ChapterOne
Ashford, England, 1820
I leaned over the trunk at the foot of my bed in a desperate, frantic search.
Liza would be here any moment, and I could not for my life find that sheet of paper.
I’d hidden it years ago after learning that little brothers were as keen as hounds to find their older sister’s secrets. And while Jasper and Nicholas were away at Harrow, Ben at eighteen years of age still played his part exceptionally well.
Apparently, so did I.
I hadn’t slid my paper in any book or drawer, nor under my mattress or in the little space beneath my armoire. It had to be in the trunk. My fingers met fabrics of all sorts, from a soft old dress I’d worn nearly to shreds to scratchy linen sacks filled with broken paintbrushes and pigment jars.
I seemed to remember a little green box with ribbons and pressed flowers ...
Someone rapped lightly on my door, and my senses seized for the second it took for my maid to poke her head inside. “Miss Newbury?”
I gave Molly wide eyes, and she pinched her lips closed. “Quiet. Right. You’re in hiding. In your own bedroom.” She slid inside, blonde curls poking wildly out of their proper arrangement, and closed the door.
“Yes, and you cannot call out my name like that.” Mama would hear and know exactly where to find me.
Molly stood above me and raised a brow. “Forgive me. How shall I address you then, if not ‘Miss Newbury’?” She made a show of ignorance. “MissRosalindNewbury? Just ‘Rosalind’? Or we could practice using ‘Your Gr—’”
“Youknowwhat I meant.” I narrowed my gaze at her twitching lips. Ignorant, she was not. Clever, though, for she could tell me exactly what she thought without saying much at all. And I would miss her terribly when I left. “I’ve asked you to distract Mama, and yet here you are. You must have news.”
“The Ollertons have returned home at last.”
Finally!“Is Liza downstairs?” I started to stand, craning my ear for the sound of her footsteps pattering up the stairs. Liza had a knack for solving the unsolvable; she’d help me find my paper. And then, we’d get to work. “You cannot leave her with Mama. The two of them will gossip for an hour.”
Molly cleared her throat. Her gaze settled on the pile of things I’d pulled out of my trunk. “She has not yet come to call.”
“She’s not ...” I furrowed my brow and turned to peer out my bedroom window.
The fields between our two estates stretched on, separated by a grove of oak trees that, lush with summer leaves, occluded my view. Liza had been in London for her first Season for months. I’d suffered horrible jealousy, mourning my loss and bristling at the unfairness of being kept at home, until one day, just like that, the contract was in front of me, a pen in my hand. I’d made my decision. Why should it matter that I’d met my intended in Father’s study instead of a ballroom? I’d told Liza the barest of details in my last letter, knowing she’d be dying for more. She’d promised to visit as soon as her carriage rolled to a stop.
So where was she?
“Something is amiss, Molly,” I said. “Perhaps I should sneak over.”
I eyed my bonnet hanging loosely on my easel in the corner, but Molly stepped into view. “There are more pressing problems at present,” she said. “Your mother asked me to find you and fetch you right away.”
“What did she say?”
Molly braced herself. “Something about another appointment.”
“Good heavens, how many appointments does one need to plan a wedding?” I sighed heavily and rubbed my temples. Could we not simply say our vows and be done with it?
“I’ve told her you are still reading Fordyce’s sermons.” Molly winced at the lie.
I snorted. “I am sure she loved to hear that.” What would Mama say if she knew the truth? That I was chasing a promise I’d made to myself eight years ago. A promise I had three weeks left to fulfill. And I was failing. “I think I saved my list in a little green box.... Oh,wherehave I hidden it?”
I’d been searching for days. I needed to get started on it, for the whole point was tofinishthe thing before I married, but moments alone were rare since my engagement, what with Mama and her endless lists of dress fittings and menu changes, Father drawing up addendums to the marriage contract, and my brother Benjamin insisting I follow him around the estate on some grand last adventure. Did they not understand that these weremylast days? There were so few of them left.
My skin suddenly seemed three sizes too small. “Molly, I need more time to search. You must distract Mama.”
Molly placed her hands on her slender hips. “What am I to tell her this time? Fordyce was enough of a stretch. She’s bound to catch on.”
I waved a hand in the air. “Tell her that I am ... writing a sonnet about my feelings.”
