Handsome, Priscilla added in her head, but dared not say aloud.
“Besides that,” she murmured instead.
Felicity frowned. “That’s it. Some men are exactly what they seem. What makes you think there’s something you’re missing?”
Priscilla did not reply because her answer would be, he’s exactly the sort of man I would wish for… if I wished for a man instead of adventure. Minus one hundred points. She needed to focus on the goal.
“Middleton seems lovely,” Felicity said, “but ‘lovely’ isn’t part of my criteria.”
Priscilla rolled her eyes. “You’d marry an ancient lecher if he had deep enough pockets.”
“Do you see one?” Felicity pretended to scour the ballroom eagerly. “I’ll move in tonight. I carry a blank marriage license in my reticule.”
Priscilla snorted. She couldn’t think of a worse fate than becoming mistress of a household where one lived like a bird in a gilded cage for the rest of one’s life.
She intended to travel, just like her father, and his father before him.
Could anyone blame her for being resentful she’d been left behind for being born female?
Papa and Grandfather loved her, though. Priscilla was certain of that, at least. Why else would they have provided for her, in the event she failed to ensnare a husband?
She suspected they hoped she would fail at this mission. One couldn’t whisk a girl fresh from the schoolroom off to Africa, but a spinster… A spinster could do as she pleased. And what Priscilla pleased was to join her father and grandfather.
“Don’t worry,” Felicity told her. “It’ll be your turn one day.”
It would be Priscilla’s turn one day, but not to stand up at the altar.
She’d been devastated when she’d been left behind. First her grandfather, then her father. A young child, she’d thrown herself into her studies. She’d thought, perhaps when she exited the schoolroom, they would come for her.
They came, but not to fetch her. After her come-out, Papa had told her about the trust established in her name, and the terms of the inheritance. Priscilla understood the message. She needed to grow up first. Once she was old enough to go adventuring, they wouldn’t stop her. They’d finally take her with them.
And Priscilla would prove once and for all that women were every bit as capable and fearless and adventurous as men.
Chapter 3
“Please,” Priscilla begged as she climbed atop a stool with her arms outstretched. “I promise I’ll be back before supper.”
“Promise I’ll be back! Promise I’ll be back!” squawked Koffi with an indignant flutter of feathers.
He did not come down from his perch atop the tall curtains.
In all their years together, Priscilla had taught her parrot countless words and phrases. Promise I’ll be back! was the first sentence Koffi had ever spoken. He hadn’t learned it from Priscilla.
When her father and grandfather dropped off the golden cage, they repeated I promise I’ll be back time and again to Priscilla and her new pet to assure the frightened offspring that they wouldn’t be alone forever. They promised they’d be back.
Priscilla and Koffi were still waiting.
“I’m not Papa,” she reminded him now, reaching her hand toward the curtain rod. “I’m just going to the park, like I do every Friday. I always come back for you. But you have to wait in your cage.”
“Golden cage!” Koffi squawked, inching his little gray feet further down the curtain rod. “Golden cage!”
Priscilla shared his discontent wholeheartedly. She often felt their opulent townhouse with its stuffy little rooms and proliferation of antiquities was nothing more than a golden cage for her, as well.
Unlike Koffi, Priscilla was allowed to fly the coop for short periods.
Grandmother had been very clear: if she caught Koffi outside his cage again, she’d have the maids deliver him to the kitchen to be cooked in the next meal.
“I’ll give you a cake,” Priscilla cajoled in a singsong voice. “Does Koffi want a cake?”
