An Independent Miss Read Online Free PDF Page A

around the conservatory, before finally facing Felicity. “Is
it really so bad that we didn’t say anything?”
    “So bad?” She missed her one and
only courtship, something she had dreamt about, longed for, and she missed it.
“I should have known, had the chance to enjoy his attentions instead of
fretting about never seeing him again.”
    “Don’t be so dramatic.” Lady
Westhaven rolled her eyes as if she didn’t live on the edge of theatrical. “Of
course you would have seen him again.”
    “Not if he was married to someone
else.”
    “Oh, Cis…” Her mother looked at
her. “He didn’t want your brother or Lord Upton knowing, or the children, for
that matter. He thought they might intrude and tease you if they knew his
intentions.”
    True enough, her suspicion of a
prank was well grounded. Thomas was a ruthless jokester.
    “Oh, look at them.” Her mother
watched the young men outside in the south garden, fencing. It was an
aggressive match. Although the windows were dulled with condensation, Felicity
could tell the opponents; Thomas and Andover. Upton stood to the side.
    She swiped a swath of window clean
with one of her work cloths. Thomas, impulsive and reckless, next to Andover’s
graceful force. Tall and flexible, Andover moved like a dancer, no hesitation,
his lunges quick, sharp. The sight alone touched her, a tuning fork tapped.
    She stepped away from the
temptation to gawk.
    “I’m very good at keeping secrets,”
she told her mother, crossing to another bench, away from the lure of the
window.
    “Yes, you are,” her mother
admitted. “Much better than the rest of us except, perhaps, your father, who
can keep a secret better than a papist priest. But in this instance, you could
not have. It would have been in your eyes.” Her mother stilled Felicity’s
hands. “Do you really mind? Are you sorry for this time, for the opportunity to
be friends with Andover, to enjoy his company with no more expectation than
that?”
    Felicity looked down at her
mother’s hand on hers. They were an affectionate family. She wondered if
Andover was as well, and blushed as she recalled his finger against her cheek.
    Her mother was right. If she had
known he was courting her, she would have been torn between adoration and
terror. He was too much for her. She wasn’t certain why she had accepted him so
quickly.
    “Mother,” she finally asked. “What made
you choose Father over all your other suitors?” When she didn’t answer,
Felicity turned to her. “Mother?”
    Agitated, Lady Westhaven pulled
away from Felicity, inspected strawberries on a hanging basket. “What makes you
think I had a choice of suitors?”
    Felicity snorted, her mother
frowned, not at the reaction but the unladylike sound of it. The reaction was
to be expected. Volatile and striking, with her dark auburn hair and light
green eyes, Lady Westhaven was a faerie grown tall, a lithe, agile figure even
after birthing over a half-dozen children. Men watched her walk down a street.
She could have any of them with a finger snap, despite being old enough to have
children of marriageable age.
    “You could have refused.”
    Good humor gone, Lady Westhaven
studied her daughter before turning back to watch the scene unfolding outside.
“No, Felicity, I could not say ‘no’ nor do I wish I had.” As though she had not
shocked, she continued. “What matters now is why you have said yes. You have
the freedom to make a choice, Cissy. You were not plagued with debt, or
scandal, or any other nasty business that would keep you from marrying whomever
you wanted to marry. So just what are you trying to say, child?”
    But Felicity was stuck on the word
‘no.’ Her mother had not been given a say in the matter of who she married. Her
mother had to marry her father, because of debt or scandal or some other nasty
business. Caught on what she had just learned, Felicity jumped when her mother
shouted.
    “Good grief, they are fighting! I
will kill your