“Why did you?” Julia asked. “You needn’t have married Papa. You had a fortune in your own right.”

“I did my duty,” Mama snapped back. “I did what my family required of me. And so shall you.”

Julia regarded her mother in silence. Mama had been but seventeen when she’d been betrothed to Papa, the coddled only son of a wealthy family, decades older than his young bride, and prone to prolonged bouts of illness.

In the aftermath of Julia’s birth, his perpetually frail condition had seemed to rub off on her mother.

Julia could scarcely remember a time when Mama hadn’t been the victim of megrims, the vapors, or the ague. Her list of ailments had grown over the years, leading to a great deal of time spent alone in her rooms, or away from home, cloistered in a luxurious hotel in one of the fashionable spa towns.

As Julia had grown older, she’d often wondered if her mother had used the excuse of poor health as a means of securing her privacy and independence. She and Papa had never had another child. They kept separate rooms and maintained largely separate lives. It was the closest thing to Mama being a widow. And Papa couldn’t complain, not when his own health was in such a precarious state—though he regularly lamented his lack of a male heir.

Women had so little power in life to control their destinies. Julia had experienced the lack of it firsthand.

She was experiencing it now.

If claiming illness could offer her a fraction of the same freedom it had given her mother, Julia didn’t see why she shouldn’t take advantage of it.

“I can’t do my duty in this condition,” she said. “I’m not able to do anything.”

Mama’s lips thinned. “Maidenish nerves, I don’t wonder.”

“It isn’t that.”

“What is it, then? Mrs. Major claims you were indisposed last night, but she failed to report the specifics of your complaint.”

“My stomach aches,” Julia said. “And I have pains in my chest.” That much was true. Her heart felt as though it had been trod on by an elephant. “I need a few days of rest to restore myself.”

Mama expression became pensive. “Your eyes are swollen. And your nose is red. Dr. Cordingley warned me about danger to the mucous membranes in those with imbalanced humors.”

The only danger Julia was in was from excessive weeping. She’d cried last night into her pillow. She felt a little like crying now, truth be told. But she was done with feeling sorry for herself. Done with pining over Captain Blunt.

If she could just be alone with one of her books, the world would right itself eventually.

“Have you a fever?” Mama pressed the back of her hand to Julia’s brow. She withdrew it, frowning. “I’m so feverish myself I can hardly tell.” She stood. “I’ll summon the physician.”

Julia’s pulse quickened with apprehension. It was one thing to contemplate bloodletting in the abstract. But faced with the imminent possibility of it, her composure began to crack. “I don’t need Dr. Cordingley. I only need a few days in bed.”