"Mrs Marlow! How lovely it is to see you again," Father said. His tone was lighter than usual, far brighter than the one he had used in the house only a few minutes before. He had never taken such a jovial tone with me, but I knew Father was remarkably good at pretending when he had to.

"Good evening, Mr Thorpe. Thank you so much for inviting us."

"Well, it only seems right we return the favour after you so graciously welcomed us into your home."

"We appreciated the invitation. It is nice to get out of the house every once in a while, and I am sure the girls would agree."

I looked up from my hands and towards the Marlows. Gone were the black mourning clothes they had been wearing upon our visit to theirs and instead Mrs Marlow wore a dress of emerald green, her hair pinned up elaborately on the back of her head. Behind her, Clara had changed from her black dress into a light blue one and Helen wore yellow. Helen wore her hair the same way as Alice, but Clara had hers pinned up. No doubt a show that she was mature enough to court.

After all, courtship was the reason why this supper had been arranged and there was no use in pretending that it wasn't the case. This wasn't a normal supper event, and I didn't see the point in pretending it was. Everything had been orchestrated to set up a match between me and Clara. I wasn't sure if I could sit through a supper where everyone acted as if it wasn't the reason.

Father showed the Marlows inside the house, gesturing them into the parlour whilst Alice, Mother, and I followed close behind. They all settled themselves onto one of the nearest settees whilst I sunk myself down on one of the armchairs, hoping to avoid any conversation. The room grew warmer.

"How have you been, Mrs Marlow?" Mother asked, her voice cutting through the silence. One of the servants handed around clean, cold drinking water and I gulped down almost half my glass before Mrs Marlow responded.

"Very well, thank you. This heat is rather remarkable. I have never known anything like it, especially after that storm."

"Hm, it certainly came out of the blue. Perhaps we shall have another storm before it starts to cool down. That is usually the way of things. Still, it is nice to have some warmer weather rather than the rain we are so used to."

"It is definitely a blessing." Mrs Marlow sipped her water, her eyes wandering over to me. She stared at me for a few moments before she moved on, looking around the room.

I glanced down at my hands, looking at the glass of water. Conversations about the weather were always a bad sign that perhaps things were not going the way they should have been. Polite conversation had never been a forte of mine, but I knew it would be expected of me during any potential courtship. For the moment, I just wished Andrew was attending the supper. At least he and I could pull faces at each other when the weather came up.

"And how have you been, Master Nathaniel?" Mrs Marlow asked.

I looked up. Across the room, Father glared at me. "Very well, thank you."

"Have you been up to very much these past few days?"

"Just reading. It's been too hot to do much else."

"Anything in particular? My Clara is a big fan of Austen."

I shrugged, drumming my fingers on my thigh. "I tend to read anything at my disposal. There is no one author that I am particularly favourable towards."

"Well, I am sure you and Clara will have plenty in common."

I nodded a little, taking another gulp from my glass until there was almost nothing left in the glass. Despite the smells wafting up from the kitchen, I didn't feel as hungry as I should have for someone who hadn't eaten in several hours. Nervousness bubbled in my stomach as I waited for Mrs Marlow to ask me another question, to probe more information from me that I didn't want to hand over.

Father glared at me from across the room and I knew my attempt at answering Mrs Marlow's questions hadn't gone the way he expected. He had wanted me to be excited about the supper, to be involved in a conversation with Mrs Marlow and Clara, but I just couldn't do it. A bead of sweat ran down my back and I drained the last of my water, partly wishing I could drown myself.

From across the room, Alice, who had been trying to engage Helen in conversation, looked at me. I bounced my left leg up and down, knocking the empty glass against my thighs and running my right hand over the back of my neck. Alice frowned, watching my leg, but she said nothing.

"Supper is to be served shortly, Master Thorpe," the butler said, stepping into the room.

"Thank you. Shall we head to the dining room?" Father stood up and gestured to the door.

"Indeed." Mrs Marlow smiled. "This heat does create quite the appetite."

I stood up and placed my glass on the table, allowing everyone else to shuffle from the room before I trailed behind. Alice looked at me and appeared to want to say something, but Helen pulled her into a small conversation before she could. For the first time that evening, I was grateful for the Marlow's visit since it meant I could avoid any awkward conversations with Alice that might arise.

After a few seconds, I followed the group into the dining room and took my seat beside Clara. Father had no doubt set up the seating plan so that Clara and I might engage in some form of small talk during supper. I intended to follow George's plan and find a way to eat whenever a question was directed towards me. Food would always be a welcome distraction.

Before the first course was handed around, the footman poured the drinks with everyone accepting a glass of wine and ignoring the lemonade. With George's advice still in mind, and my shirt feeling as though it had become glued to my back with sweat, I turned down the wine and stuck to the lemonade. I needed to keep a cool head and keep myself cool at the same time. I couldn't do that with wine.

That, and I had never been too keen on the taste.

"Is the wine not to your liking this evening, Nathaniel?" Father asked, taking a sip from his glass and glaring at me from across the table. Even my choice of beverage somehow managed to upset him.

"I'm sure it's fine. I just wanted something a little cooler. The heat is bad enough. Adding wine to the mix will only make me warmer."

"A smart boy," Mrs Marlow said. "Perhaps we should all take a leaf out of your book, Master Nathaniel."

Father glowered from across the table, but I ignored him and took a small sip from my glass, allowing the cooling liquid to dribble down my throat. I tapped my foot on the floor. If there was one thing I hated more than supper-time conversation, it was waiting for food. At least the food was a distraction from whatever conversation topic arose. Without it, there was nothing but suffering.

"I must say, I was pleased to receive your invitation," Mrs Marlow said, the footman appearing to begin to serve the first dish. "Part of me wondered if I might have offended you with my forward nature."

Father waved his hand dismissively. "Not at all. We just needed time to discuss it a little more and make the arrangements for this evening."

"So a reunion between my Clara and Master Nathaniel may be a possibility?"

"It certainly makes sense from where we are sitting."

It didn't make any sense to me. Father had said himself, several years before, that Mrs Marlow's standing wasn't nearly as high after Mr Marlow's death. Had he thought any match between me and Clara to be a possibility, he would have mentioned it before. None of it made any sense, and I did not wish to entertain the idea if I could help it.

With the first course handed around, silence settled around the table and I welcomed it for the first time that evening. I kept my head down and focused on the food, knowing Father was looking at me from across the table. His eyes bore into me, silently willing me to at least mutter something to Clara Marlow, but I didn't do it. I didn't see the use in feigning interest in something that I did not want to happen.

Sweat trickled down my back and I tried to subtly wipe the small beads from my forehead, but they returned just as quickly. I took small sips from the glass of lemonade, watching the ice cubes melt in the heat. As the evening wore on, the heat somehow grew and I longed for the desert, which George had promised me would be marmalade water ice.

Despite my intentions of ignoring Clara for the entirety of supper, if possible, she had other ideas. No doubt Mrs Marlow had given her instructions to at least try to interact with me throughout the meal and I had not been pulling my weight in that area.

"You know," she said, leaning over, "I am glad that it is salmon. I have never been a fan of turbot, though Helen loves it."

"I'm not such a fan of turbot either, but I am not a big fish person in general."

"Really? That is not something I knew."

I shrugged. "There are plenty of things people don't know about me. I do not make a habit of revealing all of my secrets to the world."

"And what sort of secrets are those?"

"If I told you, they would no longer be secrets and that would defeat the purpose."

Clara laughed a fake, high-pitched laugh that caught everyone's attention, even though what I said did not warrant such a response. "That is very true."

I raised my eyebrow a little and returned to the salmon in front of me, stabbing it with a fork rather than eating it. Despite what I had said to Clara, I was a big fan of salmon and just didn't want her to think that the two of us had something in common other than a hatred of turbot — although I thought her dislike to be a lie. Still, I decided to play it up a little more and eat as little of the fish in front of me as possible. It turned out to be a straightforward task, as my appetite had all but disappeared.

A nervous fluttering had replaced the usual sensation of hunger that often plagued me during suppers in the pit of my stomach. I didn't want to eat too much for fear of it all making a public reappearance, so I ate as much as I could manage, knowing it would only bother Father that much more. I knew that most of my actions that evening would upset Father, but I had to focus on making it through each dish until the end of the night.

With each dish, I played the role I had been asked to play. I answered the questions that were answered, ate quietly, and did my best to not make a fool of myself and ruin the supper for everyone else. By the time the marmalade water ice appeared at the table, I had drunk so much lemonade that I thought I might explode. The sooner the supper ended, the better.

"I am so glad we had the chance to do this," Mrs Marlow said.

"Us as well." Father took a sip of his wine, his cheeks tinged red from the drink. "Perhaps this union between our families will stop Nathaniel from bringing so many strays into the house." He laughed, although I wasn't sure what was funny about it.

"What sort of strays?"

"Animals — cats mostly. You can scarcely walk in the stables without stepping on one. Occasionally, it will be people. We could have classed one of our old stable hands as a stray. There's also the girl."

My head shot up from my plate, glaring at Father from across the table. He had been so adamant that we keep Rebecca's presence in the house as quiet as possible, and yet he had broken his own rules. Across the table, Mrs Marlow looked at him with a raised eyebrow, curiosity plastered across her face. She gently ran her finger along the rim of her wineglass.

"What girl?"

Father waved his hand dismissively. "Some girl he found in the woods over a week ago. She should be out of our hair soon, though, since he has come no closer to finding out where she might have come from. For all of his ambitions, Nathaniel has never been the most intelligent of boys."

I clenched my fists. Father looked at me from across the table, his face red, a smile stretched across his face as though he had told the best joke in the world. It was one thing for him to mention Rebecca when he had expressly forbidden Alice and me from doing so. It was another to insult me in front of our guests. For all of his warnings about my behaviour, he should have done well to take his own advice.

My heart hammered in my chest, anger coursed through my veins as I looked at Father. A familiar feeling washed over me. The same feeling I had suffered several days before when it felt as though someone had tied a rope across my chest and squeezed the life out of me. He couldn't see me like that.

I tore the napkin from my lap and threw it onto the table, pushing my chair back against the floor.

"Nathaniel, sit back down," Father said, his voice low.

"I'm going up to bed. I don't feel well." I didn't even look at him as I turned and left the dining room.

"Nathaniel!"

"Leave him," Mother said.

If she said something else, a few words to calm Father's temper, I didn't hear them. I threw myself up the stairs, untying my tie as I went. The servants had all disappeared into the kitchen, which left the halls and stairs empty and no one around to witness my behaviour.

I pulled my tie off and pushed open my bedroom door, flinging the fabric onto the floor. My bedroom window had been left open, allowing a small breeze to flow through the room, but it did nothing to cool the sweat running down my back and beading on my forehead. After fighting my top button undone, I dropped down onto the window seat. I ran my hands over my thighs, fighting to catch my breath in the evening heat.

Father had done a lot of things to me in the past, but he had crossed a line. There would be no coming back from this.

~~~

A/N - We are back with a new chapter! These last few chapters are some of my favourite so I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them! Also, please check out either of my two ONC entries -- 'Downfall' or 'Beyond The Bridge'

Questions!

Should Mr Thorpe have kept quiet about Rebecca? Is he being hypocritical?

Comment below!

First Published - March 21st, 2023