her mother had the knack for strumming them all at once. Guilt. Anger. Dread. Shame. Panic. They jangled together. She couldn’t divide one from the other.

Even if she succeeded in explaining away her disappearance, there was no explaining away the underlying reason for it.

“I didn’t have a fever,” she whispered. “After the wedding . . . it wasn’t . . .”

She hugged herself tighter so she wouldn’t shake apart.

“What are you talking about?” Her mother’s eyes went wide again. “I feared scarlet fever. You were red all over. You did seem better in the morning, but perhaps Dr. Barth was wrong. Perhaps it was scarlet fever, or something like. The strain of travel overcame you. You weren’t yourself. The duke will understand, if we present it in the—”

Lavinia interrupted. “I ate the strawberries. At the wedding breakfast. I ate as many as I could.”

She and her mother both startled as the Sèvres vase toppled. It rolled on the carpet, unbroken. Her mother’s hands flew up, pressed her mouth. Her face was as white as her gloves.

“Maman.” Lavinia stepped closer, stepped into the range of an embrace.

“They make you sick.” Her mother spoke wonderingly, lowering her arms. She didn’t reach out. She blinked at the vase. Blinked at Lavinia. Suddenly, she did look worried, cheeks hollowing as though she were gnawed from within.

Perhaps she was remembering that long-ago day, the fright of it, Lavinia struggling to breathe.

Will it leave pocks? That was what she’d asked the doctor in the hall outside the bedchamber.

Perhaps she understood, for the first time, the extent of Lavinia’s desperation.

“Why? Why would you do such a thing?” She backed up until she bumped a sofa and sat down hard. “Why would you hurt yourself?”

“I was already hurt.” Lavinia looked down at her. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, she’d been silent on the subject of hurt. Now she erupted.

“You hurt me,” she said. “Papa hurt me.”

“Hurt you? We gave you everything you ever wanted. Princesses have been raised with less.” Her mother’s voice throbbed. “And have been more grateful for it.”

“You gave me everything you wanted me to want.” Lavinia’s heart pounded harder. “It’s not the same thing.”

All those years, she’d tried to meet impossible conditions.

“Is my dress perfect?” whispered Lavinia. “Is my posture perfect? Is my skin perfect? Will I be loved if I get too plump or too thin or if my hair won’t hold a curl? I never had a chance to want anything besides meaningless perfection. Does it matter if your smile is pretty when you’re dying inside?”

She smiled at her mother as tears slipped down her cheeks. “Maybe I could have been someone completely different. Someone I would have liked more.”

“You do have a fever.” Her mother turned her face to the painted ceiling, inhaling deeply. Lavinia watched the feathers on her hat trace a broad curve.

“Herons are incredible,” she said softly. “Have you ever watched one fish? Or fly?”

Her mother didn’t answer.