To Marie- Claire, she said, “Why not?”
TWENTY MINUTES LATER Iris and Marie-Claire were trudging across the western fields of Maycliffe. Iris still wasn’t entirely certain where they were going; Marie-Claire had said something about picking berries, but it seemed far too early in the year for that. Either way, Iris didn’t much care. She had a warm, buttery scone in her hands, and she was fairly certain it was the best thing she had ever eaten. Someone in the kitchens had to be from Scotland. It seemed the only explanation.
They didn’t say much as they made their way down the hill. Iris was busy savoring her breakfast, and Marie-Claire seemed happy enough swinging her basket as she skipped along. But once they reached the bottom and turned onto a well-worn path, Marie-Claire cleared her throat, and said, “I don’t know if anyone has properly thanked you.”
Iris went still, forgetting for a moment even to chew. She had not the pleasure of many conversations with Marie-Claire, and this . . . Well, frankly it surprised her.
“For . . .” Marie-Claire motioned toward Iris’s midsection, her hand making an awkward little circle in the air. “For that.”
Iris returned her eyes to the walking path. Richard had thanked her. It had taken him three days, but in all fairness, she had not given him the opportunity to do so before their conversation the night before. And even if he had tried, if he had banged her door down and insisted that she listen to him, it wouldn’t have mattered. She would not have heard anything he said. She had not been ready to allow him a true conversation.
“Iris?”
“You’re welcome,” Iris said, pretending to be absorbed in extracting a currant from her scone. She really didn’t feel like talking about this with Marie-Claire.
But the younger girl had other ideas. “I know Fleur seems ungrateful,” she persisted, “but she will come around. Eventually.”
“I’m afraid I cannot agree with your assessment,” Iris said. She still had no idea how Richard thought he was going to pull this off without Fleur’s cooperation.
“She’s not stupid, no matter how she might be acting right now. In fact, most of the time she’s not this—well, not quite this emotional.” Marie-Claire’s lips came together, pursing into a thoughtful frown. “She was very close to our mother, you know, more so than either Richard or me.”
Iris hadn’t known that. Richard had not said much of his mother to her, just that she’d died, and he missed her.
“Perhaps that made Fleur more motherly,” Marie-Claire continued. She looked over at Iris and gave a little shrug. “Perhaps that’s why she feels so attached to the baby.”
“Perhaps,” Iris said. She sighed, glancing down at her own belly. She was going to have to start padding herself soon. The only reason she had not yet done so were the three hundred miles between Yorkshire and London. Ladies were not quite so relentlessly fashionable here, and she could get away with wearing last year’s frocks. Waistlines were dropping in the capital; the forgiving billows of the Regency style were giving way to something far more structured and uncomfortable. By 1840, Iris predicted, women would be corseted into nothingness.
They walked on for a few quiet moments, then Marie-Claire said, “Well, I’m thanking you.”
“You’re welcome,” Iris said again, this time turning to Marie-Claire with a small, rueful smile. The younger girl was trying. The least she could do was be gracious.
“I know that Fleur says she wants to be a mother,” Marie-Claire went on blithely, “but it’s really quite selfish of her. Do you know she has not apologized to me even once?”
“To you?” Iris murmured. Because really, she rather thought she deserved one first.
“She’ll ruin me,” Marie-Claire said. “You know she will. If you weren’t doing what you’re doing—”
Doing what you’re doing, Iris thought. What a lovely euphemism.
“—and she went ahead and had this baby out of wedlock, no one would have me.” Marie-Claire turned to Iris with an expression that was almost belligerent. “You’ll probably say I’m being selfish, but you know it’s true.”
“I know,” Iris said quietly. Perhaps if Richard gave Marie-Claire a season in London . . . They could probably find someone for her, someone who lived far from this corner of Yorkshire. Gossip traveled, but usually not that far.
“It’s so unfair. She makes a mistake, and I’m the one who would have to pay the price.”
“I hardly think she would find herself getting off scot-free,” Iris pointed out.
Marie-Claire pressed her lips together impatiently. “Yes, well, she would deserve it, not me.”
It was not the most becoming of attitudes, but Iris had to admit that Marie-Claire had a point.
“Trust me when I tell you there are girls here who are just dying for a reason to cut me.” Marie-Claire sighed, and a little bit of bravado seemed to seep out of her. She looked over at Iris with a slightly forlorn expression. “Do you know girls like that?”
“Quite a few,” Iris admitted.
They walked about ten more paces, and then Marie-Claire suddenly said, “I suppose I can forgive her a little.”
“A little?” Iris had always thought that forgiveness was an all-or-nothing sort of thing.
“I’m not completely unreasonable,” Marie-Claire said with a sniff. “I do recognize that she’s in a difficult situation. After all, it’s not as if she can marry the father.”