Page 13 of The Duke and His Cinderella
“I had a robe on. Besides, nobody saw me.”
“Somebodycouldsee you. You don’t seem to understand this. What if…”
“What if what? If this worries you so much, Marina, then name your fear. What is it you’re afraid is going to happen?”
“A drifter or a vagrant could come onto our property,” Marina said. “You can’t assume that it’s safe out there at night just because it’s safe during the day.”
“In all the time I’ve done this, Marina, I have never seen a drifter or a vagrant.”
“Well, it would only take one time!” Marina said. “And besides, something else could happen. You might hurt yourself out there.”
“How would I hurt myself walking across the grounds?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Marina said sharply.
“Oh, not you too! I couldn’t believe Father brought that old incident up at breakfast today. It wasnothing.I fell in the river once as a child, and since then, no one has trusted me to so much as put on my own socks!”
“You understate what happened, and I think you know it,” Marina said. “The reason you fell in the water was that you were disobeying our parents. And it wasn’t as if you climbed out of the river and everything went back to normal, Eleanor. That was a serious injury. Just look!”
She took hold of Eleanor’s hand and turned it so that the scar across her palm was on full display.
Eleanor yanked her hand out of her sister’s grasp. “You’re going to turn out just like the two of them if you aren’t careful,” she admonished her sister. “You think you know best about everything, don’t you, Marina? But it’s not the case. Has it ever occurred to you that I don’t mind having a scar on my hand? I don’t see that as the worst thing that can happen to a person, and I don’t think it makes me utterly undesirable either, the way Mother seems to. Can you not imagine a gentleman with a scar on his hand still holding interest for you? Is it so difficult to think that you might find such a thing interesting—even exciting—instead of ugly and dreadful?”
“It’s different,” Marina frowned. “It’s different for gentlemen. Gentlemen can have scars, and you’re right, it often adds to the interest of their appearance. But that’s not the same when it comes to young ladies. We’re supposed to be lovely. Flawless.”
“We willneverbe flawless,” Eleanor said. “I know I won’t.”
“But we ought to try, surely?”
“I don’t want to be flawless,” Eleanor declared. “If a gentleman wants something lovely and flawless, I say he ought to buy a painting! If he wants a wife, he must expect her to be complicated and interesting and yes,flawed, because wearen’tperfect creatures. You can come as close to perfection as you possibly can, but there will still be something imperfect about you, and if your husband doesn’t know about that on the day he marries you, he will spend the rest of your lives together learning it. Every day will be a discovery of the fact that you’re not asperfect as he thought you were.” She sighed. “You don’t have this concern because Jacob already knows all about you.”
“He doesn’t knowallabout me.”
“He knows enough. He isn’t going to learn anything in the months after your marriage that will shock him because he believed you were a flawless person. Every flaw you have, you already know that he finds charming or endearing, and he doesn’t see them as flaws at all! Don’t you see what a beautiful thing that is, how lucky you are to have it?”
“I know I’m lucky to have Jacob. I’ve never doubted it.”
“Well, that’s all I want,” Eleanor said. “I want to be able to show my true self to a gentleman and to know that I’m lovely in his eyes.” She hesitated. “Did I tell you that the gentleman at the masquerade kissed my scar?”
Marina’s jaw dropped. “He did what?”
“He took my hand and kissed it. Right on my scar!”
“Through your glove?”
“No. I had taken off my gloves.”
“Eleanor!”
“Well, I shouldn’t have to wear them all the time!” Eleanor protested. “If I marry, my husband is going to see my hands. Andthisgentleman clearly didn’t think there was anything wrong with them.”
“I can’t believe hekissedyou. That’s so forward!”
“Only my hand,” Eleanor said. “I liked it, but it wasn’t as scandalous as you’re making it sound.”
“I don’t know, Eleanor,” her sister said. “This is exactly the kind of thing I worry about with you.”
“You worry that a gentleman will kiss my hand? If that’s the danger you’re so afraid of when I go out at night, there really is nothing to fear.” She laughed. “It’s the least harmful thing that’s ever happened to me!”
