Amelia let out a shaky breath. She had not even realized she had been holding her breath.
“Are you all right, my dear?” Letitia murmured, leaning forward. “You looked rather pale when we mentioned the modiste. If you would rather not go…”
“No, no, Mrs. Potts is a fine one. She will be able to provide the materials and supplies we need. It’s just… well, she is my employer. She is kind enough, but sheisa businesswoman. She will not be pleased, and I suppose I am not looking forward to explaining to her that I will be gone for so long.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. Stephen and I can smooth things over, no doubt.”
I wish I could believe that.
“Do you plan to have your own shop one day?” Letitia asked, slipping an arm around Nancy’s shoulders.
Amelia snorted. “I would love to, but it will never happen. I would need money and connections, neither of which I have. Ifthe tonfinds out I am an illegitimate daughter, I will be ruined. I suppose it is a risk that I simply cannot take. And then, at the end of it all, I’m simply a village seamstress.”
“You could always marry. Do you wish to do so?”
That was a rather invasive question.
Amelia flinched, glancing over at Letitia, but the old woman’s face was calm and serene. She raised her eyebrows, waiting patiently for Amelia’s reply.
“I suppose that would be a sensible thing to do, should the opportunity present itself,” Amelia managed.
“I did not ask if it wasprudentto marry. I asked if you wish to marry. Come, my dear, humor a bored old woman. Is there a gentleman for whom your heart beats faster?”
An image of Stephen’s face flashed before her, quickly enough that she recoiled as if she were slapped. His eyebrows were raised sardonically, his eyes dark and glinting. Heat bloomed in her chest, sharp as real fire, and she sucked in a breath.
“I… No,” she stuttered. “Of course not. When would I have time for such a thing?”
Only a second or two could have elapsed between Letitia’s question and Amelia’s answer, but even so, the time seemed to stretch out into hours, pointed andincriminating.
Letitia’s expression did not change, but there was a hint of thoughtfulness in her eyes now. She watched Amelia, letting a beat or two pass before answering.
“Well, I suppose you are young. There is no rush. I don’t agree with the idea of girls as young as sixteen or seventeen hurrying to the altar. One is no more than a child at that age, and marriage is certainlynotfor children.”
“Yes, these young girls never marry boys of their age, do they?” Amelia murmured bitterly. “They are always marrying men twice their age, at the very least. Maybe three or four times. Not too long ago, Emmeline and I made a trousseau for a girl who was to be wed. She had only just turned sixteen, the very day she married. She was a tiny creature, very petite. She still kept all her dolls on her bed, or so she told me. I met her husband only once, when he came to settle the bill. He was five-and-fifty if he was a day, and could have been taken for ten years older. It… it turned my stomach.”
“Sir Richard Bowles and Miss Swindon,” Letitia murmured, her face darkening. “There are a few matches like that every Season. Nobody really approves of it, but nor does anybody speak out against it. Miss Swindon’s family spent months congratulating themselves on the rightness of the match. I think they would have done better to spend that time explaining to Miss Swindon what married life really entailed, and that she was not simply entering another father-daughter relationship. The marriage is not going well, from what I have heard.”
Amelia shuddered. She conjured up an image of the waifish Miss Swindon, and her stomach twisted when she put her side by side with the hulking, red-faced Sir Richard. Her imagination wandered further, putting them in bed together, and that was even worse.
In the blink of an eye, the scene changed, and now it wasAmeliain bed, lying breathless against downy pillows, and who was looming over her, elbows pressed into the mattress on either side of her?
Stephen.
Desire coiled in her gut, knotting her insides, and she swallowed hard, forcing her eyes open. The feeling pulsed lower, right down to the apex of her thighs.
She did not want to feel like that, not here.
“Appalling,” she managed.
Letitia nodded with a sigh. “Yes, it is, but what can one do about it? Oh, I do believe we are almost there.”
At once, Marjory and Nancy leaned over to the window, eyes bright, and pressed their noses against the glass.
Amelia just about managed to conceal herown excitement, glancing almost carelessly out the other window.
They had taken a turn off the busy London street, onto a winding, paved road that led through rich green gardens. It was not all bare, rolling lawns, certainly not. No, there were swathes of flowerbeds, carefully maintained shrubberies, and clusters of tree glades scattered artlessly around.
Just beyond the trimmed flowerbeds, she saw a sort of little wilderness, where the garden was permitted to grow as it liked. There were trees leaning toward each other, hip-high grass, and even weeds tangling together. There appeared to be a path, however narrow and rocky, winding through the green darkness.
