I looked down with a smile. “Perhaps you will, too.”
Alice didn’t know about Mr. Frampton, and I intended to keep it that way. There was far too much gossip spreading about me already. When it came time to leave at the end of the week, I planned to make a quiet escape, not a dramatic exit like Miss Lyons.
There was only one man who suited me, and the thought of seeing him again made a flock of butterflies flutter through my stomach. His words from the letter raked through my mind.There is no one who deserves happiness more than you, Annette, my charming, beautiful friend.
Those words continued to echo in my ears repeatedly throughout the day, until I read them again when I opened Owen’s letter on the edge of my bed that night.
I pressed the words against my heart. My anger toward Aunt Ruth darkened my soul, making hot tears burn in my eyes. When my parents had been taken from me, there had been no one to blame. But Owen being taken from me was purely Aunt Ruth’s fault. The alternative, that she might take my brothers also, was enough to shatter what remained of my heart. Despair raked through me, sending a pang through my chest. I had a great deal of housekeeping to do over the next week in order to prepare myself to face Owen again. I would need to tidy up these torrential emotions without leaving so much as a trace.
I called for Lizzie to help me prepare for bed. Her dark hair was pulled into her cap, but her large brown eyes were cheerful when she arrived. As she began braiding my hair, she said, “I took it upon myself to mail your letters this afternoon. I was taking a trip to town with the skullery maids.”
I froze, meeting her gaze in the mirror before whirling around in my chair. My writing desk was clear of everything but Mr. Baines’s roses in a vase of water. My heart thudded with dread. “Letters? Multiple?”
Lizzie blinked fast, obviously surprised by my reaction. “I saw two letters to Mrs. Filbee on your desk. I-I thought…”
I sat back in my chair, a flood of terror spreading through my chest. “I only meant for one of those letters to be sent. The other one—” I put my face in my hands. The first letter I had written to Aunt Ruth would make her furious. I should have torn it up and thrown it into the fireplace. Now I was in dire straits.
Lizzie’s brush stopped halfway down my hair. “Oh, please forgive me, miss! I should have asked you first. Will the consequences be so very bad?”
I met my own petrified gaze in the mirror. I suspected they would.
CHAPTER 31
My dancing lessons with Alice were the only thing to keep my mind from its many worries. Each time a footman crossed my path, or I noticed letters on the salver in the entry hall, my stomach plummeted.
By the day of the ball, Aunt Ruth still hadn’t answered my letter.
I had toyed with the idea of writing to Owen at Willowbourne, to thank him for what he had done for me and my brothers, but I hadn’t found the words. To write to him without telling him how I truly felt made me feel like a liar. The decisions I was being forced to make made me feel so untrue to myself that I could hardly bear to look at my reflection as I tried on the new gown Mrs. Kellaway had bought for me.
It was light blue like the sky, like Owen’s eyes. The sleeves were curved, the fabric overlapping like the petals of a rose. The overlay shimmered in the candlelight of my bedchamber as Lizzie put the finishing touches on my hair. She had been trying to make up for her mistake of sending my letter all week, and though I had forgiven her, I was grateful for her extraordinary effort that night.
She had outdone herself.
I should have felt excited for my first ball, and confident like I had been at the garden party, but instead I felt ragged and empty. I had spent the day packing my trunk, bidding my farewells to all the rooms of the house and the grounds that I might never see again.
Before meeting downstairs to leave for the ball, I stopped by Peter’s and Charles’s room.
Their maid sat up straighter in her chair when I entered.
It was almost time for them to retire, and I could never pass an evening without being the one to bid them goodnight. I hadn’t yet told them about how soon our departure would be. It was a conversation I had been dreading.
I sat on the edge of Peter’s bed. “I’m afraid we must leave Kellaway Manor tomorrow,” I said, smoothing his mussed hair. “I packed your trunks today.”
“Are we going to go see Dr. Kellaway?” he asked with a confused frown.
“Yes! Please, please may we go?” Charles asked from behind me, nearly leaping from his bed.
My heart sank, but the words needed to be said. “We are going back to Aunt Ruth’s house for a short while, and then we will move to the parish. I am going to marry Mr. Frampton, remember?” I had tried to explain the situation to them over the past week, but they had failed to fully accept or understand it.
Peter’s eyes filled with tears. He sat up and blinked fast, rubbing his eyes with both fists. He didn’t say a word. I pulled him into my arms.
Charles slipped off his bed and climbed onto Peter’s. I wrapped my other arm around him, squeezing him tight.
Charles’s lower lip quivered. “Why can’t we stay?”
“We have already stayed for far too long.”
They both sat in silence for several seconds, then Charles said, “But—but what if Aunt Ruth still thinks we are bad?”
