Her lack of control over her feelings was no longer adorable. She had hoped that as she matured, her feelings would settle.
They had not settled, though! Her feelings were always climbing steep mountains of bliss and diving down to the depths of despair. She did not know why they did so when she did not wish them to. At least, she did not always want them to. Sometimes she enjoyed a good cry.
Serenity fully recognized that it was not rational, but she had difficulty in correcting it. So far, at least. She’d been hoping an extra year might do the trick and perhaps she had improved a little, but she still did not go through life with the calm and unruffled assurance that other people did. Serenity had not the first idea how they did it. Her papa said it was just her temperament and not to be condemned too much. She did condemn herself, though.
She was well-known in local circles for weeping over dead bees wherever she found them. Any insect who had lost its life in the gardens was upsetting, but bees particularly broke her heart. That nobody understoodwhyshe was so affected was neither here nor there.
Serenity had been stung once when she’d been very young. Mrs. Right had thought to console her by revealing the fate of the bee that had done it. It would die for its impertinence.
That had not consoled her at all. She’d felt responsible for the bee’s demise. Why had she swatted at him? She had provoked him. What would his friends in the hive think when he did not come home? Did they know it was her that had killed him? Had his friends all loved him dearly, and now they were bereft? She would never know!
After Mrs. Right had run her stung arm under cold water, plucked out the stinger, and treated it with spirit of Minderus,Serenity had gone out to the garden to see if the housekeeper had been right about the fate of that poor bee.
After running back to the site of the encounter, Serenity had bent down and looked around for over a half hour. She’d eventually found him under a blade of grass. He was dead.
She had cried for quite a while and apologized to all his friends, though she did not know where they were. Then, she thought very hard on how she could honor his memory and his too-short life.
As she’d been only six, her ideas had not been very many or elaborate. At first she’d kept him by the fire in her bedchamber, tucked under a blanket of warm ash. She thought he’d be comfortable there while he made his trip to heaven. Now, of course, she realized she’d been drying out his poor little body so it did not mold. After she’d been confident he was with the angels, she’d ended by putting him in a small wood box. It was to be his crypt and she would keep him in her room so if his spirit chose to revisit the world he would see that he’d been interred with respect.
He had not rested in peace alone in that box, either. Every dead bee she found had made its journey through the warm ash, or in the height of summer a windowsill with full sun, and then been relocated into the bee crypt. After all, that first bee that she had murdered might be lonely. They might be his friends. It was just impossible to know.
She seemed to find more dead bees than one would have thought. Serenity suspected that when one was looking for a particular thing, one saw it everywhere.
Serenity was old enough now to know that the whole thing was absurd. She’d probably always known it, as she’d avoided telling anyone about her crypt of dead bees. She had to get over it, all of it! The dead bees were just an example of how herfeelings were irrational and ran away with her in the stupidest manner possible.
Serenity Nicolet was to go to Town and pretend she was a grown lady and all along she had a wood box of dead bees in her bedchamber. From the outside, she did look grown. On the inside was another matter. What were the chances that nothing would occur to send her into fits of weeping when she was out in society? Not very good, she did not think.
She had come close to asking her father if she ought to see their family doctor about her high-strung emotions. Perhaps there was some sort of cure she could take. She’d not asked though, as the duke had joked that the doctor had given him something forhisnerves.
Clearly, he was just as worried about how she would conduct herself as she was.
She burst into tears and covered her face with her napkin.
“Serenity, not a thing has happened. We are just sitting here talking—what’s set you off?” Winsome asked.
“Nothing,” she mumbled into the linen.
“And here we go,” the duke said. “Hold on girls, the next months are likely to be the ride of our lives.”
“Oh, Papa, do not make me laugh,” Serenity said, laughing and weeping at the same time.
He was not wrong, though.
“Don’t be sad, Serenity,” Valor said. “Mrs. Right says we will do a lot of shopping and we can even go to Lackington & Allen, and buy as many books as we like.”
“Books, ribbons, bonnets, shoes, and all the rest,” the duke said. “At the end of it, we’ll see what foolish gentleman is to remove my fourth daughter out of the house.”
As was to be expected, this caused various laughing protestations from her sisters. At least, from Verity and Winsome. Valor had just dropped her fork.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “Papa, you want Serenity to get married?”
“What else?” the duke asked. “That’s what the season is for.”
“I didn’t know you were going to keep going on with it, though,” Valor said. “You already miss Felicity, Grace, and Patience—why would you keep going? I thought we went to Town just for shopping this time!”
“Why would you think that, though, Valor?” Winsome asked.
Valor seemed to be searching her mind for why she thought that. Finally she said, “Because it makes sense. How many people have to get married? It makes no sense that Serenity does.”
