“I’ve arrangements to make. For the wedding,” she says with a happy sigh.
“You must tell us simply everything,” Felicity insists, and we badger her with questions. Will she carry a fan? Will there be lace? A veil? Will she have orange blossoms embroidered on her dress for luck as Queen Victoria did?
“Oh, no, nothing so grand.” She demurs, glancing down at her plump hands resting in her ample lap. “It will be a simple country wedding in the Spence chapel.”
“Will you stay on at Spence?” Ann asks. “After you’re married?”
“That rather depends on Mr. Kent,” she answers, as if that settles it.
“Would you want to stay on?” Felicity presses.
“I should like a new life once I am married. In fact, the inspector has begun to ask my thoughts on his cases, to have a woman’s perspective. I know it’s out of the ordinary for a wife’s duties, but I confess I find it quite thrilling.”
“That is lovely,” Ann says. She’s smiling in that romantic way of hers, and I know that in her head she’s conjured images of herself bustling about a kitchen, sending her husband off to work with a kiss. I try to imagine myself in such a life. Would I like it? Would I grow bored? Would it be a comfort or a curse?
My thoughts turn to Kartik—his lips, his hands, the way he once kissed me. In my mind I see myself running my fingers across those lips, feeling his hands at the nape of my neck. A warm ache settles below my belly. It ignites something deep inside me that I cannot name, and suddenly, it’s as if I am inside a vision. Kartik and I stand in a garden. My hands are tattooed with henna, like an Indian bride’s. He takes me into his arms and kisses me under a steady rain of falling petals. He gently lowers the edges of my sari, baring my shoulders, his lips trailing down my bare skin, and I sense that everything between us is about to change.
I come back to myself suddenly. My breathing is labored and I feel flushed from head to toe. No one seems to notice my discomfort, and I do my best to regain my composure.
“I shall never marry,” Felicity announces with a wicked smile. “I shall live in Paris and become an artist’s model.”
She’s trying to shock, and Mademoiselle LeFarge supplies the requisite admonishment—“Really, Miss Worthington”—but then she changes course.
“Have you no desire for a husband and children, Miss Worthington?” she asks plainly, as if on this train we have ridden from girls to young ladies who might be trusted to hold a different sort of conversation. It is nearly as powerful as the magic, this trust.
“No, I don’t,” Felicity says.
“And why not?” LeFarge presses.