Follow the Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

before supper. Where have you been, Nora? I’ve been frightfully bored.”
    “I was told your father planned to spend the evening with you.”
    Florie sighed. “He did. We played chess and then backgammon. But he left hours ago, and I have been here by myself since.”
    Nora set the medicine bottle and spoon on the table, hiding her smile over Florie’s penchant for hyperbole, then perched on the edge of the high bed, the book she’d brought on her lap. “I am sorry. You should have had one of the maids fetch me, and I could have brought you something earlier.”
    Florie wrinkled her turned-up, freckled nose. “Please don’t make me read anything for lessons while I am ill. I’d like to read novels—like Udolpho . . . or maybe, do you think, perhaps, I might read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall ? I heard Edith and Dorcas discussing it last week, and they said it was scandalous.”
    Nora hid her smile behind an arch expression. “And you want to be scandalized?”
    Florie nodded, eyes wide. “So may I read it?”
    “That is a request I must clear with your father. Here is one you may read—and it might scandalize you, just a little bit.” Nora handed over the book.
    Florie angled the cover so that the light from the lamp glowed off the embossed title. “ Jane Eyre . Oh, I’ve been longing to read this one. Even more than the other. Thank you, Miss Woodriff.” She snuggled down into the pillows and opened the book.
    “Before you get lost in that . . .” Nora picked up the medicine bottle and measured out a spoonful.
    Florie pinched her nose but took the medicine without protest, though she did give a delicate shudder after swallowing it. Nora handed her the glass of water the chambermaid had left on the bedside table. As soon as Nora took it back from her, Florie once again wiggled down into the pillows and started reading.
    “I shall return in one hour to put out the lights and see to it that you go to sleep instead of staying up all night reading.” Nora picked up the medicine bottle to take it back to her own room. The doctor had warned Nora of the medicine’s strength—and the possibility of coma or death if Florie accidentally took too much. Best not to leave it lying around.
    “Miss Woodriff.”
    She stopped and turned at the voice of Wakesdown’s housekeeper. “Yes, Mrs. Trevellick?”
    The severe-looking woman gave her a kindly smile. “Young Mr. Lawton will be arriving with the master’s niece and nephew in less than two hours. The staff will be lined up to greet them. I wanted to invite you to join us if you so desire.”
    “To see the Americans up close to find out if they’re as wild as Indians, as all the penny dreadfuls make them out to be?”
    Mrs. Trevellick chuckled. “Aye, more than few of the footmen and chambermaids read those stories and have spent the day leaping from one wild fancy to another of what the Americans will be like.”
    Nora opened her mouth to decline the invitation but stopped. She railed against the forced solitude of her position—not part of the family, but not part of the household staff, either. Yet if she turned down Mrs. Trevellick’s invitation, the solitude would be self-imposed. “I believe I will join you. I’ll get a good look at these Americans so I can describe them in full to Miss Florence in the morning, since she will not be allowed to see them until her fever is gone, I would imagine.”
    She and the housekeeper parted ways, and Nora returned to her chambers. The schoolroom seemed unusually dark and quiet tonight—as if Florie’s absence the last two days had drained its essence.
    Yes, she would see these American relations of Sir Anthony’s. And, if she could work up the courage and find the appropriate means to do so, she would ask them about the need for governesses in America. For America, her brother wrote, was indeed the land where dreams came true—if only one had enough gumption to follow her heart.

    For Christopher, the hours he