“Is it Marie-Claire?” Iris asked.
Fleur slowly raised her head, her eyes red and wet and so heartbreakingly bleak. She did not nod, but she did not need to. Iris had her answer.
Marie-Claire had said it all earlier that morning. If Fleur married her brother’s tenant farmer, the local scandal would be stupendous. Fleur would no longer be welcome in any of the better homes in the area. All the families with whom she’d socialized would turn their heads and pretend not to see her when they crossed paths in the village.
“We British do not think warmly of those who dare to trade one social class for another,” Iris said with wry inflection, “whether the movement be up or down.”
“Indeed,” Fleur said, her smile small, wobbly, and humorless. She touched a tightly furled rosebud, her fingers sliding across the pale pink petals. She turned abruptly, regarding Iris with an expression that was disconcertingly devoid of emotion. “Did you know that there are over one hundred species of roses?”
Iris shook her head.
“My mother bred them. She taught me a great deal. These”—Fleur trailed her hand along the leaves of the climbing vines behind her—“are all centifolia roses. People like them because they have lots of petals.” She leaned forward and gave a sniff. “And they are quite fragrant.”
“Cabbage roses,” Iris murmured.
Fleur’s brows rose in a small salute. “You do know about roses.”
“That is about the extent of it,” Iris admitted. She didn’t know where Fleur was going with this line of conversation, but at least she had stopped crying.
Fleur was quiet for a moment, glancing at the blooms. Most were still buds, their petals packed into darker pinks than the ones that had begun to open. “Consider these,” she said. “These are all Bishop roses. Every last one. They all bloom to precisely the same shade of pink.” She glanced over at Iris. “My mother liked uniformity.”
“It’s very beautiful,” Iris said.
“It is, isn’t it?” Fleur took a few aimless steps, stopping to give a sniff. “But it’s not the only way to grow a beautiful garden. I could choose five different sorts of centifolias. Or ten. I could have purples. Different shades of pink. There is no reason it has to be the same.”
Iris just nodded. It was fairly clear that Fleur was no longer talking about roses.
“I could plant a moss rose. Or a gallica. It would be unexpected here in a cultivated garden, but they would grow.”
“They might even thrive,” Iris said softly.
Fleur turned sharply to look at her. “They might,” she repeated. And then, with a tired sigh, she sank onto the small stone bench. “The roses aren’t the problem. It’s the people who look at them.”
“It usually is,” Iris said.
Fleur looked up, all traces of wistfulness banished from her eyes. “Right now my younger sister is Miss Kenworthy of Maycliffe, sister to Sir Richard Kenworthy, baronet. She might not attract much attention were she to go to London, but here in our corner of Yorkshire, she will be one of the most sought-after young ladies when she comes of age.”
Iris nodded.
Abruptly, Fleur stood. She turned away from Iris, hugging her arms to her body. “We have parties here, too, you know. And balls and assemblies. Marie-Claire will have the opportunity to meet dozens of eligible young gentlemen. And I hope she will fall in love with one.” She glanced just far enough over her shoulder for Iris to see her face in profile. “But if I marry John . . .”
“You have to marry John,” Iris said gently.
“If I marry John,” Fleur said, louder this time, as if she could forcibly contradict Iris with nothing but the tone of her voice, “Marie-Claire will be the sister of that Kenworthy girl, the one who married a peasant. She will not receive invitations, and she will have no opportunity to meet those eligible young gentlemen. If she marries, it will be to some fat old merchant who wants nothing but her name.”
“I daresay that several of those eligible gentlemen will also be fat and old,” Iris said, “and they will certainly want her for her name.”
Fleur turned sharply around, her eyes flashing. “But she wouldn’t have to marry them. It’s not the same. Don’t you see? If I marry John—no, let’s be honest, if I choose to marry John, Marie-Claire will have no choices at all. My freedom for my sister’s—what kind of person would that make me?”
“But you don’t have a choice,” Iris said. “At least not the one you think. You can either marry Mr. Burnham or let us pretend the baby is ours. If you steal away and pretend to be a widow, you will be found out. Do you really think no one will discover what you’ve done? And when they do, you will ruin Marie-Claire far more thoroughly than if you were Mrs. Burnham.”
Iris crossed her arms and waited for Fleur to consider this. In truth, she had probably been exaggerating. England was a big country, maybe not as big as France or Spain, but it took the better part of a week to travel from one end to the other. If Fleur settled in the south, she might be able to live her whole life as a fake widow without anyone near Maycliffe learning the truth.
But surely that couldn’t be the best solution.
“I wish . . .” Fleur turned with a rueful smile. “I wish that . . .” She sighed. “Maybe if I were from your family, if my cousin were an earl and my other cousin had married one . . .”
It wouldn’t make a difference, Iris thought. Not for a gently born lady wishing to marry a tenant farmer. Still, she said, “I will support you.”