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I will admit you raise an excellent point that love should enter into one’s calculation of marriage. Perhaps my own cynicism has gotten in the way of my thinking. I have tried, and failed, to earn that distinction and it has perhaps left me wary. I stand firm, however—proof of compatibility must come before marriage, and a decision should not be made on emotion alone. If not, the risk of failure is too great. Obviously, compatibility in all things cannot be known before marriage, and I think you understand what I mean. But many things within a marriage can be improved if there is a meeting of the minds to begin with.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Resident of Devonshire
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
June, 1858
England
To Her Majesty the Queen, Justine,
Dearest Jussie, please forgive my late reply to your last letter. I will be brief, as I am expected at the school and am dashing off soon to put this in today’s post. You are right to assume Lila’s efforts have not been successful, but I can’t give you a solid answer as to why. Mama has sent three letters urging me not to be stubborn. I swear to you that I am not. But with everyone Lila brings, I find I am less interested in knowing them. I feel an ennui that I’ve not felt before.
I can’t fault Lila’s selections—all of the gentlemen have been good, laudable men. It reminds me very much of when she presented you with so many candidates for your hand and how, after a time, they began to blend together. Do you remember how weary you were of it?
The only person who has been the slightest bit interesting is the one I thought to be the Grim Reaper. He is much improved since he shaved his beard and trimmed his hair. He has the most astounding eye color I think I’ve ever seen, a grayish blue that brings to mind winter and summer at the same time. Can you believe it, but he is not the least bit curious about me? He has even said so and has stated more than once he would not pursue my hand. It’s as if he doesn’t see what all the others see and cannot be enticed by my title, or my inheritance, or anything about me at all! I am at a loss to know how to greet such disinterest, as it is unlike anything I have ever experienced. I am not vexed by it, but rather, I find it remarkable.
Lila said we may go to London soon. I should like to visit the shops, but when I think of more parties and balls where I am to be presented as the one who cannot find a match, I don’t care to go. Nor do I want to leave the school. Mr. Roberts needs me desperately, and Lord I is in search of a larger facility. Once that is determined, there will be so much to do, and I will be needed. I would hate to leave now just so that I may don a tiara and smile and laugh and allow men to assess me for marriage and ladies to whisper how I don’t endear myself to them. I have never understood the desire to pretend to be sweet when I am not.
Oh dear, the time has gotten away from me. I really must be off, darling. I promise I will write more when I can.
Yours, A
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ONAMORNINGwhen the air was so thick it felt as if one could slice it with a knife, Amelia finished her work in Mr. Roberts’s office for the day and gathered her shawl. She could hear the girls in the classroom. Mr. Roberts was teaching the Greek classics and today’s lesson was about the Greek deities. The girls had taken a particular liking to Athena, as she was a warrior. Mathilda said that she would one day be a warrior goddess, and her father would give her a sword. Predictably, Maren and Maisie said they would be warrior goddesses, too, andtheirfather would also give them a sword.
It went downhill from there.
It was the way things went with little girls, Amelia was discovering. What one had, they all wanted. Much like grown women.
Amelia put on her sun hat and waved at Mr. Roberts through the open door of the classroom, but he didn’t see her. She walked outside and stood for a moment.
She dreaded returning to Iddesleigh House. She didn’t want to hear Blythe and Beck bickering over fabric selections for their renovation. She didn’t want to see Lila’s hopeful smile, either—although that one was due to leave for a few days, which came as some relief. Amelia had no doubt she was striking out to round up some new prospects for her. Amelia liked Lila, and she appreciated her desire to help. But she was weary of this endeavor. Indifferent to the possibilities. To her astonishment, meeting bachelor gentlemen had become a chore.
She walked to the arch and looked down the road toward Iddesleigh and Hollyfield. She then looked in the direction of Goosefeather Abbey. She and Mr. Swann had ridden there the afternoon they’d gone out, at Amelia’s insistence. But Mr. Swann had been impatient and said he agreed with Marley, that it didn’t stand to reason they’d put a boarding school there. But he opined that the land looked like it might be well suited to another endeavor. Something agricultural, he mused, as if he was also an expert in land use.
Amelia was enchanted by the idea of a girls’ boarding school and wanted to have a closer look at the abbey. She was beginning to think there might be a way for her to be useful to this world. She could help bring it to life, couldn’t she? If nothing else, she ought to be able to bring in some funding for it. She decided to have a better look than she had with Mr. Swann and struck out in her sturdy walking shoes.
At first, she enjoyed the walk, alone with her thoughts. But after a half hour or so, when there was no abbey in sight, she began to worry she had misjudged the distance, or had confused the right road. The humidity was high, and her plain gown was sticking to her. This had to be the right path—she and Mr. Swann had not ridden more than three quarters of an hour before happening upon abbey, and they’d passed the present school on their way. So, she carried on, unnoticing of the clouds gathering overhead.
After an hour, the light was being squeezed from the sky by the clouds. But she’d spotted the standing spires of the abbey and continued. After another quarter of an hour, she realized the abbey was farther away still.
She was exhausted by the time she reached it, and yet pleased that she’d made it. She spent a bit of time walking around, stepping over stones, looking into intact rooms. She pictured the entire boarding school in her mind’s eye—the girls would sleep where the monks had slept. In the missing parts of the abbey—large rooms from what she could judge—they could build a dining hall, and a chapel. There were other rooms, too big for personal quarters, and too small for dining halls, that could be used as classrooms.
She could hardly wait to speak to Beck about it. Her head was spinning with so many ideas when she started back that she still hadn’t noticed how thick the clouds had become. Not until the first fat raindrop hit her hand.
And then another one.
And then the deluge came. “Verdammt!” she cried, and pulled her shawl over her head as the skies opened up. She ran down the road for a time, her lungs burning, until it became clear she couldn’t outrun the storm. She considered dashing into the trees to seek shelter, but the rain was coming down so hard, she didn’t think she would be spared even there.
When her legs refused to run, she tried to walk faster, but the road had turned muddy, and her shoes were sinking into the wagon tracks. One of them sank so deep that it came off her foot. She stopped to pull it from the mud. She was soaked through, and freezing, and if she hadn’t been so angry at herself for her carelessness, she might have cried. Might have flung herself facedown onto the road and sobbed until her entire body sank into the mud.
And then, by some miracle, she heard a muffled shout. Clutching her muddy boot, she turned, hoping for a carriage. It was a rider coming toward her, the horse’s hooves churning up the mud in a way that didn’t seem possible. She recognized that black cloak instantly—thatwas the Grim Reaper. He drew up and stared down at her, rain coming off his hat in streams. “What the devil?”
Fortunately, Amelia didn’t have to explain herself then and there, as she would have been at a loss. He leaped off his horse and grabbed her by the waist. “Where are your guards?” he demanded, but once again, he didn’t wait for an answer—he picked her up before she could speak and set her on the horse, then swung up behind her. He anchored her with an arm around her waist, smashing her against his hard, warm chest. He pulled his cloak around her then spurred the horse on.
