AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Very well,” said Mother, a slight smile playing on her lips. After a moment, she turned to the shopkeeper. “You heard my daughter. Please, bring us several swatches of baby-pink fabric from which to choose.”
The shopkeeper hustled off.
The rest of the afternoon passed as expected. They decided on a new fabric for the dress. The delay was ‘overcome.’ And Evelina did actually end up enjoying being out on the town with her mother and sister...or at least she tried to. Nothing was bad, necessarily. Everything was fine. There were worse fates that might befall a person, after all, than a lukewarm life.
Evelina swallowed the tears that kept threatening to rise in her throat, always making themselves known at the most inopportune moments. When they returned home, Mother and Evelina met with Father in his study, and an official date for the engagement ball was set.
Briefly, Evelina considered writing to Thomas to tell him of the engagement. She had meant to explain her whole plan to him the last time they’d met in the gardens, before everything went so wrong.
But now?
The pain of it—the finality of putting into writing that she and Thomas were done—could not be borne.
Evelina did not write to Thomas, nor request to add his family to the guest list, which her father surely would have vetoed anyway.
Invitations were sent out the following day.
