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"I knew we'd lose some of them," Isabella said without preamble, dropping herself into a chair in Natalie's sitting room with such force that it creaked. "Still, I cannot honestly pretend not to be disappointed. Mr. Roberts, I more or less expected. Mr. Wright, though? Miss Lawson and Miss Acker? Even Miss Shaw?" She shook her head in disbelief. "And after telling me how grand it is that I don't care what anyone thinks, too. I daresay I've learned more about some of my so-called friends by marrying Suhail than by years of knowing them."
Natalie took one look at the angry flush on her friend's face, and began pouring them each a cup of tea. "Roberts did think it was grand that you didn't care what anyone thought," she replied dryly, "but only because he was under the impression that it would be him benefiting from that lack of care, and not another man from a foreign country. He's resorted to writing about phrenology to soothe his wounded ego. As for the others, I..." Here she hesitated, unsure if she ought to bring it up, and ultimately decided to trust in vagueness. "I'm sure many of them are showing their true colors. But I also suspect there might be... different groups, who are making themselves scarce for different reasons. The Roberts type, and..."
Isabella arched an eyebrow, unimpressed. "And?"
"And the ones who aren't surprised by Suhail specifically, so much as by you remarrying at all."
"I'm not that old, am I?"
"No," Natalie said, chuckling. "Think of it this way—there have been rumors about you and Suhail for years, but the same is true of Tom, and anybody sensible who sees the two of you in the same room together can tell those are nonsense. Which stories people believe says more about them than it does about you."
"I suppose," Isabella allowed. She still looked dubious. Probably because Natalie kept circling the point, instead of coming right out and saying it.
"Those aren't the only rumors. I have no idea how many of our missing scholars this might apply to, but I know a few young ladies were under the impression that you and I are... ah." Natalie waved a hand, trusting that Isabella remembered enough of her confession in Mouleen to follow. "I've been asked about it a few times. I did tell them it isn't true, of course, but of course I'd have reason to deny it even if it was."
"I've been married before," Isabella said peevishly. "I have a son! If they didn't believe you a year ago, then why should they suddenly believe you now?"
"It isn't quite the same. Jacob is one thing, and Suhail..."
For the first time since the conversation had begun, Isabella scowled. "Isn't Scirling."
"Yes, but I think—or at least I hope—that for those girls it's less about that, and more about what that means. He doesn't shield you from scandal. You don't get out of arguments with your mother by marrying him, you get into arguments with your mother about marrying him. The only reason you'd have married him is if you wanted to. Please understand, I don't mean to speak poorly of Jacob, or to say that you didn't care for him very deeply. It's just that... you were young then. You didn't have the same level of independence that you do now. You chose him, yes, but you did have to choose someone."
Her friend's expression softened, but only slightly. "I loved him, Natalie. Whatever people might say."
"I know. But I also know you, much better than those girls do. From their perspective..." Natalie sighed, frustrated. "Let's put it this way—Jacob was the sort of man I would have married, if it wasn't for you. Kind, respectable. Safe. I might easily have had a child with a man like Jacob. But I never would have remarried, if I didn't have to. Does that make sense?"
Isabella groaned, which Natalie took as a yes, before bursting into a slightly concerning fit of giggles. "Goodness. I was about to say, I can't imagine—but I suppose I have done that, haven't I? Married someone I had no, ah, interest in, to appease societal convention." Then, burying her face in her hands, "I hope none of those girls ever found out about that. I'm really not being confusing on purpose."
"If it helps, I've caused my own share of confusion. I've been more open recently, about my lack of interest in men, and people tend to assume that means I must be interested in women instead. Even I made that mistake, in the beginning."
The conversation fell into a lull. Natalie sat, watching Isabella's tightly furrowed brow, and squashed a spike of anxiety. They'd spoken about this before, far more candidly. Isabella had reacted to the worst of the rumors about the two of them with only mild exasperation, scandal-sheet veteran that she was, and had always been more concerned about their effect on Natalie herself.
Once, Isabella had been the first person besides her grandfather who had really listened to her desires for the future. Had been the very first person to ask if, setting security aside, she wanted to marry. Had turned it from an unpleasant inevitability to be mitigated as best as she could, into an option she could refuse—and turned her life upside-down in doing so.
Once, Natalie had felt safe in a way she only ever had with her grandfather, and wondered if that was what that sort of love was supposed to feel like. Had lain awake in a shared bed in Bayembe, staring at the ceiling and thinking about widow's companion as a polite euphemism. Had formed a hypothesis, and tested it, and proven only that she was a scientist at heart. And then...
Then, Isabella had helped her companion move away. Had seen Natalie ensuring that she wouldn't need her, that she wouldn't have to need anyone, and congratulated her with a smile. And it was never the wanting kind—but that act cemented it as love.
"You were my Jacob," she almost said. "That's how I know."
"You look like you've just swallowed a sparkling," she said instead. "What are you thinking about?"
"My wife," Isabella admitted, with none of the blush that usually accompanied the mention. "And how it isn't really the same. That is, I was never expected to..."
"I know. Anyone who knows about it, knows that."
Isabella waved that aside. "I'm not thinking about my reputation, it's—we were stranded. We had to reduce tensions somehow. And yet, I really don't think I could have brought myself to..." She looked up, meeting Natalie's eyes with something like horror in her own. "But those girls might have to. You might have had to, if things had gone differently."
"Oh." Natalie felt suddenly rather out of her depth. "I... suppose so, yes."
Isabella seized her hand, her face going quite pale.
"I'm alright," Natalie reminded her, squeezing back reassuringly. "And I did try it of my own accord, remember? I don't particularly care for it, but it wasn't unbearable, either. If I'd needed to marry..." She trailed off, and grimaced. "My grandfather would have done what he could to ensure the man was kind. If he was like Jacob, someone who would allow me to learn from his library and correspond with other engineers... I could have made a life like that. It just wouldn't have been as full a life as I have now."
And if the man was not kind—if he was merely decent, the sort of man who would not hit her, but also would not encourage what he considered flights of fancy...
If he was not decent either, if he got it into his head to correct her disinterest...
Even if he was both decent and kind. Even then, the wifely duty she had most dreaded might have killed her anyway, and there would be no life to make for herself, full or not, after that.
"I think," Isabella said quietly, "that I've spent far too long thinking of propriety as absurd and unfair, without noticing that sometimes it is simply evil."
Natalie mustered a wistful smile. "That's why those girls need a place like this. Between the rumors, and your casual disregard for what society expects of a woman, not to mention mine... I can understand why they thought they were among certain company. And why it may have frightened them when they realized that wasn't true, or at least not in the way they'd assumed.
"But—!" she added hastily, because Isabella was beginning to look downright wretched, "that's hardly your fault, and hardly a reason not to be happy with Suhail. They are safe with you, Isabella. I know that, because I know that I am safe with you. That's something I had to learn, over the years, and I really do think that others will too. They'll be back, in their own time." She smiled. "But Mr. Roberts' sort never will, and good riddance."
"Good riddance indeed," Isabella said, so emphatically that she rattled her teacup in its saucer. "Do you know what he had the nerve to say to me?"
Natalie, having overheard a few snippets of Mr. Roberts' complaints to a friend of his after word of the wedding reached Scirland, could only cringe. But of course he wouldn't have repeated any of those words in front of a lady, let alone Dame Isabella. (Let alone Lady Trent.)
"You don't have to do this," Isabella said, spitting each word as though it were the most vile curse she knew. (Which was, after the years she'd spent among sailors, saying quite a lot.) "He told me all about his railway investments, that his wife would want for nothing."
"He's assumed you married Suhail for his money?"
"He's assumed," Isabella snarled, "that I'm the protagonist of that vile bodice ripper—you know the one." (Natalie did not, but opted not to ask.) "He's hoping to rescue me from the horrible fate some rumors claim I've met. The same rumors that have my own mother convinced that I fell in love with Suhail after he carried me off and—!" She collapsed against the back of her chair, her hands over her face. "I'm so ashamed, Natalie. I'm ashamed of my own country every time I look the man I love in the eyes. I wonder, how do I explain this to the man who sang in our cabin during a storm? Who was so gentle, even when circumstances demanded he cut off a man's arm to save his life? Who—who apologized to me, for touching me, after he breathed life back into me when I nearly drowned? How can I possibly explain to that man that some of my people, my own family, look at him and see some sort of deviant monster?" Her hands dropped limply to her sides, revealing eyes shiny with tears. "Then I realize that I don't have to. I don't have to, because he already knows. I'm the only one who has the luxury of acting surprised."
Natalie swallowed hard. "I... I had no idea..."
"Nor did I," Isabella said grimly. "And I feel so guilty for thinking this way, because I truly did love him—!"
"I know. I know you did."
Isabella looked down into her lap. "You were right," she whispered. "It is different, with Suhail. When I first laid eyes on him, he was—" and here, at last, she smiled. "He was this speck of a madman, leaping off the cliffs into the sea just to prove that he could."
Natalie couldn't help but laugh. "I'm sorry, but you have no business—!"
"Tom said the same thing," Isabella admitted, shaking her head. "I suppose we are two peas in a pod, aren't we?" She dropped her eyes again. "It was his passion for his work that first drew me to him. I've always preferred the company of those with an obsession to match my own, I suppose, in husbands and in friends. We talked about our respective fields, we even had some quite lively debates. And I can't help but think that... just weeks after meeting him?" Isabella met her eyes, then, looking far more terrified than she had when they were planning how to launch her off a cliff. "I would never have dared tell Jacob he was wrong about dragons."
"My father," Natalie mused, "used to talk about how important it was for a woman to marry while she was in her prime. He meant that I shouldn't let myself become a spinster, of course, but perhaps there's some merit to it after all." She smiled at Isabella. "That's what you've done. You've achieved the career you dreamed of, you've taken the time to learn who you are, to become who you always wanted to be. You've married in your prime, in the way they mean it when they talk about men in their prime. Why should you feel guilty, as if you were at fault because you hadn't reached it at... goodness, seventeen? Am I doing that math right?"
Isabella made a face. "Oh, don't you start on that too. I get enough about how young I married from our Flying University suffragettes."
Natalie raised her hands. "Never mind, then."
"Never mind," Isabella echoed, though by the distant expression on her face she was minding it quite a bit. She fidgeted for a moment. Then, as though emboldened by her previous honesty, "He told me once... Jacob, I mean. He told me that he'd been thinking of me almost like a child he was indulging, and that it wasn't fair to me."
Natalie couldn't help but wince.
"That does not leave this room!" Isabella said, suddenly stern.
"Of course not."
"It's only that, well..." Her expression softened. "I like to think that would have changed in time, if only he'd had more of it. It had already begun to change in Vystrana. Heaven knows Tom thought far less of me than Jacob did, back then, and now look at us. But..."
"With Suhail," Natalie said gently, "nothing had to change?"
Isabella grimaced.
"I don't mean to put your feelings for him on trial. I know you loved him. I only mean to say that... you aren't some sort of heartless monster for wanting an equal partnership, where you've felt respected from the very beginning. It isn't your fault that marrying the so-called right way in this country makes that downright impossible. And you oughtn't feel guilty, for being happier now than you were then." Natalie reached out, tentatively, and took her hand again. "I'm happier now than I would have been, if I'd kept living with you—but that has never meant I love you any less."
"You needed room to spread your wings." Isabella exhaled shakily. "Sometimes I think that people are lot like dragons, pining away in captivity. That's how I felt, in the years before I married Jacob, when I tried my honest best to be what society expected of me. It's how I think I would have felt, if he'd left me behind on the journey to Vystrana." She wrapped her arms around herself, as though she had taken a chill. "I think I would have died, Natalie. Perhaps not physically, but... in every way that matters.
"That's part of what makes it so galling. I've never had so many Scirling gentlemen come to me with concerns about 'women's rights' as when they've decided I need to be rescued from my own decisions—and God save me, I cannot even talk about my mother just now, or I shall say something truly unforgivable. Our society has been trying to put shackles on me my whole life, and I never heard a peep about it from any of them. Somehow it's Suhail who must be coercing me into marriage, now that I am more free to refuse it than I have ever been, more free than most women will ever be. When so many young ladies like yourself must have met exactly that fate with nobody even batting an eye, because it's what's good and normal and proper." She deflated with a sigh, propping her chin in one hand. "I suppose it's always easier to point the finger at another country than look our own in the face."
"What are you going to do?" Natalie asked. "Have you talked to Suhail about it?"
"Exhaustively. And, well, what else is there to do?" Isabella grinned—the grin of a woman about to try to fly on dragonbone wings, and damn the consequences. "I'm going to carry on being so scandalous that each individual outrage gets boring."
A week later, Isabella was accosted after giving a lecture by yet more impertinent personal questions—and this time, she snapped.
"I don't see why it's anyone's business who I should marry but mine and my husband's. And quite frankly, I am sick to death of pretending I haven't spent all these years gallivanting around the world, seeing any number of different versions of propriety that would horrify Scirling sensibilities, and which consider Scirling sensibilities equally abominable in turn. How am I to behave as if these things are truly set in stone, when I've seen otherwise with my own eyes? I have my career in spite of what small-minded people consider respectable. Why shouldn't I have love in the same way?"
The impertinent questioner wondered, quite nastily, if all decency was to be discarded so that she could debauch herself with her desert prince, then what would be left to stop men from cavorting with other men, or dressing up in skirts, or—
"Well," Isabella said cheerfully. "Nothing, I hope!"
Several of the Flying University's missing scholars returned, after that. And the ones who left because of it, the remainder agreed, were no real loss.
"Did you do that on purpose?" Natalie couldn't help but ask, the next time she saw her.
Isabella gave her a look of such honest bafflement that she had to laugh.