She let him draw her hand to him, unwilling to pull away when she didn’t know what he intended to do.
He put the card in her palm.
“Mrs. Smith,” he said. “Your analogy was spot on. You may, however, wish to reconsider your conclusion.”
“What do you mean?”
“You should make friends with your megalodon.” His fingers curled around hers, warm and substantial, closing her fingers around the solid edges of his card.
“But…”
“But nothing,” he told her. “You like megalodons. Why are you avoiding this one?”
Chapter Five
Evening had come and with it, stronger winds sweeping in from the faraway mountains. They hissed and howled around Amelia’s home, a constant chorus whispering through the evening meal.
You should make friends with your megalodon, she could still hear Captain Hunter saying. But Amelia’s megalodon was nowhere to be found. Instead Mrs. Flappert had stayed for dinner. She talked of Amelia’s departure with her the day after tomorrow as if the matter were already decided. She had not asked for Amelia’s opinion; she did not seem to think it relevant.
You should make friends with your megalodon.
After Mrs. Flappert returned to her lodgings for the evening, Amelia absconded to her room and took out her trunk. She had used it for her first marriage, packing her things into it and unpacking them and then packing them again, and unpacking yet another time, moving from place to place alongside Alden the First.
It had felt like a relief to unpack it here—a relief and a wonder.
It was time to start packing again. Her future seemed hidden, like a river blanketed in mist. She didn’t know where the current was bringing her or what her surroundings would look like when the fog lifted.
A rap sounded on her door. “Amelia?”
She crossed and opened the door. “Mother.”
Mrs. Acheson glanced at her trunk, at the open wardrobe. “May I come in?”
“Of course. It’s your home.”
“It’s your chamber.” But her mother smiled and entered. “You’re packing, I see.”
“Of course,” Amelia said even though there was no of course about it.
Her mother sat on the edge of the bed. “I hardly know how to bring this up, but I notice that you did not actually agree to marry Mr. Flappert.”
Amelia picked up a pile of her shifts, shook them out, and refolded them. “I didn’t. I haven’t met him. At least I met Mr. Smith before we were engaged.”
“His mother is a good woman.”
Maybe it was the memory of the afternoon with Captain Hunter that made her speak more freely. “Mrs. Flappert finds it surprising that I can speak English despite having been raised in an English household from the age of six years old.”
There was a long silence. Her mother drove a knuckle into her forehead as if staving off a headache.
“It doesn’t make her not a good woman,” Amelia said. “But it does make her company very uncomfortable. She looks at me as if at any moment I might have an unaccountable outbreak of savagery.”
“Well, you’ll have to teach her that you won’t. Kindness will win her over. I’m sure of it.”
Amelia wasn’t sure where the courage to speak her mind came from. “She’s fifty-five. If she were capable of learning such a lesson, shouldn’t she have figured it out by now?” Amelia took a day gown out of the wardrobe and folded it with a little more vigor than necessary.
Her mother exhaled. “You’re not happy with the prospect.”
It wasn’t that she was unhappy. She merely felt compressed. Ever since she had read Leland’s letter, ever since she’d seen the words what is valuable, she had felt as if megalodons were teeming beneath the surface.
“In truth,” her mother said, “neither am I. I wouldn’t have said anything if you were delighted, but…” She sighed. “The family money. It’s not as good as what Mr. Smith had, and even he didn’t leave you anything. It wasn’t expected of him, so he left his funds to his cousin. He treated you more like a servant than a wife, but a servant should at least expect something for their service.”
Maybe now was the time to mention that she had been made an offer of employment.
Amelia let the gown she was holding drop into the trunk and peered back into the mess of her wardrobe. “Leland said much the same thing to me.”
“Did you get a letter from him?”
“Captain…” She grimaced. The name was in Leland’s letter and on his card, and it had once again slipped from her mind. “The captain brought it.” She glanced at her mother. “I encountered him on my morning constitutional before he arrived at our house. We spoke.”
You should make friends with your megalodon. But she didn’t need more things to want. That was exactly the problem. She was hardly short on regular wants.
She wanted a place to call her own. She wanted the winds to die down; the sound of their howling would keep her awake tonight. She wanted her mother to be proud of her, to feel she had done the right thing on that long-ago road when she’d agreed to take charge of Amelia.
Her mother looked at her, a hint of wariness in her tone. “What think you of Captain Hunter?”
Amelia didn’t know how to answer. Instead, she frowned at the fossilized teeth in her wardrobe and, after a little thought, added them to her trunk. “In his letter, Leland says that he’s utterly ruthless, that he’s possessed of an incisive mind, but that…” How had Leland put it? “That he’s never done anything to anyone without their full and enthusiastic participation.”
Her mother bit her lip. “That’s extremely alarming.”
“Is it? It sounded reassuring to me.”
Her mother was looking off into the distance, her lips pursed. When she spoke, her tone was dry. “You’re only saying that because you’ve never met a man who was able to obtain your full and enthusiastic participation.”
Amelia frowned. “You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”
Her mother pursed her lips. “Amelia, you’re…” The woman turned to look at her, but didn’t finish her sentence.
Amelia felt even more puzzled.
“You must understand,” her mother tried again. “My husband is gone ten months out of the year on his journeys. It’s not as if I’ve…” Another pause, and then a deep sigh. “Never mind. I want you to not make the mistakes I’ve made.” There was yet another pause before she sighed again. “I’ve sheltered you too much. You were my little girl from the moment I saw you. I have never wanted anything but the best for you, but I do not know what the best is.”
“Because I’m Chinese.” She said it because it needed to be said. “If I were not, it would be easy. I wouldn’t have to go with whichever man vaguely wanted a female companion, no matter what his mother said of me.”
Her mother reached out and pulled her into a fierce hug. “You mustn’t say such things, little bird. There is a place for you in my heart, and so there will be a place for you in this world with me. Stop packing. You don’t have to marry Mr. Flappert.”