The week before
Winnifred Humphries never imagined that the sum of her existence would dwindle down to corsets and cakes. Cinched laces and afternoon teas. Whalebone and wedding plans.
Betrothed at the beginning of her second Season, she’d hoped for waltzes and even warm lemonade. Glittering chandeliers and moonlit terraces. Shared secrets and stolen kisses.
But those things didn’t happen to plump, freckled heiresses.
Resigned, she dutifully watched her fiancé dash off to his new barouche, the silver trim gleaming in the midday light like a freshly minted coin. Mr. Woodbine bade her no more than an absent wave, and his steps were far lighter in leaving the stately townhouse than in entering it.
Her own steps might have been nimble as well if she could breathe. But Mother—in her unending quest to have a slender and graceful daughter—ordered Winnifred’s laces drawn tighter for the special occasion of having Mr. Woodbine for tea.
Not that it mattered. He’d grimaced each time a morsel of cake had passed her lips. And because of him, she’d eaten the whole blasted slice. She hadn’t even been hungry.
Combined with tea, that last spiteful bite was expanding to continental proportions. The country of Plumcakia and all its inhabitants now dwelled inside her, some holding hand-hewn spears and waging war on her lungs.
Placing a hand over her midriff, she hoped for peace between nations. Then she returned to the parlor, prepared to beg her friends to loosen her laces.
Unfortunately, Mother was still lingering in the gold-chintz-papered room, fussing with red and pink roses in a cobalt meiping vase. Her keen gaze cut to Winnifred and she clucked her tongue. “I warned you against the plum cake, dear.”
Winnifred exchanged wry glances with Jane Pickerington and Elodie Parrish, who were sitting primly on the camelback settee. Her friends were well-acquainted with Lady Waldenfield’s ongoing and, frankly, futile pursuit of perfection.
Sinking down onto the edge of an upholstered chair, Winnifred was careful not to bend at the waist. She couldn’t risk a corset eruption, after all. Because of Mr. Woodbine and the troubling letter that arrived before him, the afternoon was already dreadful enough without the possibility of impaling her friends with shooting spears of whalebone.
On a brighter note, if she fainted and her head lolled onto the lofted expanse of her own bosom, she would surely smother herself to death and wouldn’t have to marry Mr. Woodbine. In addition to that boon, Mother could order her daughter’s corpse fitted into the newer fashions of narrow dropped waists and puffed sleeves without any complaint whatsoever.
Inhaling a sip of flesh-pinching air, she said to her mother, “As I recall . . . the words . . . ‘Try the cake, dear. It’s simply divine’ fell from your lips.”
“Yes, but I raised my brows as I spoke,” she said, turning to demonstrate.
A master of her craft, the subtle arch revealed a refined degree of censure and only a trace of wrinkles on her still-youthful countenance. Imogene Humphries certainly did not appear old enough to have a child of two and twenty. Ever-stylish in her violet checked silk tobine, she might have stepped from the pages of La Belle Assemblée. Her willowy figure hardly required the aid of a corset, and her golden hair was always artfully coiffed—unlike Winnifred’s unholy tangle of reddish-blond curls.
Thankfully, Mother had given up on taming it ages ago.
“With your wedding scarcely a week hence,” Mother continued, “you should be mindful of Mr. Woodbine’s moods. Surely you noticed the way he eyed your every forkful of cake with grim disapproval. He never does that with Lady Stanton. In fact, just last night, I saw them at a dinner party. And, by the by, she was wearing the most elegant gown of—”
“You do realize you’re admiring my fiancé’s mistress, do you not?” Winnifred interjected.
Her cheeks heated with embarrassment and her stomach roiled in suppressed umbrage. A volcano erupted on Plumcakia, killing all the natives and scorching the tender lining of her throat. She swallowed, too ashamed to look past the gold-inlaid edge of the low table and toward her friends.
“Pish tosh. That’s simply the way of things in our circle. Mr. Woodbine has had Lady Stanton’s companionship long before you came along. She was a poor, childless widow and his family forbade him from marrying her. It’s positively pointless to imagine that he would abandon her simply because he’s marrying a young woman whose dowry is too appealing to resist.”
Winnifred felt as desirable as the burlap sack a highwayman might fill with gold sovereigns. A lovely reminder that she was merely the vessel that transferred a fortune from one hand to another.
Of course, she wasn’t stupid enough to believe that he was marrying her out of affection. From the beginning, Mr. Woodbine could scarcely stand to linger in the same room with her.
It was her father who’d arranged the union. Paying no attention to Winnifred’s unwavering objections, Viscount Waldenfield had mulishly chosen Mr. Woodbine because he was third in line for a dukedom and poor enough to manipulate.
Among other disappointments, life had taught her that marriage was nothing more than an obligation to one’s family. So then why did her foolish heart still yearn for love? To find a man who might want her without condition or fortune?
“Now, now. There’s no need to turn all prickly,” Mother said, coming to her side to fuss over her chrome-yellow gigot sleeves, puffing up the left to match the right. Then she lifted a rosewater-scented hand to Winnifred’s cheek, her expression soft and solemn. “I’m only trying to save you from any romantic inclinations. I was once a young, wealthy bride, too, you know. Believe me when I tell you that it’s far better to have a firm understanding now, rather than to suffer disenchantment for the years ahead of you.”
For an instant, Winnifred could have sworn she saw the reflection of her own longing in her mother’s eyes.
Then Imogene Humphries stood tall and flitted an elegant hand in the air toward Jane and Ellie. “Now then, girls. Don’t let my Winnifred talk you into loosening her laces. She’s been attempting to bribe her maid with comfits all day. But I’m determined that she will make the ideal portrait of a bride by next week.”
Then, with a wink, she turned on her heel and sashayed from the room.
The instant the doorway was vacant, Winnifred slouched back onto the chair, her bustle crumpling like crushed dreams. “I can only hope that the world will erupt in fire in the next seven days. Do you think there are any volcanoes beneath London?”
Ellie sat forward on a huff, blowing her inky dark fringe from her forehead. Ever-quick to show her emotions, her amber eyes were fierce and her porcelain complexion hosted two spots of pink on the apples of her cheeks. “Winnie, you cannot possibly marry Mr. Woodbine.”
“Actually, she is capable of marrying him,” Jane added in her usual logical fashion, her topknot of wispy brown curls slightly askew. “Regardless of how it isn’t the sensible thing to do and will guarantee her misery for years to come.”
“Thank you for that,” Winnifred said dryly. “Lovely to know I can trust my friends to have a care for my tender feelings.”
“Prue will say the same once she arrives. Though it seems her trademark tardiness has gone beyond the pale today.”
“But Prue isn’t coming. Haven’t you heard?” Winnifred looked from one friend to the other. “Oh my, then it’s worse than I thought.”
“Whatever do you mean?” Jane’s sable lashes clustered around a pair of inquisitive blue eyes.
Beside her, Ellie choked on a whimper of distress and her complexion lost its luminescence, fading to pasty white. “Something terrible has happened. I sense it now. Yes . . . there’s a dark presence among us.”
Ellie had a knack for seeing Death around every corner. In fact, her fear of the great beyond rivaled Mother’s horror at the thought of letting out Winn’s laces.
“Prue merely”—Winnifred hesitated, trying to sound cheerful and not reveal any of her own qualms until she knew for certain—“embarked on an unplanned holiday.”
“Saints preserve us! My aunts said the same thing when I was young and my canary went missing. Days later, the gardener’s dog dug up Goldie’s corpse beneath the cabbage roses.”
Winnifred wasted a precious breath on a sigh. “That wasn’t a euphemism for Prue having passed away in her sleep.”
“Winnie should hardly have served us tea first if that were the case,” Jane tutted. “She would have told us at the door and had footmen and smelling salts on hand if we happened to faint. Which reminds me . . .”
Reaching down to the carpet, Jane hefted a red paisley reticule of epic proportions onto her tiny lap and began to sift through the mysterious contents. She was famously—or infamously, depending on the parties involved—prepared for any situation.
“Ah. Here we are,” Jane announced, holding out a small brown vial like a prize cup. Removing the stopper, she waved it under Ellie’s nose. “Now take a deep breath of this vinaigrette. I’ve infused it with lavender. It’s bracing but with a pleasant finish. What do you think?”
Ellie issued a cough and noncommittal murmur. Jane’s inventions weren’t always raving successes.
While her friends were somewhat distracted, Winnifred decided to retrieve the letter from the escritoire on the far wall. Standing, she clenched every part of her that she could and heard a series of creaks that either foretold impending doom to her seams or announced that the oak-sized busk running down the center had suddenly sprouted a limb. Somehow, she managed an erect posture without incident and crossed the room.
Retrieving the missive, Winnifred unfolded it as she returned to her friends.
“This arrived only moments before you did, so I haven’t had time to fully digest it.” Much like the plum cake, she thought as she carefully sat down again. “Prudence writes, ‘Dearest Winnie, Please forgive my dreadful scrawl. I am penning this note in great haste before I must away this very morning! I doubt I shall return in time for your wedding breakfast and it is all due to a complete misunderstanding. You see, last night my father discovered me in the gardens at Sutherfield Terrace . . . and not quite as alone as I ought to have been.’”
Ellie gasped. “Dear heavens! She had to have been with a man.”
“Clearly,” Jane said. “But the important question is, who was he and in what state was she found?”
“Well, one thing is for certain—he could not have been a gentleman,” Ellie answered. “Or else there would be no reason to send her away.”
“And yet, who other than a gentleman would have been invited to Sutherfield Terrace?”
Winnifred cleared her throat. “The two of you could continue to speculate, or I could simply read the letter, using what little air I possess at the moment.”
Sitting forward, Jane gestured with an impatient roll of her hand. “Merely forming a hypothesis. You may proceed.”
Winnifred skimmed the slanted scrawl, finding her place. “Let’s see . . . great haste . . . wedding breakfast . . . gardens at Sutherfield . . . Ah yes, here we are. ‘And now my father threatens to send me to a convent. Thankfully my mother persuaded him—just this morning—to pack me off to my stodgy aunt and uncle instead. I, however, am not certain my circumstance will fare any better. I shall be in a convent all the same. And yet, I tell you, dearest Winnie, that nothing of great import transpired between myself and Lord F—. I do not fancy myself in love with him. At all. Oh, bother, I hear Mother calling for me. I shall write again when we’ve reached the coaching inn. Yours affectionately, Prudence Thorogood.’”
“Poor Prue!” Ellie lamented. “To be sent away at the height of the Season. Do you think she was seduced by this . . . Lord F—?”
Jane pursed her lips in speculation. “If she was not, then it was near enough that it gave her parents reason to fear that it would only be a matter of time. This Lord F— is unquestionably a scoundrel if her parents do not anticipate a proposal of marriage.”
Winnifred thought of her own experience, and how she was informed of her betrothal at dinner. Over calf’s brains. Not quite as thrilling as a scandal in the garden.
Just once, she’d like to get caught unawares in a garden. To have a man go completely mad for her. To gaze at her with desire instead of with disgust.
Mr. Woodbine would never look at her that way. There wasn’t an ounce of passion between them. Yet in a week’s time, she was doomed to marry him.
She stood again, away from the chair’s confinement. But she still felt trapped. Utterly suffocated.
Fanning herself with the letter, she focused on something more agreeable. “But what if this man genuinely liked Prue? Perhaps so much that he’d—oh, I don’t know—forgotten they were likely to be discovered. And perhaps after his night with her, he was willing to relinquish his status as a scoundrel and marry her without delay.”
Jane arched her brows, a sly smile glinting in the upward tilt of her eyes. “Quite the fancy, Winnie.”
“Not really. After all, how could Prue, or any of us for that matter, have known his intentions? It isn’t as if debutantes are taught about the ways of the marriage-minded gentleman in finishing school.”
“Now that would have made a grand primer—The Marriage Habits of the Native Aristocrat,” Ellie said with a laugh.
“It isn’t a terrible idea, actually.” Winnifred felt tingles race over her skin, raising gooseflesh. “Jane is forever talking about writing a book.”
“I am. And?”
“Well, this should be it! Why, simply imagine all the women you could help. How to recognize the signs for when a gentleman is trying to catch a wife . . . and when he is trying to avoid being caught.”
“You may not have noticed, but my wallflower status keeps me from being much acquainted with gentlemen, or scoundrels, for that matter.”
“Well, perhaps we should be. All of us.”
“Winnie, you are scandalous!” Ellie grinned, excitement brimming in her expression.
Jane tapped her fingertip against her mouth. “There have been a number of other debutantes sent away like our dear Prue.”
Winnifred nodded with breathless encouragement. “It’s practically an epidemic. There must be dozens who’ve mistakenly believed they were being courted with honest intent.”
“Or more,” Jane agreed. “And if we did uncover the mystery between an honorable gentleman’s pursuit and a scoundrel’s seductive charm . . . Why, just think of how much more prepared it would make us.”
“If you were any more prepared, you’d be a fortune-teller.” Ellie laughed. “But how do you propose to come by this information, oh scholar of the ages?”
“It will have to be the three of us. Or rather, just the two of us, since Winnie will be married in a week and then on her wedding trip.”
“I’m not taking a wedding trip,” she announced, feeling another suffocating pinch inside her lungs. Only this time, it wasn’t from the corset. “Mr. Woodbine wishes to buy a grand house as soon as my dowry fills his coffers. Therefore, you can certainly rely on me to do my part for the primer.”
Jane tilted her head in speculation. “Doesn’t he already own a townhouse?”
“Yes, but we both agree that keeping separate residences is more the thing. After all, my parents live on completely separate floors, so it’s as if they are in different houses. The practice works swimmingly for them.”
Trying to appear unaffected, she turned away and made a show of taking the letter back to the escritoire.
“Is that truly the life you want?” Ellie asked.
“Well, I’m hardly inclined to hang on Mr. Woodbine’s waistcoat like a golden watch fob. Let him keep his house and his mistress while I enjoy freedom for the first time in my life.”
“Freedom is the key word in your little speech,” Jane said as she rose from the settee.
Then, in a blur of sprigged muslin, her sprite-like form darted across the room to the open doorway. After a quick peek into the hall, she closed the pair of white glazed doors, then went about rummaging through her reticule once more.
Confused, Winnifred looked to Ellie, who shrugged but quickly averted her gaze as if there were certain goings-on that they didn’t want to tell her.
“Ah-ha!” Jane said with triumph. Pulling out a metronome, she placed it on the floor and set it to a quick meter.
“Do you have a sudden urge to sing to us?” Winnifred asked.
Jane took her hand and led her back to the chair. “We can’t risk anyone overhearing us.”
“You’re quite right,” Ellie agreed with a stern nod. “Our plan is too important to risk being thwarted by eavesdroppers.”
Winnifred looked from one friend to the other, suddenly wary. “Plan? What plan?”
Jane absently sat on the table, her expression set. Resolute. “To free you from marrying Mr. Woodbine. He—”
“Doesn’t deserve you,” Ellie interjected, her fist raised.
“—has proven himself to be deaf to any desire of yours. Do you truly want to marry—”
“A pompous stuffed shirt who cannot see past your fortune?”
“Ellie, please,” Jane said with a pointed stare. “I have practiced this speech all morning. We’ll never get past page one at this rate.”
“Then, just skip to the page where Winnifred dashes out of the church on the morning of her wedding and escapes in your cousin’s carriage.”
“Whot?”
“Now you’ve done it. Winnie needs to be eased into these things and you’ve skipped directly to page three.” Demonstrating, Jane withdrew folded papers from the infamous reticule, shuffling past the first and second pages before pointing to a sketch on the third.
It depicted a rudimentary drawing of a figure in a bell-shaped gown, slipping through a church window that was engulfed in . . . “Are those flames coming out of the window? Surely your plan isn’t to set the church on fire?”
Jane squinted at the drawing. “Those are pigeons, of course.”
Winnifred looked again, unconvinced. “And on top of my head?”
“Well, that’s your hair, obviously. I planned your escape to follow the release of two dozen pigeons into the church. The chaos that would ensue afterward would give you time to shimmy through the window. You see, I’ve broken down each component into stages . . .”
“I cannot run away from my own wedding.”
“Actually, you are capable of doing anything you choose,” Jane said firmly, then continued in a softer tone. “And it is your choice to make. This is the nineteenth century, after all.”
“Winnie, I cannot bear the thought of you marrying a man who frowns with disapproval over everything you say and do, and who refuses to take you on a wedding trip even though you’ve been waiting your entire life to travel abroad.” After her speech, Ellie drew in an enviably large breath.
The truth was, Mr. Woodbine didn’t see merit in many things that interested Winnifred. He didn’t even want to tour Hyde Park with her.
She looked down at the drawing again. “But imagine the embarrassment my parents would suffer. I’ve disappointed them every day of my entire life, first by being born a girl and then by being not quite right in every other way. The least I could do as my final duty to them is to enter into my marriage without a scandal.”
Ellie huffed. “But they aren’t marrying the odious Mr. Woodbine. You are.”
“But to run away from my own wedding . . .”
“I have considered the possible ramifications. Page four,” Jane added, tapping the blunt end of a stubby black pencil to the papers. “And from what I’ve determined, the worst possible outcome would be going through with the wedding. After all, since your father frowns upon unnecessary travels and never ventures farther from London than his country estate, I highly doubt he would send you away like Prue’s parents did her.”
“No, they have other methods of showing disapproval, the primary one being silence. To give you an example, my father hasn’t spoken to his own sister in ten years. He barely speaks to my mother. I imagine he wouldn’t think twice about completely cutting me out of his life.”
“If you ask me, your parents don’t deserve you,” Jane said. “They certainly don’t appreciate you enough. I’d like to have my parents adopt you. With eleven of us romping through the halls, it isn’t likely they’d even realize someone new had been added to the brood.”
Ellie reached out and clasped her hand. “And my aunts love you, as well. You could live with us whenever Jane wanders off and loses herself in a pile of books for days.”
Winnifred laughed softly, feeling tears prick her eyes. She was inordinately grateful to have such friends.
Even so, the list of ramifications on page four terrified her. Her actions would wreak so much havoc in their lives. And, honestly, she couldn’t guarantee that the outcome would grant her a better life. Or a chance at love.
She might go through all this only to discover that a man could never love her without the promise of a fortune. The last thing she wanted was proof of this suspicion.
Shaking her head, she relinquished the pages. “I cannot—or rather—I will not do this.”
There. She’d said it. A firm declaration.
She waited for a sense of rightness to overtake her. A weight to lift. But that feeling never came.
Instead, she felt suffocated again. In that instant, she wished her seams would rip. Her lungs needed to fill with air, to be unrestrained. But Mother had ordered her dresses made with double stitching and stomachers for additional confinement. Like a cage.
“I understand,” Jane said solemnly. “We will always support you in whatever you choose.”
Ellie wiped a tear from the corner of her own eye and forced a smile. “Well then, we’ll simply focus on our primer.”
Tucking the plan into the depths of her reticule, Jane then withdrew a palm-sized ledger. “We’ll start off by listing the names of all the men we know and what we know of them. That will give us a splendid foundation from which to begin. Each of us will take on specific tasks and write chapters on the information gathered.”
“I volunteer to ferret out whoever this wholly contemptible Lord F— could be. In addition to whatever else is needed.” Ellie sniffed.
“Winnie, I should think you’ll be able to offer insight into what awaits a young woman on her wedding night,” Jane said with a scholar’s interest and not the barest blush.
But Ellie’s cheeks flamed bright pink. “Jane! You cannot ask her about . . . that.”
As far as complexions went, Winnifred sensed hers had turned decidedly chartreuse.
“I’m sure it will be nothing but awkwardness,” she said. “Mother told me that the first night in the marriage bed is much like that time our carriage wheel broke and we were forced to crowd ourselves into a passing mail coach until we reached the country house—rather jostling, sweaty, and with someone breathing directly into your face.”
Ellie cringed.
Jane wrote furiously.
And Winnifred . . . well, she didn’t want to think about it until she had to.
“For my share of research, I shall ask the married set what drove them to the altar,” she offered.
Yet she already knew what she’d find—an abundance of gentlemen willing to do anything for money.