Chapter Ten
Gwen
Gwen sits at the pianoforte, slumped and listless. She forces herself through her scales, making intentional mistakes. But it doesn’t help. It’s been two days since she’s seen Beth and it feels like she could crawl right out of her skin.
She knows she should regret it. The position she’s put them both in, the impropriety, the sin of it—but all she wants is to be back in that dim, dusty cellar pressed against her best friend, devouring her mouth like it’s the end of the world.
Gwen groans and lets her head drop to rest against the fallboard. There was part of her that really thought if she just got it out of her system, that would be the end of it. The end of the confusing thoughts, and yearnings, melancholy, and frustration. Instead, she’s made matters ten times worse. And now she’ll have to watch Beth marry Lord Montson knowing—
Knowing what? Knowing what it’s like to have something she can never have? Knowing how it feels to hold someone she actually cares about? Knowing what it’s like to be in love?
Is she? In love?
Gwen rolls herself back up, staring blankly out the window at the steady misting drizzle. Is what she’s feeling love? This all-consuming thought? The heated tickle across her skin when she thinks of their kiss? The thought of Beth’s smile bringing one to Gwen’s face? Is that love?
Would a man think himself in love after one kiss? Surely she can’t have fallen so hard so quickly, much less for a woman she’s only known for two months.
But the butterflies in her stomach tell a different story. They may have only known each other for months, but Gwen’s never felt so close to anyone before, man or woman. The day doesn’t seem as bright without Beth in it.
But Beth might not feel the same way. She was so caught up in the heat and press and flesh of it all, maybe she imagined Beth gripping at her hips, pulling her closer. Maybe Beth was repulsed and too surprised to pull away. What if Beth doesn’t feel like this? What if she’s just waiting for the next tea party to politely brush Gwen off?
Gwen sucks on her cheek, worrying a sore into her bottom lip. What if Beth doesn’t feel the same way? What then?
And somehow, both worse and better, what if she does?
“There you are.”
Gwen nearly jumps off the bench, a hand to her heart as Father strides into the room, his cheeks flushed and hair damp. He wasn’t supposed to be home until late afternoon—some meeting of parliamentarians at the club.
Gwen blinks, noticing the time on the clock over the mantel. It’s nearly five already. Has she really just been sitting here in a strop all afternoon?
“Go up to your room and put on a gown,” Father says.
Gwen stares, feeling like his words are traveling through fog. “What?”
“Go and get dressed. I’m taking you, Miss Demeroven, and Lady Demeroven to the opera to celebrate.”
Gwen’s stomach drops. “Celebrate what?”
“We’re going to pass the Matrimonial Causes Act,” Father says, his grin nearly splitting his face.
“That’s . . . wonderful,” Gwen manages, trying to return his joy. She knows how hard he’s worked for this—how much it means to him—but the feeling of dread clutching at her chest makes it hard to smile.
“I’ve sent Mrs. Stelm up to lay out your best dress. We’ll have dinner at Wilton’s and then ride to the theater. Box seats, best in the house.”
Gwen swallows past her unease when his smile just doesn’t fall. “You’re very excited.”
He laughs. “Yes. Now, go and get pretty, and I shall do the same.”
Gwen giggles despite herself and lets him guide her from the parlor, listening as he prattles on about the various business dealings and negotiations that created this magnificent assurance of votes. Of course, that quorum needs to survive until the vote, but they’ve done it.
He leads her up to her room and passes her over to the preparations of Mrs. Gilpe and Mrs. Stelm. Gwen’s stomach twists. Images of the two of them pressed together in the kitchen swarm her head as the pair move around her, helping her out of her housedress and into her fresh shift and corset.
Did their stomachs somersault like this the first time they kissed a woman? How did they even come to realize they could? And find each other? How did they decide together to risk everything to lie in the same bed each night?
“Are you quite well?” Mrs. Gilpe asks as Mrs. Stelm adjusts Gwen’s corset.
“How did you—” Gwen blurts, stopping just shy of shouting it like a demand.
Her housekeepers exchange a confused look and Gwen balls her fists, feeling so exceedingly uncomfortable and twisted up.
“Is something bothering you?” Mrs. Stelm asks gently, her rounder, more open face easier to consider than Mrs. Gilpe’s assessing stare.
She knows they both love her. Mrs. Stelm has just always been the softer of the two. Because they’ve always been a pair. Even if Gwen never thought on it much—even though it’s never discussed or brought up, they’re a pair. A team. A . . . couple.
“How did you two meet?” Gwen ventures, trying to look disinterested, though she can tell from both of their faces that she’s easily overplayed her hand.
“Mrs. Gilpe’s been with your family since she was born,” Mrs. Stelm says slowly.
“Right, I know,” Gwen mumbles, feeling foolish.
She knows how they met. Mrs. Stelm was hired by Father’s mother on recommendation from a local seamstress. And of course Mrs. Gilpe’s lived with the Havenforts since she was small, because her father was the groundskeeper. So they met at the country estate, and have been working together for Gwen’s entire life.
She doesn’t know how to ask what she really means. How do two women decide to . . .
“I thought I heard you come into the kitchen a few nights ago,” Mrs. Gilpe says idly. She bends to raise the hoop cage, stepping behind Gwen to secure it. “Your father asked you to bring in the dishes?”
Gwen nods slowly, watching Mrs. Stelm’s eyes widen. The two women exchange a knowing glance between them. It makes her blush. Why is it everyone in her household seems to have seen this before she did? She’s no child. She’s been out for four seasons, is . . . seasoned in the ways of courtship. Why has this hit her like a speeding carriage?
“Was there something you wanted to ask?”
Mrs. Stelm smiles at her, gentle and open, like she used to when Gwen had questions as a little girl. How do bees sleep? Why is the sky blue? Why do trees lose their leaves? But her question now feels too big for her tongue.
“You looked happy,” Gwen says, letting the words fall free even though she can’t seem to pluck up exactly what it is she wants to ask.
“We are,” Mrs. Gilpe says firmly, like it’s an easy, given fact.
“I’m sorry if it upset you, to see us like that,” Mrs. Stelm adds.
“No!” Gwen exclaims, wincing as they both jump. She doesn’t want them to think—“It’s not that at all. No, I’m . . . I’m glad. I mean, I knew, but I’m—it looked . . . nice,” she trails off, her cheeks going scarlet.
Mrs. Gilpe and Mrs. Stelm share another knowing look and Gwen wants to melt into the floor. Nice. She saw them in flagrante and all she can say was it looked nice? How—she shouldn’t even be commenting on it. She bites at her lip. If one of them were a man, it would be a scandal.
And she certainly wouldn’t think it nice. A man pushing you into a solid countertop, nosing at your neck, scrabbling at your waist—it would look barbaric. But what she saw was anything but. It was giggling and blushing and just . . .
“It was,” Mrs. Stelm says, withholding a laugh. “Nice.”
Gwen groans. “I don’t—”
“If it’s consensual, two people touching that way should always be nice,” Mrs. Gilpe adds.
Mrs. Stelm does giggle then. Gwen watches her reflection as her blush crawls from her chest to the tips of her ears. She looks like a tomato.
“Don’t know how many kisses you’ve had—though of course it should be none,” Mrs. Gilpe continues, fixing Gwen with a stern look before she cracks and laughs herself.
Gwen stares. She’s rarely seen the woman so open. “Only two—well, three,” she corrects, her face going further red as memories of her moment with Beth flit through her mind. “I just, I—How did you decide to . . . be like this?” She ends on a whisper, feeling embarrassed and ashamed for her curiosity.
She wouldn’t ask if one of them was a man. No one need ask when one is a man. That’s simply how it’s meant to be. You’re born a girl, you grow up to be a wife, then a mother, then more than likely a widow, and then you pass, hopefully with a smattering of male heirs.
You don’t grow up to kiss your best friends and become a spinster.
“I had more than my share of kisses as a lass,” Mrs. Stelm says.
Mrs. Gilpe strides to firmly shut Gwen’s door. Gwen swallows as full privacy surrounds them. She’s not sure she truly wants to know this. It feels like there’s no turning back, like somehow this conversation will cement a reality she’s not sure she wants to face. But she’s already started it. Already pressed herself to Beth and taken her mouth—would have taken more if she could.
“And none of them felt the way I’m betting it did when you kissed that new debutante you’re always talking about,” Mrs. Stelm says.
Gwen sways in place. How do they just know?
“Oh, sweetheart, it was all over your face when you came home from that garden party,” Mrs. Stelm says.
“Like you’d been socked in the gut and slapped in the face, and then given a new pony,” Mrs. Gilpe adds, chuckling as Mrs. Stelm whacks her arm.
“Felt like that,” Gwen whispers, something releasing as she meets their eyes in the mirror—speaking it into the world is like breathing that clutching panic right out of her chest.
“Once you’ve been kissed like that, it’s hard to go back to other kisses,” Mrs. Gilpe says frankly.
Gwen feels her shoulders droop. She knows it won’t ever feel the same with a man. It’s not that the kisses of her first seasons were terrible, but they weren’t . . . Beth’s. “And you never thought of getting married anyway, either of you?” she wonders.
Mrs. Gilpe and Mrs. Stelm glance at each other for a long moment. Gwen watches their silent conversation in newfound interest. She’s seen couples at parties look at each other this way, silently discussing something before giving an answer.
“It was our wish to find a way to be married together,” Mrs. Gilpe tells her, meeting her eyes in the mirror. The two of them step close behind her. “But, and this is the only time in your life I’ll say this, it was simpler for us as commoners than it will ever be for you.”
Gwen lets out a startled laugh. “Oh?”
Mrs. Stelm smiles. “Though you know we sleep in the same room and call us Mrs. despite neither of us having husbands, how often have you really thought about our situation?” she asks.
Gwen bites at her cheek, unwilling to say she’s never, not once, thought on it. That’s just how it’s always been, even though she knows there are more than enough servant’s quarters for them both to have a suite of them should they wish it.
“Which is exactly as we expected it to be. And as your father takes as little interest in our love lives as he does the others’, it’s never been an issue,” Mrs. Gilpe adds.
“But, to be fair, your father is no ordinary lord. Certainly in another house we would not have survived. Your mother never caught on,” Mrs. Stelm adds after a moment.
“Oh, she would have had us both thrown in the asylum,” Mrs. Gilpe says with a snort. “We were simply careful.”
“Why would she do that?” Gwen asks, the question popping out like she’s an innocent child.
She knows her mother was anything but saintly. A vicious tongue Father pretends was merely witty, but Gwen’s heard enough stories to know there was cruelty behind the beauty. But to have two women thrown into the asylum for the crime of happiness?
“Your father is a good man. You mother was a woman of her time and station. It would have offended all that she knew,” Mrs. Gilpe says easily.
“Was she really that awful?” Gwen wonders, staring at her reflection.
What would her mother have thought of her, then, fantasizing of kisses with her best friend?
“I think she was very unhappy,” Mrs. Stelm says softly, reaching out to squeeze Gwen’s shoulder. “Unhappy people are often cruel to avoid the cruelty within.”
“Regardless, you are a lovely young woman, and anyone would be lucky to have you. Whether or not it’s as you’d wish it to be, there are arrangements that can be made,” Mrs. Gilpe says.
Gwen meets her eyes in the mirror. “What do you mean?”
“There’s many a young wife who has a constant companion, or one who visits often throughout the year. And many more a husband and wife who sleep separately. You can live your own life, should you find the right match. Your station could put you in a good situation to orchestrate a lifestyle.”
Companions, nothing more, stealing what time they can while their husbands are away in parliament or sleeping in the opposite wing.
“But, tonight, all you have to do is put on your gown and enjoy a dinner and evening at the opera with your father and your friend,” Mrs. Stelm says, sneaking in to tickle Gwen’s side and wipe her face of concern.
It half works.
“Yes, he did seem very excited to take Lady Demeroven out on a date.”
Gwen’s head swims for the second time. “This is a date?”
“Oh, you are rather hopeless, aren’t you?” Mrs. Gilpe says.
Gwen glares as the women laugh, helping her into her gown. But their smiles are soft, and she loves them so dearly. More dearly than she even thought she could—sisters in some other world than they are in now.