Choice.
Augusta became quiet.
The apology happened three weeks before the wedding.
At Pembroke Street.
Augusta arrived in a dark carriage with no announcement.
Eliza was teaching accounts to six girls.
Beatrice saw her mother through the window and nearly dropped a ledger.
“She’s here.”
Eliza looked up.
“Who?”
“Mother.”
Half the class immediately became interested.
Eliza closed the book.
“Five-minute exercise.”
Groans.
“Ten if you stare at the window.”
Every head dropped.
Beatrice met Augusta downstairs.
Eliza joined them in the office.
The dowager duchess looked out of place.
Not because the room was shabby.
Because nothing in it cared about her rank.
Ink stains on desk.
Broken drawer.
Student exercise papers.
A kettle.
No servants hovering.
Augusta stood.
“Miss Hartwell.”
“Lady Vale.”
Not Your Grace.
Julian’s title made Augusta dowager duchess, but Eliza chose the less formal address deliberately.
Augusta noticed.
She did not correct.
Good.
“I owe you an apology.”
Eliza waited.
Augusta’s hands tightened around her gloves.
“I prevented letters addressed to you from reaching you.”
“Yes.”
“I withheld letters you sent to my son.”
“Yes.”
“I opened one.”
“Yes.”
“I instructed household staff to remove you from Cavendish Row before Julian returned.”
“Yes.”
Augusta’s face tightened at each confirmation.
Eliza did not soften them.
The older woman continued.
“I believed your relationship with my son threatened his duty.”
“Why?”
Augusta looked surprised.
Eliza continued.
“You have described what you did.”
“Why did I threaten his duty?”
Silence.
Augusta looked toward Beatrice.
Eliza said:
“Not her.”
“Me.”
The dowager duchess looked back.
“Because you had no fortune.”
“Yes.”
“No political connection.”
“Yes.”
“Your brother is abroad and has debts.”
“Yes.”
“Your father left little.”
“Yes.”
Eliza waited.
Augusta exhaled.
“And because Julian listened to you.”
There.
Beatrice looked at her mother.
Augusta continued.
“He changed plans after speaking with you.”
“He reconsidered things.”
“He challenged traditions he had accepted.”
“I told myself you were influencing him because you wanted advancement.”
Eliza asked:
“Did you have evidence?”
“No.”
“Then?”
Augusta’s voice became smaller.
“I recognized something I feared.”
“What?”
“Myself.”
Silence.
Eliza had not expected that.
Augusta looked toward the desk.
“My family had money.”
“Not enough to survive my father’s gambling.”
“I married Julian’s father because the match repaired both families.”
“I told myself choice did not matter because duty produced a good life.”
“Did it?”
Eliza asked.