The girl shook her blonde head. She really was lovely. “I am an orphan, you see. I had a good life at the vicarage in Stanton. My father died, so the vicar and his wife took me in. They treated me like their own daughter. I was so happy there. Then a letter came.” Her lips trembled once more. “I must marry a complete stranger, simply because he promised my father he would. We haven’t even met. I am to go immediately to Scotland for the wedding.”
Birdie looked at the girl with open mouth, a few crumbs of shortbread falling out of one corner. She found the story wildly romantic. Did the girl even know how lucky she was? She could get married. Have her own household. Be free from the constant threat of spinsterhood, and the doom, gloom and shame that came with it. She wouldn’t have to work as a governess, dealing with spoiled brats, teaching them what they didn’t want to learn, anyway. And Scotland! Oh, the adventure!
“My dear. That sounds utterly—” Birdie searched for a word. Something told her that “brilliant” probably wasn’t a good choice.
“It is terrifying, intolerable, and utterly h-h-h-heartbreaking!” The girl sobbed again.
Suddenly Birdie understood. “Oh. You are in love with someone else.”
The girl nodded into her handkerchief. “David,” she said in a muffled voice. She dropped the handkerchief. Her eyes took on a feverish glow. “He is the son of the vicar who took me in. He promised he’d love me until the end of our days. We were going to tell his parents, announce our engagement, but then the letter came.”
She had a man who loved her. And another man who wanted to marry her. She hadtwomen who wanted her. Some girls had all the luck. Birdie felt a green snake of jealousy slither in the pit of her stomach. She clamped her hand over it. “That is unfortunate. You said this David is the son of the vicar?”
She nodded eagerly, then embarked on a detailed monologue on how wonderful her David was. Birdie nodded mechanically as she crumbled the shortbread between her fingers.
Thankfully, their bowls of stew arrived.
“Here is your supper,” the landlady said. “And the rooms are ready, too.”
“Wonderful.” Birdie shovelled the stew into her mouth as Cecily talked. She stopped talking about David when Birdie wiped her bowl with morsels of bread. Her own bowl of stew had grown cold. Birdie wondered whether she would eat it and whether it’d be very unladylike of her to eat Cecily’s bowl as well.
“I’m so sorry.” There was a stricken look on Cecily’s face. “I’m only talking about myself. What about you? Are you travelling to Scotland, too?”
“I’m on the way to Newcastle. I am working as a governess. With a new family. I’m not thrilled.”
“Oh! You don’t want to work as a governess?”
Birdie laughed dryly. “Oh no. I’d gladly marry a stranger in the wastelands of Scotland if it meant I didn’t have to be a governess. Not everyone is born a teacher, you know.” She shrugged. “But some of us don’t have a choice.”
Cecily sat up straight. “But that’s it!” She flushed with animation.
Birdie blinked. A crying Cecily had looked charming; a smiling one looked positively stunning. She was a diamond of the first water. Gentlemen in a ballroom would crowd the floor to gain her hand for a dance. Did she know that? But no. All she wanted was her David.
“What do you think?”
Birdie blinked. She’d missed what the girl said. “I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?”
“I said, then let’s do it! Let’s swap. Captain Eversleigh doesn’t know what I look like. You go marry him, and I go in your stead as a governess! I would love to teach! I could do it, too! Newcastle isn’t as far away as the north of Scotland, so I might still see David…” She clapped her hands in delight.
It was an outrageous proposition. Absolutely ridiculous. Absolutely impossible. Absolutely—
“Isn’t it a splendid idea?” Cecily held her breath anxiously.
Birdie’s knuckles tightened around the rim of Cecily’s bowl of lamb stew.
“Absolutely.”
Chapter 2
Birdie was on her way to Scotland.
Somewhere in the farthest north. She didn’t even know exactly where.
She was in a private carriage that Captain Eversleigh had sent for the last stretch from Inverness to Dunross, the final destination. It was slightly more comfortable than the mail coach. At least she didn’t have to share it with other passengers.
Mary, her maid, had deserted her in Inverness. She’d refused to speak to Birdie the entire trip. When the coach pulled into the last coaching inn, Mary finally opened her mouth.
“I’m taking the next coach back to London.”
