“All this talk of…of body parts and mercenary marriages,” Henrietta moaned, closing her eyes and laying the back of her hand to her forehead.“Where did I go wrong?How have we come to this?Gemma, didn’t your father and I always tell you that you must marry for love, as we did!”
Affection squeezed Gemma’s heart.“And so I shall, Mama.You are quite right.I shall endeavor to do exactly as you did: I shall fall in love with a kind, indulgent, amusing, andwealthyman.”
Very wealthy, Gemma amended silently as the coach bounced over a bit of rough road, and Henrietta gave a short shriek.
“Oh, I do hope the coachman is taking care with my darlings,” Henrietta wailed, her gaze darting anxiously to the roof of the carriage.“I still cannot believe they were not allowed to ride inside with us, but must stay piled atop, willy-nilly, exposed to the elements!I dread to think what has become of them.”
Henrietta’s “darlings” were her most cherished possessions: her enormous collection of fashionably overdecorated bonnets.Today’s specimen was on the simpler side, in accordance with Henrietta’s deep mourning, but some of them were truly impressively batty.
Gemma’s gaze was snared by the beady black eyes of the stuffed raven perched atop her mother’s head.A cloud of black netting surrounded the thing like a nest, dotted here and there with faceted jet beads that caught the light whenever Henrietta moved.The poor creature’s black wings had been manipulated to look as though it was about to take flight.
“Your hats are fine, Mama,” Lucy and Gemma said in unison, then shared a small smile.The response required no thought at this point in the journey.This marked at least the twenty-fifth time Henrietta had lamented the fate of her darlings in their many trunks and boxes.
“There would have been no room inside the carriage for us, if we had let your collection ride inside,” Gemma reminded her mother, who huffed and shifted against the squabs.
“Oh, when will we arrive?”Henrietta twitched her black shawl closer around her shoulders.“This has been the most interminable voyage.”
Gemma silently agreed, wincing as the carriage jounced over a particularly deep rut in the road, rattling her bones and bruising hindquarters that had been tenderized over two days of travel.Her knuckles whitened where she clutched her reticule and its meager contents.The funds they’d left London with, the sad remnants of the money they’d received by selling their jewelry, had been sorely depleted by the necessity of last night’s stay at The Green Man in Reading.
Then the horses slowed, and Gemma realized they were making a turning.She reached to unlatch the window and crack it open to allow a little cool air into the coach.It smelled fresh and bracing, like growing things.
Despite all her cares and worries, Gemma felt her heart lift.“Soon, I should think.We’ve left the main road, so we must be getting close to Little Kissington.”
“I want to see!”Lucy exclaimed, scooting along the bench seat closer to the window and jostling Gemma aside so that she could peer out.
With a little shoving, Gemma made room for herself at the window as well.The crowded cobblestones and gray smoke of London had long since given way to the rolling hills and valleys of the North Wessex Downs.The gentle green land spread out on either side of the road like a rumpled blanket tossed down by a careless giant.Wildflowers bloomed purple and yellow amongst the waving grasses, dancing in the breeze.In the distance, the afternoon sunlight glinted off the babbling brook that ran alongside the road.
Gemma caught her breath.It was beautiful.Undoubtedly as dull as the dusty byway they traveled, but beautiful.
“What is it?”Henrietta cried excitedly.“Can you see the house yet?”
Just as Gemma began to shake her head, the carriage topped a small rise and in the distance, nestled within a beech wood, she glimpsed an imposing manor house of warm, golden stone.
“I do see something,” she said, breathless with surprise.
“What are you—oh!”Lucy craned her neck, her bony elbow jabbing into Gemma’s side.“It looks like a castle!”
“It’s lovely.”Gemma’s eyes tracing the graceful peaks of the roofline and the round crenellated tower set into the western wall.“And huge.Much bigger than I expected.”
“Oh, I knew it would be perfect!”Henrietta clapped her hands, in raptures.“Girls, girls, didn’t I say?I knew it must be a great house.I knew your father would take care of us.”
If only he’d taken care of our dowries as well, Gemma thought, though she kept it to herself.Why ruin her mother’s moment of happiness with the unhappy reality that they would almost certainly have to let a house this grand to someone who could afford to live in it?She could only hope that a lease would bring in enough to settle the Lively family somewhere sensible so she could begin her campaign of making a brilliant match.
But even as Gemma’s mind whirled and her mother and sister celebrated, the carriage continued to drive.
It rolled down the hill.And then it continued on, past the turning to the wide drive that appeared to lead to the weathered stone manor.
Throwing the window fully open, Gemma stuck her head out and called up to the driver, “I say, John, have you missed the turning?Wasn’t that the way to Five Mile House, just back there?”
“No, your ladyship,” came the driver’s quick reply.A strong-jawed white man of middle years, dressed in the impeccable dark blue and gold of the ducal livery, John Coachman gave every appearance of knowing exactly where he was going and how to get there, despite having spent most of his career driving the dowager duchess from Ashbourn House to her hatmaker’s shop.
“We should reach the village in the next few minutes, your ladyship,” John informed her calmly, and Gemma thanked him before pulling her head back inside the coach.
“That must not be our house.It’s quite a pile, though.I wonder who lives there.”
Lucy smirked.“Probably a crusty old country gentleman and his pack of twelve hunting dogs.A perfect prospective husband for you, Gem!”
Gemma gave her sister a shove back to her side of the carriage.“I don’t care if he has fifty hunting dogs and is old enough to be our grandfather.If he’s got the income to support a house like that, he’s going on my list.”
