Page 65 of Bookshop Cinderella

“But a bit dull?” Delia said, as if reading her mind. “Let me assure you, Evie, that you can do better than Ronald Anstruther.”

“Please don’t think I’m looking to gain a husband out of all this,” Evie hastened to say. “This is just a holiday, after all, and I know I will soon be going back to my old life. I’m not expecting anything more from it than to enjoy myself.”

Delia cocked an eyebrow, giving her such a searching glance that Evie had to resist the urge to squirm. “Is your old life what you want, Evie?”

“I—” She broke off, laughing a little. “I’m not sure anymore what I want, to be honest. I never thought much about it. But lately, especially since all this has happened, I’ve wondered if there might be...more out in the world than what I’ve had.”

“There is plenty more, believe me, but it’s much easier to enjoy those things if a woman is married. Do you want to marry, Evie? Most women do, of course, but there’s nothing wrong with it if you don’t. If you do, I am happy to introduce you to every eligible man I know. But if you don’t, I should hate to think that Max and I were encouraging something for you that you don’t want for yourself.”

Evie considered her words carefully before she spoke. “I won’t pretend it wouldn’t be nice to find someone to marry, but as I told your cousin, I would never marry for any reason but love—”

Delia’s astonished laugh interrupted her. “You told Max that?”

“Yes. Why?”

“My cousin doesn’t have a high opinion of love as a guide to matrimony,” she said dryly.

“Yes, so I understand. But I do. Either way, there’s no point in trying to find me a husband, Delia. The ball is in three weeks, and that isn’t nearly enough time to fall in love with anyone.”

Delia laughed. “My dear, you’re not Cinderella. No clock is going to strike at the end of Max’s ball and force you back into obscurity. If you want to continue to move in society after that, I am happy to help you do so. And I’m sure Max feels the same. You are our friend.”

Evie appreciated the kindness of that offer, but she knew it wasn’t realistic. Even if she were suited for a life of society, balls, and parties—which she wasn’t—and even if she wanted that superficial sort of life—which she didn’t—she could never afford it. And she couldn’t allow anyone, not Delia or Max or anyone else, to assume the expense of providing it to her until some wealthy chap came along, married her, and took her off their hands. This was a holiday, and nothing more.

“Why don’t we just find ways for me to have fun during the next few weeks instead of worrying about my entire future?” she suggested, smiling.

“Excellent plan,” Delia approved. “Now, since it’s nearly nine o’clock, we’d best dress and go down to dinner. Then it’s off to bed for both of us. You need your rest, my dear friend, because I shall be providing you with as much fun and as many handsome princes as you can handle.”

15

Delia’s boast, as Evie soon discovered, was not an idle one. During the two weeks that followed, she met no princes, but she did meet barons, viscounts, and earls, and she soon discovered, much to her surprise, that Delia had been right. If any of them disapproved of a woman in trade, none were so tactless as to express it to her. Of course, the fact that Delia prefaced every introduction with a mention of Evie’s step-uncleLord Merrivalewas probably the reason for their forbearance on the topic. What they said behind her back might well be a whole other story, but Evie refused to dwell on it. She’d done enough agonizing of that sort when she was a girl, and she refused to ruin her holiday by doing it now.

She attended more teas, afternoons-at-home, plays, and card parties in that fortnight than she’d attended in the entire twenty-eight years of her life prior. She went back to Vivienne to be fitted for a ball gown, and she was absurdly pleased with herself when Delia and the dressmaker both endorsed her choice of jade-green silk.

Mentioning that she might want a bit of practice before Max’s ball, Delia suggested a few sessions with a dancing master, and Evie was happily relieved to discover that as long as she took Max’s advice not to look down and not to think too much, she wasn’t nearly as bad a dancer as she’d thought herself to be. With this newfound jot of confidence, she even dared to dance when Delia’s friends rolled back the carpet after a dinner party, and when Lord Ashvale commented that she “waltzed divinely,” it was all she could do to keep a straight face and murmur a dulcet, ladylike thank-you.

As the days passed, she found herself putting Max’s principle to the test in ways other than dancing. In navigating the dizzying whirl of activity Delia pulled her into, she tried not to think too much. Any time she made a social faux pas—and she made several during that week—she strove not to berate herself. If she couldn’t remember which spoon to use or was uncertain how to operate a pair of escargot tongs, she learned to observe others at dinner before making any attempts. She joked with her partners whenever she turned the wrong way during a reel or took the wrong position during a quadrille, and she found them much more understanding than the boys from school days had been. Whenever waiters grimaced at her woeful attempts to order dishes in French, she found herself taking a mischievous pleasure in ignoring their discomfiture.

She didn’t run across either Arlena Henderson or Lenore Peyton-Price, but she did encounter several other schoolfellows from her Chaltonbury days, and she found that this time, there was no sinking feeling of dread in her stomach and no desperate longing to bolt for the door.

A month ago, Max had promised her his proposition meant she’d have fun, but she had no chance to tell him that promise was now coming true, for she never saw him. After ten days with no glimpse of him anywhere, she made a carefully indifferent inquiry of Delia on the topic and learned he wasn’t even in town. The day after bringing her flowers, he’d gone to Idyll Hour to make preparations for the Whitsuntide house party.

His absence, however, didn’t stop him from being ever present in her thoughts. How could she not think about him, now that she knew he’d had carnal thoughts about her? She tried to tell herself that in light of his intent to marry Helen Maybridge, such feelings were hardly a testament to his character or hers, but sadly, reminders like that didn’t stop the pleasurable thrill that came whenever she remembered his kiss or his astonishing confession afterward. No man, she was sure, had ever had carnal thoughts about her before, and no man probably ever would again, and if it was wrong to be thrilled about that, well, she’d atone for it once this fairy tale was over and she was back amid her books, living a life of no sugar, no pâté, and terminal spinsterhood. In the meantime, she was determined to enjoy every moment of her holiday among the nobs.

She’d never been to a formal house party, but when she and Delia journeyed to Max’s home in the Cotswolds, Evie thought she knew what to expect. Granted, the only country house she’d ever visited in her life was Uncle Edward’s for a day at Christmas, but she had also been to Max’s London residence, and she’d seen pictures of Chatsworth and Blenheim, and by the time they reached the train station at Stow-on-the-Wold, the picture in her mind was the grandest amalgamation of these that her imagination could conjure.

When the carriage Max had sent to fetch them at the station rolled into the graveled drive of Idyll Hour, however, Evie saw at once that her imagination had proved woefully inadequate.

The place was massive, a three-story Italianate structure capped by a dome and flanked by two-story wings that seemed to sprawl endlessly in both directions.

“Good heavens,” she muttered, “does one use a motorcar to get from one end to the other?”

Delia laughed. “There are times when that would be very helpful. One year, during a party for the prime minister, my first husband and I stayed in the Parisian Room, which is at the far end of the left wing, and I was late to dinner—which would have been a fate worse than death as far as the late duke was concerned. I remember tearing down the corridor, cursing the damned architect for building such a monstrosity, and wishing I could gallop to the dining room on a horse.”

“That would be a spectacle for the prime minister, I expect,” Evie said, laughing as the carriage rolled to a stop before a wide set of stone steps, where a young woman in a soft green tea gown with a retinue of servants stood waiting to greet them.

“Nan, my sweet!” Delia cried, jumping out of the carriage and taking the steps two at a time as Evie followed at a slower pace. “It’s been ages.”

“Last August at Henley, I think.”

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