Page 2 of The Duke I Wished For
But the tiniest bit of jealousy niggled in her stomach. What a gift to have a purpose. Avoiding marriage was hardly the same. Daffodil wasn’t moving toward any goal. She was more avoiding the future her mother had chosen…
The smallest sigh escaped her lips.
“I know the feeling. I’d be back in the country, racing my stallion along the country roads if my parents hadn’t insisted that it was time I curbed my wayward tendencies.” Jane wrinkled her nose. “Their words.”
Jocelyn gave Jane a knowing smile. “I understand. I too have things I would rather be doing.”
“What is that?” Delilah asked. “You love society and everyone loves you.”
Jane gave a nod of agreement. “That’s right. Everyone knows that you’ll make the perfect match.”
“Thank you,” Jocelyn said. “But before I do, there’s one thing I want.”
Jocelyn drew out the silence, casting her friends a mischievous sidelong glance as they waited for her to finish. Finally, she said. “The perfect kiss.”
Isabelle gasped. Delilah giggled.
Jocelyn lifted a shoulder. “I just want to know what all the fuss is about before I settle down with some perfectly appropriate—” Here she paused to feign a delicate yawn, making the others laugh. “And perfectly proper gentleman.”
Daffodil looked at her friend, wondering if Jocelyn also felt trapped by her own fate. She’d never imagined her vivacious friend as being anything other than glowingly happy. The butterfly flitted around her bonnet and in front of her eyes, dancing on the breeze.
“What would you want, Delilah?” she asked her sister, even as Delilah finally let go of her hand and reached for a ribbon. She wound the silk around her fingers. “I don’t know.” Her tongue darted out to lick her lips as she looked upwards, appearing lost in thought. “Does running away from my life count as a goal?”
The other girls laughed. “I don’t think so,” Jane said.
Daffodil’s own cheeks heated at their mirth. Like her sister, Daffodil didn’t have a real goal either. Other than prolonging the inevitable as long as possible, that was.
She’d just narrowly avoided matrimony with Mr. Pennywind, but she couldn’t expect a second reprieve. At some point, her parents would force her to marry. Delilah too.
The thought made her spirits sink, but beside her, Delilah’s shoulders straightened. “In that case, I’d like to be in a fairy tale. One where I’m like Red Riding Hood or Snow White, and I go to a cottage deep in the woods and?—”
“Nearly get eaten by a wolf?” Jocelyn interrupted with a cock of her brow.
“Eat a poisoned apple?” Jane added with an indelicate snort. “Besides, who wants to be rescued? I’ll save myself, thank you very much.”
Delilah made a face at both of them. “I wouldn’t mind being rescued. Perhaps a handsome woodsman could save me from the wicked witch.”
“Oh, you mean our mother.” Daffodil nodded in understanding.
That had all the girls laughing. But Daffodil meant the words to some extent. Her mother had put so much pressure on them as children, had instilled such a need to be perfect, that Delilah had grown ever more timid and Daffodil had developed a stutter in her early years as she’d tried to live up to those expectations.
Jocelyn looked thoughtful as she assessed the pole. “My sister-in-law, Rose, swears that this pole is magical. That she and her friends wished upon it and found their happily-ever-afters because of those wishes.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Jane huffed. “There is absolutely no way that a magical pole exists in Mayfair.”
Still a silence settled over them.
“How did they wish?” Delilah asked, her voice so soft, it was hardly above a whisper.
“Well,” Jocelyn tugged on her ribbon. “They each had a ribbon I think, and they danced around…”
The girls looked at one another, all of them having collected a ribbon in their hand at some point during the conversation. Without a word, they began to move.
“And then what?” Isabelle asked, her own feet gliding gracefully along right before she did a pirouette.
“I’m not certain,” Jocelyn said with a shake of her head. “They just wished, I suppose.”
“Out loud?” came Daffodil’s croaking voice. She watched the butterfly finally flit away, its colorful wings spread out against the backdrop of blue sky. A wish came to her then. She’d like to be that butterfly, dancing away from her life, flying free and easy on the wind.
