Page 3 of A Lady’s Guide to Mystery and Mischief

“Don’t be silly,” Farah admonished. “Imagine being engaged for five years! What would people think?”

“They’d think you were engaged.”

“No, they’d think that either Francis or I was waffling,” she corrected. “Time breeds gossip, as you well know. How warm will it be in Wales?”

“Was that your attempt at a change in subject?” Dameer scoffed. “Because I know you can do better than that.”

Farah sniffed. “It was an honest question. If you don’t know the answer, you can just say so.”

“I do know the answer. It’ll be warm enough.”

“Such specificity. I’m impressed.”

Her brother sighed, pushing himself off the desk. “Fine. I’ll hunt for an exact range of temperatures for you.”

“I’d appreciate that.”

He paused at the door, giving her an awkward, sideways glance. “You don’t have to wait for Francis Beaumont, you know.”

Farah’s heart splintered in her chest. “Of course I do. I love him.”

She was given an unconvinced shrug before being left alone. Pushing the door to her room shut, she leaned against it with a tired sigh. If she could only skip the next three years, she would.

Well, maybe after having visited Wales.

Perhaps, if she expressed her desire for time to pass to Francis, he might be inspired to send her a poetic response. Sitting at her desk, she pulled out a clean sheet of paper.

Dear Francis,

I hope this letter finds you in good health. I was thinking today how awful it is that we have to wait another three years until our engagement. If there was something I could do to move everything along, I would have done it by now—as would you, I am sure.

There. It was simple, but it had the potential to persuade him to return a sweet sentence or two back to her.

I am glad you enjoyed last month’s ball at the assembly rooms. I have been busying myself with concocting new items to sell. I have a wound and scar cream that seems to be working wonderfully. I sold a tonic to Portia Culpepper three months ago, and now her mother insists that it is to blame for her daughter’s pregnancy. Can you imagine? The tonic was for rosy skin, as it happens. If I could come up with a way for women to have children without the intervention of men, then I would be very rich indeed.

On second thought, Farah mused, perhaps it would be better to cross out that last sentence. She scribbled over it until it was barely legible.

The good news is that Portia’s skin has been looking lovely, so I will credit it to the success of my tonic. Please write me with more of your news.

Yours,

F.R.

Folding the paper into a neat rectangle, Farah sealed it with a bit of wax. Francis always received such entertaining stories from Painswick that it was a wonder he never commented on them. Ringing for a maid, she began to sift through the day’s harvest.

Knowing Francis, he would write her in a month. With so much time to wait, she might as well get to work.

She was, after all, proficient at making the best of things.

*

If someone had told Farah that she’d receive a letter from Francis two weeks later, she would have laughed. That person, however, would have been correct. Only half a month had passed before her family’s butler handed her Francis’s response.

“News from London?” her father, Sami, asked.

Farah looked up to find her entire family staring at her. No surprise, given the way her mouth had dropped open once she’d realized who’d written her.

“Oh, yes,” she fibbed. “It’s from Helena. Perhaps I ought to go read it—”