The door to her chamber opened without a knock, and Mina marched in carrying a tray. Her puffy eyes and pink nose were well noticeable from across the room. Nausea spread through Hattie’s stomach, and she turned her face away.
Mina put the tray down on her night table abruptly enough to make the china rattle, then she tossed something onto the bed.
A newspaper.
Hattie peered at it gingerly from the corner of her eye.
BLACKSTONE ART GALLERY EXHIBITS
MORE THAN MISS G BARGAINED FOR!
The headline was screaming at her in bold black letters that took up half the page. White dots danced across her vision. “This happened last evening,” she croaked. “How is it in the papers today?”
Mina didn’t grant her a glance; she was on her way to the door, her back stiff as a board.
“Mina.”
Her sister whirled back round like a cat whose tail had been grabbed. “Are you truly surprised?” she hissed. “Blackstone, in a compromising position with a Greenfield? It is remarkable that no special editions fed out last night!”
She closed her eyes. “Yes. You are right, of course.”
Mina was breathing heavily. “How could you?” she said, her voice low and shaky.
“I didn’t mean to.”
“Mama and Papa have been quarreling half the night, blaming each other for your waywardness. Aunty hasn’t slept a wink—she looks ill.”
She swallowed hard. “Aunty hates me, too?”
“Not entirely,” Mina conceded. “She blames much of it on our ancestors for moving to London and converting the Greenfields to the Anglican Church.”
“Lord.” And Zachary … the thought of her favorite brother knowing about her depravity made her shudder.
“If Sir Bradleigh doesn’t offer for me now, I shall hate you forever,” Mina said, her eyes glittering with barely checked tears.
She sat up straight. “Mina, he must; he adores you—”
Mina’s small hands sliced through the air. “Of course he does. And if it were my decision alone, I should just elope with him—but he is an honorable man with a reputation to heed, so we can’t; and currently I’m an inch from acquiring a reputation as damaged goods by association. Good heavens, just what possessed you to tryst with that man, and in public?”
“I—”
“Why not with Lord Skeffington—I thought you had a tendresse for him!”
She looked down at her hands. “I had,” she said miserably.
Mina was glaring at her. “I knew you were eccentric, but not that your tastes were so … base.”
“They’re not,” Hattie said, but she sounded small. Strumpet. She shook her head.
Mina crossed her arms over her chest. Her red hair moved around her angry face like flames. “You have lost the opportunity for a good match,” she said. “However, you can still make it right for me. Pray, make it right.” She swept out of the room with her snub nose high in the air. Undoubtedly, she would have made a magnificent wife for a knight.
But marry Mr. Blackstone? She fell back into her pillows, feeling faint again. If she didn’t marry him, these headlines were only the beginning. She would suffer a death by a thousand cuts if she refused his hand. Look, it is Harriet Greenfield, who committed carnal indecencies in public, oh, in a gallery you say, my word. She couldn’t even blame the gossips—granted, some took mean-spirited pleasure in eviscerating a scandalous woman, but most people were genuinely at a loss as to what to do with one. Few could afford to be seen conversing with her; once the good and righteous had formed a mob to uphold proper conduct, snubbing the downtrodden was the only safe way to avoid having one’s own moral character called into question, too.
She pulled the covers over her head. Her mind sluggishly circled over the same arguments only to reach the same conclusions: if she married him, scandal would be kept at bay. Cross-class marriages had become more common ever since Jennie Jerome had brazenly nabbed Lord Churchill off the marriage mart several years ago, thus opening the floodgates for other American dollar princesses eager to trade dowries for aristocratic titles. However, there was nothing to be gained for her family from the Blackstone match other than the avoidance of scandal; they required no funds, and Blackstone’s social rank was beneath theirs thanks to his murky origins. And all of this paled against her own personal cost: if she married the man, all hope for a future love match would be lost. In her nightmares, she was bound to a husband only to unexpectedly meet her soulmate, to lock eyes with him across a room and just know what she had lost by marrying the wrong person. Tragedy! Then again, that opportunity was lost now anyway. No gentleman with options courted damaged goods.