Page 6 of The Earl's Bluestocking Bride
Reluctantly, he disentangled himself from her. “I’m afraid not.” His mother and sister must come first. “There is a possibility I will have to marry.”
“You intend to become a fortune hunter?” She sounded horrified.
“If I must.” From her obvious distaste, he assumed that would be the end of the matter, but she pressed closer to him again.
“You’ll be back.” Her fingers trailed down the side of his face. “I don’t mind if you spend some naive debutante’s dowry on me. In fact, nothing would thrill me more.”
CHAPTER 2
Light streamedthrough the tree branches ahead, and Joceline’s heart lifted. She battled through the brush, fueled by the desperate hunger gnawing at her insides.
As she drew closer, she saw buildings and heard the hum of voices.
Lord have mercy. It was civilization.
After three weeks of being stranded in the wilderness of a foreign country, she was finally safe.
Miss Amelia Hart placed her quill in its holder, excitement thrumming through her. The latest installment of her adventures of Miss Joceline Davies was complete.
Butterflies swooped in her gut as she lifted the quill back out of its holder and scrawled “The End” beneath the final sentence.
There. That was so much more satisfying.
She rose from her chair behind the heavy wooden desk in her parents’ yellow drawing room and stretched her arms above her head, working the kinks out of her back.
She wandered to the large windows that looked out onto the square, rolling her wrists back and forth as she did so. She’d been stooped over the desk, writing frantically, for farlonger than she’d intended to. She got that way when she neared the end of a story. Thoughts of it consumed her until she jotted the final words.
Amelia gazed out the window, watching a pair of women stroll through the garden in the center of the square with a maid trailing behind them. The last rays of the sun streamed through the glass, warming her skin, and she smiled.
What adventure would she send Joceline on next?
Perhaps she could travel to the Continent and discover the remnants of a lost civilization or journey to the Americas and explore the new world. Maybe Joceline would remain closer to home and uncover a hidden structure in the wilds of Cornwall or the expanses of Cumbria.
There were so many possibilities.
Amelia turned away from the window and crossed the room to the bookshelf against the internal wall. Most of the household’s books were stored in their library, but her father kept their most impressive tomes on display in the drawing room so that guests may admire them, and Amelia had discreetly added a couple of her favorites over the years.
She withdrew a leatherbound illustrated world atlas and carried it to the desk, then shifted her pile of handwritten paper aside to make room, taking care to ensure it remained in order.
Flipping through the stunning images and elaborately drawn maps inside the atlas, she considered where she might send her heroine, pausing each time a picture caught her eye. The Amazon jungle sounded thrilling. Or perhaps one of the desolate, snow-covered countries to the north.
The door flew open, and Amelia’s mother, Mrs. Hart, marched into the room, her dark eyebrows knitted together.
“You look frightful.” She shook her head, and her pretty features pinched. “It’s a disgrace. Your hands are covered with ink, and what on earth have you done with your hair? You look common.”
Amelia’s heart fell, and her good mood slipped away. Her mother often had that effect on her.
“I’m in the privacy of my own home, Mother. It doesn’t matter if I am slightly unkempt.” In all honesty, Amelia was not in a particularly worse state than usual. Yes, perhaps she’d dressed her own hair in a loose coil, and maybe it was coming down around her shoulders, but what did it matter if no one could see her?
Mrs. Hart harrumphed, her full lips twisting with displeasure. “You won’t marry into the aristocracy with that attitude. You need polish. Sophistication. Go and clean yourself up this instant.”
Amelia glanced at the window, hiding her expression from her mother. She did not wish to marry into the aristocracy at all. That was Mrs. Hart’s ambition. She’d married beneath herself and regretted it ever since, but now her husband was rich enough to buy their way into an even more exclusive level of society than Mrs. Hart’s parents had belonged to, if only Amelia would cooperate.
“Are we going somewhere?” Amelia asked. The trouble with her mother’s plan was that Amelia had no desire to join the ton. She’d enjoyed growing up outside of high society. She’d been allowed to roam across the countryside as a child, and her father had encouraged her schooling and interest in literature.
She’d been happy. At least until her mother had decided that Amelia should become a duchess or a marchioness. She would no doubt settle for her becoming a countess or viscountess,but anything less than that was simply unacceptable.
Mrs. Hart stopped and folded her palms over her skirt. “No, but once you are married, you must maintain your appearance at a certain standard. I don’t trust you to recall something so important later, so it is best we train you into it now.”
