London stunk. It reeked of polluted fog and he dirty Thames and disappointment, anger, resentment. My resentment. A fortnight was not enough time to cool my anger - inside I still fucking burned at Margaret's betrayal. How could she not love me enough to stand up to her sister for me? How could she just deny what she was, for the sake of some religion, some God she had never met? Homosexual couples got married in churches all the time in the twenty-first century, and it didn't cost them their souls to do it. Why did it have to cost Margaret hers to love me now?
We were supposed to be married in all but paperwork and she had told me to go so easily, so quickly, after one goddamned conversation.
I only wanted her to fight for me. And she couldn't even--
Well, it didn't matter now. I'd done what needed doing. I'd packed a bag with what little I could call my own, all of it brought with me to the Gales - a comb Margaret had gifted me with for Easter, a small purse of coins, my bundle of ID cards, my three dresses, jeans, teeshirt, and chucks - and left that very night.
Hitching into Godersham proper had been easy, but getting to London after that had been longer and harder. The first coach toward London and a night at an inn had spent nearly all the cash I had, and I'd sold the nice dress I'd meant to wear to Mary and Francis' wedding at the second in order to make it all the way to the city. I scrounged for paper and pen when I'd arrived to send a letter back to Bath, having come up with a plan on the cramped, sweaty, day's long journey to the equally cramped and sweaty city.
The last time I had been in London, it had been with Francis, ages ago.
It felt like another lifetime entirely – before I had been safe and needed, back when I had been vulnerable and confused and hurting. When I had forgotten who I was, when I had been desperate for the respect and need of someone, anyone, enough to throw myself at Francis, enough to agree to then throw myself on the mercy of his sisters.
Thomas Cooper had replied to my letter by showing up in person not two weeks later, where I had begged a room in exchange for tending bar and letting myself get pinched by shitty men in a shitty tavern in a shitty part of town. He even went so far as to get down on one knee in the thrushes covering the tavern floor, stale beer soaking into his trousers, when he offered me the ring.
And I had smiled, and tittered, and blushed, because Thomas Cooper was a good man and I was using him for my own security. The least he deserved was my enthusiasm, put on as it was. And who knew? Maybe in a few years I would have gotten over Margaret and her bullshit, and actually have a happy, loving relationship with my husband. Why not? He was kind, and gentle, and funny, and thoughtful, and a hard worker.
It wasn't like it was his fault that he wasn't Margaret Goodenough, love of my fucking life. With me being penniless and Thomas being naught but the son of a middlingly successful baker, we needed somewhere to stay. (Somewhere that wasn't in the scuzzy part of town.) Thomas had a brother, Joseph, and it was to this elder Mr. Cooper's house we next went. I was already heartsick and travel worn, exhausted and crumpled and grimy before we freaking walked across most of the city, so I was pretty dead on my feet by the time Thomas and I - he carrying both our bags, the sweetheart - landed on their front stoop.
Mrs. Joseph Cooper was heavily pregnant but still managed to greet us warmly from her place by the fire.
"Now, love," she had said gently, seeing the tightness around my eyes and misinterpreting them for post-engagement jitters. "Nevermind you none about your wedding night." She patted her impressive belly and smirked knowingly. "There ain't nothing wrong with lovin' your husband all the way through the mattress."
I chuckled more at Thomas's blushing protest of his sister-in-law's crude insinuations than her words. It took a lot to shock me. Especially now.
Thomas was sent to sleep with the stable boy that served in the livery for this part of town, for there were no spare rooms at his brother's besides the one they put me into. And it wasn't the done thing to let an engaged couple sleep in the same room. Or, apparently to make up a bed on a sofa.
The room was already decorated to be a nursery, sparse and cheap but filled with affection for the child on its way. These Coopers were only slightly better off than their Bath relations, but I had no illusions that Mrs. Cooper worked just as hard in the bakery as her husband that made up the ground floor of this building. I expect that they assumed that having Thomas and I there would help immeasurably, especially once the baby arrived. Joseph had already talked about asking around for rooms for us on the block.
Rinsing the stink of London off me with a tepid pitcher of water, I contemplated what my role in his life would be. I didn't relish the idea of spending the rest of my life tied to the oven, but as a married woman and dutiful wife, it would be my responsibility to help support the household.
Married.
Married to Thomas, and not Margaret. Married for real, with a ring and a licence.
The concept galled. But what else could I do? I couldn't stay in Bath, couldn't live in Southampton with Francis and Mary, couldn't strike out on my own. I could become a wife, or find a position in a house or tavern that wouldn't care that I had a useless right hand (not bloody likely), or a could become a whore.
Damn this century.
And damn Rose Goodenough and the small-mindedness that she represented. There was no place, no place at all, for sapphic love in Regency England.
I went to bed angry, slept poorly, and woke exhausted and upset. Thomas was fetched when I was found to be crying at the breakfast table and couldn't seem to stop. I was sad. I was mourning. Margaret was dead to me forever, and I to her, and nothing anyone could say would make that pain dissipate.
For Thomas' sake I forced myself into a semblance of a state of calm. I crammed breakfast down my unwilling craw, washed up, and since Thomas said we'd be going out, put on the blue dress and bonnet that Thomas had once bought for me, which I'd long since made up to match.
Okay. So. Day one of my new life. I could do this.
I could fucking do this.
It was only the third time I'd started over. I was a pro at it by this point. And third time was supposed to be a charm, right? Fuck.
When we were standing in front of the little bakery where Joseph was already pulling the first of the day's loaves. Thomas tentatively suggested that we take in Hyde Park, to clear our heads and allow us a chance to catch up. It was free to the public, and as the day was bright and shining, and Thomas said that it seemed like "an ideal pastime while we waited for the courts to open on Monday and allow us to register our petition of marriage."
Jesus. Our marriage.
I agreed, because I wanted to wash the reek of shitty London out of my nose, and a garden seemed like an ideal place to do that. We spent a few of Thomas' precious shillings on a cab, and then Thomas directed us through the wrought iron fence entryway and down a gravel path where it seemed that most of the city had given in to a similar inclination.
We admired the couples far more handsome than ourselves, with wives who could afford to just visit each other all day and sometimes duck into shops for new ribbons, and husbands who dined at clubs instead on whatever their wives could scrounge up. Thomas grinned at me, sideways and sly, when the rich couples passed by, puffing out his chest to mimic the self importance of these men, and I was not embarrassed by the roughness of my gown or the calluses on my husband-to-be's fingers.
Thomas was honest, and so was his work, and more than that, it brought him joy.
I could be proud of him for that, at least.
And he made me laugh. I hadn't laughed in weeks and just as easy as we always had, we fell back into conversation and joking and Thomas made me laugh. So okay, maybe this had been the right idea. Maybe I wasn't going to regret marrying Thomas. Only not marrying Margaret.
I could do this. I could do this.
When we passed a book shop, I couldn't help but stop ask if the publication of Margaret's book had been announced in the trade papers yet. It hadn't. I wondered if she had her letter; if it was a rejection. If it was an acceptance. How she felt about it. If they wanted her to do more edits, if they--
Margaret's career was no longer my concern. I had to remind myself of that. Margaret had shut me out, that was her choice. But I could choose to let it fester, or let it go.
I had to try to move on. I had to.
A few hours later, Thomas steered us to the courthouse to begin the process of getting a marriage licence. Marriage banns took time to process and had to be announced every Sunday for three weeks in a row to allow someone in the congregation to protest (and it didn't seem to matter that it was Joseph's local church where no one knew us, and not the usual one in Bath). So we spent the next several weeks alternatively helping out in the bakery, aiding Mrs. Cooper in her growing discomfort, moving into a small set of rooms in the building next door to the bakery, or walking the gardens. The fresh air helped me clear my head and the menial tasks about the Cooper house, the cooking and the cleaning and the small sewing jobs that turned into small socks and tiny smocks in Mrs. Cooper's clever fingers, helped keep me occupied in my heartache.
And just like that a month was eaten away, and Thomas and I were one week away from being able to get married. And I was one week closer to safety. To financial security. To the rest of my life.
We'd talked about what kind of wedding we wanted, where we would live after, and it was decided to do something quick and short at the church before a service, so the Cooper boy's widowed father could travel up from Bath for it. I knew nobody else in town - at least nobody I wanted to spend time with - so it would just be the immediate family and over as quick as possible. And then, god, who knew? A few months with the Coopers in London to help with the baby, and then maybe back to Bath?
Where Margaret was, until, at least, they moved to Southampton? Where Miss Donaldson and all the other gossiping biddies would see me everyday when they came to buy our bread, and could report back to the Goodenoughs? Fuck no.
No, I'd just have to convince Thomas that London was the best idea. Or maybe, I dunno, Aberdeen. Somewhere nice and far away where there was no chance I would bump into any Goodenoughs, or anyone who knew them.
On the Saturday before we were supposed to get married, Thomas and I were back in the garden, strolling through the greenery of the park and nodding to those families that the Coopers knew, before we came to a small hut that sold tea and savouries.
"Let's have a picnic," I said, trying to get my head out of my arse about tomorrow. If I was going to make this work, I had to make an effort. Thomas wasn't inclined to disagree, so we bought some pasties and went out into the wide emerald of the lawn to sit with our treats. The August breeze was temperate enough that I could spread out my walking shawl (a gift from Anne, my soon-to-be sister-in-law) for us to sit on, though we had to sit close to keep the wind from cutting away our words.
"Are you nervous, almost-nearly-Mrs. Cooper?" he asked as we both waited for the hot fillings of the Cornish pasties to cool enough to eat.
I made sure to smile, but it seemed caught up under my tongue, completely unable to win free. I swallowed heavily. "No, Thomas," I said, and it wasn't a lie. I wasn't nervous.
"But you... Jessica, I cannot help but notice that today you look very sad," he said, as if reading my mind. He reached out and brushed the backs of his fingers across my dry cheek, then jerked his hand away and blushed. His innocence should have been endearing, but instead it reminded me of just how young, how inexperienced he was, how desperate he was to find love and win the heart of a good wife. Of the expectations riding upon both of us, the restrictions of this time and place.
In my time this boy wouldn't be blushing from merely touching the woman he was about to marry. In my time they would have been lovers already, possibly more besides. Where I had once found this slow and mannerly courtship, this prolonged lovemaking, endearing; I now found it abrasive and infuriating. If people just stopped being so goddamned invested in manners and started worrying about feelings, then maybe I wouldn't be here, trapped in a loveless engagement.
But what choice did I have?
So I played at being happy and tried not to let my mind wander, and forced myself to eat, even though the savoury pie tasted like ash. I tried to be present because Thomas deserved at least that.
When we'd finished, we rose. Thomas darted away to dispose of the wrappers back at the hut before we continued on. I stayed in the middle of the lawn and watched him go, shoulders broad from hours of lifting pans and kneading dough, handsome still in his grinning little boy way.
Tomorrow we would get married. And tomorrow we would have a wedding night.
As far as men went, Thomas wasn't unattractive. I could do this.
I could do this.
I was just contemplating what we should do for the rest of the afternoon, shaking the blades of grass off my shawl, when another person approached from the side.
I turned to greet the man, assuming the person I saw out of my peripheral vision was one of Joseph and Anne's friends, (or else why would he be approaching?) and blanched.
Holy shit.
It was George Lewis.
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