Hello all and I hope you're having a wonderful day! Please enjoy an excerpt from my newest release.
Near London,
1849
Matilda Sheldon concentrated
on the stitches of her needlework and listened to the mindless chatter around
her. From early afternoon until nearly teatime, her two sisters, Juliet and
Alexandra, and her mother, continued a conversation on the virtue of green
vegetables in one’s diet. Often Matilda was reading a book when these three
found an inane topic worthy of four hours of discourse. Sometimes she let her
mind or her feet wander far away. Today, though, she had promised herself to
finish the doily she’d been working on for two months.
“What is your
opinion, Matilda?” Alexandra asked. “Yes or no to the nasty broccoli.”
Matilda pushed her
glasses up with her middle finger and stabbed herself in the forehead with the
needle she held. “Botheration! That stings.”
“Tee hee,” Juliet giggled.
The only person on
the face of God’s green earth to say tee hee
aloud was her sister Juliet. It didn’t appear odd to anyone in her family. Nor
anyone else for that matter. Men, in particular, found Juliet’s tee-heeing terribly becoming and some actually
replied with a spoken, “Guffaw.” Matilda could only shake her head in wonder.
Frances Sheldon
stood gracefully and approached Matilda. She pulled the ever-present lace hanky
from her sashed waist, dabbed it with her tongue, and touched the small globe
of blood on Matilda’s forehead.
“Must be more
careful, darling,” Matilda’s mother said.
“I say hang the
vegetables and double the cakes,” Alexandra said.
“How naughty of
you, Alexandra,” Juliet replied. She turned in her seat to face Matilda. “But
you’ve yet to share your feelings. Greens. Nay or yea?”
“How witty,
Juliet. Nay or yea. It rhymes, you know,” Alexandra added.
As if any persons
but the ones in this particular room needed instruction on words that were the
same in sound except for their first letter. “I imagine moderation in all
things applies to diet as well, Juliet. Some greens, some meats, some sweets,”
Matilda said. Her sisters stared at her straight-faced. Her mother stitched.
The room was silent as it seemed they had applied for her opinion and taken it
as gospel. Matilda hoped it ended more hours of speculation.
Frances Sheldon
looked up from her stitching minutes later with the same smile that had knocked
the bachelors of London on their seat twenty-five years ago.
“Some meats, some
sweets. Nay or yea. They rhyme. How droll, girls.”
“How droll,” Alexandra
repeated with a giggle.
“Tee hee. Tee
hee.”
“The Earl of Finch
will be here this weekend, Juliet,” Frances said. “I believe he will make an
offer very soon.”
“La de,” Juliet
said.
“But don’t you
think he’s ever so handsome and dashing,” Alexandra asked as she moved to the
edge of her seat.
Juliet shrugged.
“I suppose so.”
Matilda eyed her
oldest sister. Juliet was fair of skin and hair with a deep dowry, a full hope
chest and, by her own admission, future plans as elaborate as hosting elegant balls.
“You seemed to like him well enough at the Grossner soiree. Have you had a
change of heart?”
Juliet tilted her
head. “I’m not sure. Possibly.”
“A change of heart
perhaps,” Frances Sheldon said, eyes trained to a biscuit she was holding.
“A change of heart
most definitely,” Alexandra added.
Matilda wondered how she’d
ended up in this household out of all of England’s families. She would have far
preferred to be the only daughter of a village vicar, happily wiling away the
hours absorbed in literature and philosophy. It seemed there was no justice.
Matilda was the middle daughter in a family of handsome and, well, daft
siblings and parents. The only family member she could converse with reasonably
was her father’s mother, Grandmother Sheldon. Although Ethel Sheldon preferred
to be addressed by her Christian name, her grandchildren, all but Matilda,
called her Grandmamma. The old woman cringed each and every time one of her
son’s family addressed her as such. They just failed to notice. Matilda knew
from her earliest memory that Grandmamma preferred Ethel.
“I’m going to wear
either my green or my new yellow gown,” Alexandra said.
“Definitely the
green. You must wear the green,” Juliet replied.
“I wonder when
Fitz will arrive,” Frances said.
“In time for
supper no doubt,” Alexandra said with a smile.
“And bringing his
marks from fall term,” Juliet said, frowning and batting her lashes. “Don’t let
Father sulk and ruin the party, Mother.”
Frances Sheldon
rose and refilled each of her daughter’s teacups. She turned with a knowing
look. “Not to worry, girls. Father won’t have anything to say about Fitz’s
marks. Your brother wrote last week that Oxford has discontinued its practice of
grading its students.” Frances reseated herself. “Some new system, very modern
he said. So there will be no poor marks for Father to fluster about.”
Alexandra tilted her head.
Juliet smiled winningly.
Matilda looked
from her sisters to her mother. “And you believed him?”
Matilda’s youngest
brother was a handsome whirlwind of practical jokes and smiles. When she had
tutored him over holiday, he’d had one excuse after another to be anywhere his
books weren’t.
Frances was
incredulous. “Why, of course, dear! Fitz would never misrepresent something so
serious, I’m sure.”
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