Her thoughts were a jumble. How to make sense of what he offered? It was an outlandish notion and yet . . . she needed to get away from England. Away from the place where she’d made such a horrendous mistake. There would be no chance of running into Sebastian, slim as that possibility was.
True, Greenland wasn’t where she had ever pictured herself. The Arctic was not teeming with reptiles and amphibians.
But to go there meant getting away, occupying herself with something that wasn’t her own grave miscalculation.
“I need to consider it,” she said.
“Naturally. I imagine your parents will need to be consulted, as well.”
She looked over at the case that held a variety of diminutive, stuffed Rodentia. What fragile creatures they were, these little animals with fur and tiny hands and delicate bones. They fed the majority of predators. Their lives were brief.
The world needed them. Without the voles and wood mice and other such beings, there’d be no hawks or badgers or foxes.
Everything was a great cycle, life and death intertwined for eternity. Somewhere in the middle of all this, she existed, and she tried to take comfort in that, in making herself very small. Small enough that she could curl up and simply disappear.
“Greenland?” Disbelieving, her mother stared at her across the tea table in the parlor. “That is rather far, is it not? And cold.”
“A warm coat and stout boots could remedy that,” Grace said gently.
“Why do you want to go, dearest? You’ve had a perfectly splendid few weeks. Mr. Fredericks has been quite attentive. And Mr. Holloway.”
Simply hearing Sebastian’s name made Grace’s stomach knot with regret and sadness. “They were merely being kind.”
She swallowed, too, any words telling her mother that Mason had proposed. Since she’d no intention of marrying him, introducing the possibility to her mother—and especially her father—was pointless and would only cause confusion and hurt.
“I’ll write to Papa and tell him . . . I’ll tell him that it’s my intention to remain a spinster. I hope he isn’t angry with me,” she added gloomily.
“My love,” her mother said, leaning forward to cover Grace’s hand with her own. “He would rather see you unmarried than bound to someone who does not make you happy.”
Grace desperately wanted to believe that. Tears stung her eyes. “But . . . his wishes for my security?”
“We’ll make certain that after your father and I pass, Charles will take good care of you. However,” her mother added worriedly, “haring off to Greenland is not quite what either Edmund or I had in mind when considering your future.”
“I need to leave England for a while,” Grace said, her voice bleak. “Forgive me, but I can’t say more. Just know that it’s something I must do. I have . . . so much to learn.”
All of this was true. She did need the chance to learn. Everything that had happened these past weeks was proof enough that she needed growth. She had been horribly myopic about her own feelings, and she had been terribly unkind to both Sebastian and Mason. Her determination and single-mindedness in pursuing her objective meant she hadn’t taken notice of anyone around her. She hadn’t even asked herself what it was that she truly wanted.
At the very least, Sebastian had grown more comfortable in social settings and with strangers. He seemed, if not happy to be amidst unknown people, then a little less wretched. That was something.
Maturation was a hell of a thing, painful as it was. If only she could shed literal skin as she transitioned from one self to the other. Surely that had to hurt less.
“I will have a companion,” she added. “I’ll face trials, but I can endure them.”
“But will you be happy?” her mother asked.
Tears swam in Grace’s eyes, but rather than brush them away, she let them trace cool paths down her cheeks.
“No,” she said. “Happiness is something I’ve ensured I can’t have. Yet this expedition will give me purpose, and that is something I need most desperately right now.”
“Oh, my dearest.” Her mother sighed. She set her cup down and rose to circle the tea table. As she had when Grace was but a small girl, crying over the loss of the pond on the family estate, she placed her palm atop her head and kissed her forehead. “When you’re ready to speak of what troubles you, know that your father and I are here. Until then, if you truly wish to go to Greenland—”