It was the better part of a week before Belle felt up to entertaining. She'd been sharing more than her bed with her husband, and every time was less scary than the time before. Maybe the first time hadn't made her better, but the repetition of doing something that had terrified her so completely for the better part of a year (and which had always been the cause of a bit of anxiety before that) did make her feel stronger and braver. Belle hadn't known she could be brave enough, and now here she was. There was no telling whether or not she could have gotten through it without Rhys, but maybe she could have. Maybe it was something innate to her, and she'd have survived even without his help.
Rhys had been ridiculously patient with her, though. He was gentle and kind, and no matter whether or not she could have come so far without him, she knew having him had made it easier. That thought itself gave her the strength to come to terms with her new relation.
"I think I'd like to invite my cousin and Miss Lucas to tea tomorrow," she said as she read in his office. She didn't usually invade his personal spaces, but lately she hated being apart from him so long during the day, and it felt easier to follow him than to ask him to come to her.
She was braced to defend the choice and insist she wasn't feeling quite so blindsided anymore and would be better able to handle the experience in her own home, but he didn't argue her choice.
"Whatever you like," he said with a shrug. "Just tell me when to expect them."
She smiled at him and kissed his cheek before going upstairs to pen a note of invitation and then to find the cook to tell her they would be expecting guests the next day. This would really be the first time Belle had been a proper hostess in this home. She'd had visitors at her father's house before, but it felt different when it was her home.
By the time Grace returned with the news that the invitation had been accepted, Belle had already spoken with the servants and chosen a gown. All that was left to do was try not to panic.
Belle prepared for this tea with the same attention to detail she imagined she'd have put into planning an invasion. After the abysmal first impression she was sure she'd made on Miss Lucas, there was no doubt that everything needed to be perfect. She'd chosen a gown in white eyelet and a light colored jacket with a rose print. Once her hair was pinned up she looked every inch the perfect hostess. She trusted the staff, but she'd still made Lizzie double check that the cup she'd accidentally chipped after her wedding hadn't been included in the set. Rhys had insisted on not throwing it out, which had been sweet (and perhaps a little bizarre) of him, but she didn't want anything to be less than perfect for this meeting.
It was probably an overreaction to be this exacting about a second meeting with this woman, but just being able to focus on it made her feel like she had some power over it, so she focused on it and it kept her going until she heard the carriage in the drive and dashed into the drawing room with some embroidery to look like she hadn't been waiting impatiently for their arrival. It felt like ages before Gaston and Miss Lucas were shown in, but Belle was instantly alert, rising to greet them as graciously as possible.
"Thank you so much for coming," she said as soon as greetings had been exchanged and everyone was seated. "It's always nice to have people over."
Also this would be the first visitors she'd had the pleasure of actually inviting to the house. Nobody would come over besides her family, and her father preferred to see her in his home rather than hers.
"Thank you for inviting us," Miss Lucas - who was insisting Belle call her Ruby - said. "It's so nice to know someone my own age here."
Belle felt a pang of a strange sort of homesickness at the statement, because there were a few other women she was sure Ruby would love to meet but she had no way to make the introductions anymore. At least, no way to do so that would actually endear Ruby to the neighborhood. She'd become a recluse and an outcast, and to be honest she wasn't sure anymore that she minded it. There was a certain amount of peace to be found in a quiet life away from distractions. She was beginning to understand the ascetics who had wandered through the desert.
"It must be difficult," Belle said. "I imagine in America you weren't lacking for amusement?"
"No," Ruby replied. "But to be honest, I spent most of my time working."
It was on the tip of Belle's tongue to ask what she'd meant by that, but Rhys arrived and the whole round of greetings had to begin again.
By the time everyone was settled back into their chairs, she'd lost her train of thought, but luckily Rhys was there to pick up the pieces for her.
"Have you been settling well?" he asked Ruby. "Have you had time to look into new distributors yet?"
"Not yet," Ruby replied. "But the wedding has been taking up so much of my time lately. I imagine after that and the honeymoon there will be plenty of time to look into that later."
This was news to Belle, but she imagined they'd probably talked about it at the last meeting where she'd been so distracted. The important thing was just for her to hang on and feign knowledge of their conversation and get Rhys to tell her what she'd missed later. They went into a bit more depth about business things that largely went over her head. She knew about investments and could talk fluently about her father's finances, but Belle was of a class that didn't have much to do with the day to day operations of companies. Ruby, apparently, ran one.
A quick glance told her Gaston was similarly in over his head, but he was watching Ruby with a soft smile on his face and Belle knew in that moment that he had somehow found the right woman for him, even if he'd had to go across the Atlantic to do it. Somehow, that made it easier to let go of her resentment at being replaced. He'd found someone who made him happier than she ever could have, and Belle had found that same love in Rhys that she would have been denied in Gaston.
When her cousin had first left for America, Belle had made the conscious decision to try to love her husband, and yet there had been a part of her that was still clinging to a hope of a better past. She couldn't undo what had happened or how she had been changed, but she was more determined than ever to push forward. Ruby was her own age and didn't shun her, and that was a relationship worth pursuing as much as she had pursued Rhys. She owed it to herself, at least, to try.
The tea only lasted about an hour or so before Gaston and Ruby had to take their leave, but Belle felt like it had gone better than before. She'd managed to engage in some of the conversation after it had turned away from business. She was exhausted from the effort, but after retiring to her room to lay down she was surprised to realize that it was a good kind of tired. She had a life here with a husband she loved and companionship from Lizzie and Grace, but it would be nice to have a peer to call on if the mood struck. It would be nice to have a friend.
Ruby and Gaston rode back from the Gold's house in a strange sort of quiet. She didn't know him well enough yet to know all her fiance's moods, but she could tell something was bothering him almost as soon as they got in the carriage.
"A penny for your thoughts?" She said at last, hoping to break the tension.
"Oh, it's nothing," he said. "I'm sorry, I'm sure I'm awful company."
"Not at all," she replied. "I was just wondering what could have you so worked up. I thought we had a lovely time."
"No, we did," he said. "I just always feel a bit sorry for how things worked out for Belle."
"Oh," she said. Men really were the strangest creatures. "Why on Earth do you feel sorry for her? She seems happy enough."
"She had to marry beneath her," he replied. "She could have done so much better before, even aside from me."
"Maybe it's because I'm American, but I really don't understand all this fuss about Belle marrying 'beneath' herself," Ruby said in a huff. "For goodness sake, he's financially secure - more so than you, I might add - he dotes on her terribly, they have a beautiful home, and they love each other. How much better was she supposed to marry?"
"How can you be sure of all that?"
"Because I have eyes," she replied teasingly. "He looks at her like he can't believe she's really there, and when he comes into the room her face lights up like a child at Christmas. You saw her, she was almost lost when he wasn't there and as soon as he arrived she instantly settled down. They're ridiculously happy. "
He didn't answer her after that, but he had the most relieved look on his face for the entire ride home. Really, how had he not noticed any of that himself? It had been plain as day if you were looking for it.
By the time they arrived home he was cheerful again. He kissed her hand and excused himself. That was fine by Ruby, though. She had correspondence to get through and a wedding still to plan and she didn't have time for ridiculous men.
He hadn't warned her about his cousin in the first place, and now he hadn't noticed the girl was happily married. Ruby had her own history, though, and she was sick and tired of the hypocrisy of social stations. Gaston was marrying her for both love and money, and yet he was lamenting his cousin's marriage to similarly new money. Did he even realize how little a difference there was between them?
The next time Belle invited Ruby for tea, the other woman came alone. Rhys dropped in for a bit, but excused himself fairly early on, claiming he'd had a letter to write and Belle was left alone with a woman she wasn't employing for the first time in nearly a year. The conversation inevitably stalled.
"How have you enjoyed the country so far?" Belle asked. "I imagine it must be quite the change."
"So far it's lovely," she replied. "Everyone has been very kind."
"I'm glad," Belle said. And she was glad - mostly glad, anyway. She didn't wish ill upon Ruby, at any rate, but Belle was very familiar with the 'kindness' one could expect if you fell outside your strictly proscribed role. She must have worn some of her conflict on her face, because Ruby set down her cup and turned to her fully.
"I hope you don't think I'm being too forward," Ruby said. "But you don't like me very much, do you?"
Belle's first instinct was to feign offense and deny the allegation, but that wasn't going to help the situation. she really had no idea what to say in response, though. She honestly had no real idea how she felt at all.
"It's all right if you don't," Ruby continued. "But I'd rather just have it acknowledged so that we can move on."
"It's not that, Belle blurted out. She instantly regretted her outburst, but Ruby was now looking at her and waiting for a continuation. "I don't always do well with new people. I don't know how much Gaston said about me, but I'm...damaged."
"I know enough," Ruby replied. "I certainly don't think badly of you for what happened."
"Then I sincerely doubt he told you the whole story," Belle replied. She didn't want to be having this conversation and it was taking all her willpower to remain calm in the face of it.
"Like I said, he told me enough," Ruby said. "If you want to tell me more, that's your business, but I certainly don't need details of any of it. I just want you to know that I'm not looking for reasons to dislike you. You're about to become my closest female relative aside from my grandmother."
She sounded so earnest, and Belle wanted to believe her but she couldn't quite bring herself to risk another heartbreak. The fact that Ruby didn't seem at all disturbed by Belle's situation just made her all the more convinced that the other woman didn't actually understand the worst of it, but what good could telling her do? Belle couldn't stand to see someone learn the truth. She'd had enough shunning, she didn't need more.
"You're not going to make any friends here because of me, you know," Belle said. "I'm sure he didn't tell you that I was a regular feature in the London tabloids. I probably still am, but I stopped reading them. What did they say about me, again? I'm 'a lady in name only' and 'a scheming harlot.' I have no reputation left to speak of."
Ruby shrugged and picked her cup back up.
"I'm not going to tell you that you're wrong," she replied. "But to be honest, I just don't see how any of that should be relevant to us being friends."
There wasn't really an answer to that besides just believing the worst about everyone, and Belle couldn't bring herself to admit to that yet.
"I'm not an idiot," Ruby continued with a shrug. "I know people here think I'm vulgar and new money. People thought that back at home, too. Honestly, people are always going to look for a reason to judge women like us. I'm certainly not going to contribute to that."
Belle knew she should be grateful for the sentiment, but something Ruby had said caught her attention.
"'Women like us?'" she asked.
"Women with pasts," Ruby replied easily. "Women with broken hearts. I certainly didn't spring up from seafoam like Aphrodite at twenty-two with a fortune and a shipping company, after all."
Some little piece of Belle's heart felt so relieved at that statement that she had to remind herself to breathe. Rhys had accepted her as she was, and now so had Ruby. She wasn't entirely unlovable, was she?
Belle decided to befriend Ruby after that. After all, if the other woman would be taking over for a life Belle had been preparing for since she had been a girl, then maybe Belle owed it to herself and her family to make the transition smoother. It was one last services she could perform for the estate and the tenants, and then she could retire away to the peace and quiet of the little house and start a family.
Truthfully, she was very much looking forward to the peace and quiet. It had hurt to have been replaced, but it hurt less now that she'd met the other woman. For one thing, she did like Ruby. The American was brash, talkative, and seemed very much inclined to like Belle. For another, Belle was happy with her husband. She wouldn't go so far as to be happy that she'd been hurt, but she was happy that Rhys had been there afterward. What she really wished was that there was some way she could have had Rhys and never have encountered Nottingham. She would have easily accepted all the other things she'd lost if only she could have been spared that one.
Ruby became a frequent visitor at the house, though Belle still avoided visiting her. It was taking some work to explain to the finer points of survival in a country manor. Ruby was accustomed to hot and cold running water and electric lighting, neither of which were luxuries available in her new home. Belle herself had only ever seen electric lights in a few ballrooms, and wasn't even sure if anything but gas lighting was even available this far away from London. It was obviously taking some adjustment for the American.
Sometimes Belle wasn't even sure that her new friend really grasped the nuance of Belle's precarious social situation. Maybe things worked differently in America - and Belle had certainly heard rumors that Americans were uncouth - or maybe Ruby was just kind, but it was becoming difficult to find new ways to explain why she couldn't go into the village or come to call on someone with her. The wedding was sure to be a sticking point as well. It was only a few weeks away and Ruby couldn't understand why Belle was so reluctant to go. For her part, Belle wanted to go, but she didn't want to risk causing a scene and she didn't want to expose Ruby and Gaston to censure.
Belle was still feeling conflicted a few days after the initial conversation about it as she sat in the hip tub and cleaned herself. Her hair was already washed and piled on top of her head waiting to be combed and dried. Maybe after all this was over she'd get her husband to take her to Bath so she could take in the waters. It had been a long time since she'd been last and all Ruby's talk of the amenities in America had Belle aching to be submerged in warm water. Perhaps she could even talk him into adding modern plumbing to the house. It was a luxury she very much missed from London.
There had to be some sort of solution to the question of attending Gaston's marriage, didn't there? She'd really like to go, but she didn't quite trust herself to be amongst all that pomp and grandeur with people who would be waiting to see if she would lose control and no ability to gracefully remove herself if she did. She was just so tired of everything being so hard.
She heard a knock on the door and she called for them to come in. It was likely Lizzie, and she scarcely had time to realize that even a few months ago her first reaction would have been fear when she heard Rhys' voice call her name from the other side of the screen. This was entirely uncharted territory for them. He'd seen her naked, but he'd never seen her like this with her hair tied up in a scarf on the top of her head as she got clean. He'd only ever seen her when she had prepared herself to be seen.
"Just a minute," she called back, getting to her feet and trying herself off with a cloth that had been left hanging on the privacy screen.
"I can come back," he replied. "I didn't know you were bathing."
"I was almost done," she said, peeking her head around the screen to get her first good look at her husband since he'd left her room that morning. The sight of him standing there looking oddly uncomfortable put a smile on her face. "Can you hand me that dressing gown on the vanity?"
He grabbed it quickly and handed her the plain blue robe. It wasn't one she usually wore in front of him, because it wasn't particularly pretty. It was a worn flannel with a little bit of eyelet lace at the cuffs and collar but otherwise it was unadorned. But it was soft and warm and wouldn't be ruined by the water on her skin.
"What can I do for you?" she said as she crossed the room to sit at her vanity. Not that she wasn't happy to see him, but he never came to her rooms during the day and rarely sought her out in the rest of the house before dinner.
Belle carefully untied the cloth from around her head and set about combing her hair with her ivory comb while she awaited her answer. She really only had so long to get it untangled before it dried, and honestly she liked the idea of him being in the room with her as she did it. She trusted him, but there was still sometimes a little flash of anxiety at his presence. It was becoming something she could control, though, and that was a sensation she revelled in. It had been so long since she'd been able to control it.
"I got a letter from Neal," he said, sitting in one of the reading chairs she had in the room. "He's hit a snag with one of his prospective distributors."
"Oh?"
"Indeed," he replied. "Apparently one of them wants to meet with me personally. I don't know why, but I'm sure it's something ridiculous."
"So you have to go to London," she finished for him. "For how long?"
"I don't know," he replied. "It could just be a few days or it could be a month or so. It depends on what he wants."
She set her comb back down and took a deep breath to steady herself before she continued.
"When do you need to leave?"
"As soon as possible," he said. "Tomorrow, if I can manage it."
The news hit her hard. She'd been hoping to ask his help with the wedding dilemma, and now he was leaving her for some untold amount of time. Her mind flashed back to the early days of their marriage and the lonely weeks by herself in the house with only servants. She didn't want to go through all that again, not when they were so close.
"Do you really have to go?" she asked, though she knew he wouldn't have told her about it if he didn't. "I'll miss you."
"I know, sweetheart," he replied, looking grieved. "I can probably put it off a day or so, and I'll try to finish as soon as possible, but I'm afraid it can't be avoided. This is crucial to his expansion."
She felt the crushing disappointment pressing in on her like she was drowning. She didn't want to be alone again, and maybe she didn't have to.
"Can I come with you?" she asked as evenly as she could.
Rhys looked a little dumbstruck and it was all she could do to pretend like the question itself hadn't cost her. She couldn't meet his eyes, so she picked up her comb and carefully began to comb her hair again.
"If that's what you want," he said at last. "You're certainly more than welcome."
"I'll need a day to pack," she said. "And I'll need to hire the Sells girl to come with me to do my hair for the duration. I can't get away with the same styles in London that I do here."
"Whatever you like," he said, coming to kiss the top of her head. "I'll write to Neal and tell him when to expect us."
And, she was sure, he would also be warning Neal that she'd be in attendance. He left quietly and she held herself together until the door was shut and she could finally have a moment of panic. She couldn't regret this choice. That was the important thing. She was tired of being a prisoner of her own mind and she didn't want to be afraid anymore. If she could face London, she could face anything - the wedding, Bath, and the entire rest of her life. She wanted all those things, and she needed to know she was ready. This would be the ultimate test of how far she'd come.