hhh Chapter 1 ggg
“My mother proposes three balls to celebrate my birthday. I am to find myself a fiancée by the third night.”
Penelope stroked the hairbrush through her already silky smooth long blonde hair and gazed pensively into the dressing table mirror before her.
Ebony sat on the end of the bed behind her and tugged on the laces of her boots. When both boots were tied to her satisfaction she took her feet off the footstool placed them neatly on the floor in front of her, stood up, smoothed out her skirts and said “Well, frankly, I think that that is quite a ridiculous idea.”
Penelope now swivelled around to face her.
“I knew you’d say something like that… but still; she has invited all the most eligible of bachelors...”
“Come, the gardens await us.”
Standing, Penelope linked her arm through Ebony’s and they exited the bedroom and began their descent of the front stairs. “… the only problem being, of course, that I’ve met each and every bachelor of my mother’s acquaintance before and have yet to lose my heart to any of them.”
“After just one occasion? I should be suspicious of any man that did manage that.”
Penelope laughed. “Oh Ebony, my little pessimist. Haven’t you heard of love at first sight?”
Ebony made a face and gazed distractedly at the wide banisters.
“Pen, would you mind terribly if—”
“I wouldn’t even think about it if I were you; it looks like the Worthingtons have arrived. From what I know of them they seem far too prim and proper to choose to stay in a house where wild girls slide down banisters and flash their petticoats for all the world to see when they fall flat on their faces at the bo—”
“That was once! I got distracted – and I’d like to see you do it any better.”
Penelope wrinkled up her nose daintily.
“I’d rather not, thank you. It’s not ladylike. Not that you’re not ladylike,” she added hurriedly. “It’s just—”
Ebony laughed. “You needn’t worry about insulting me. I know perfectly well I shall never quite be ladylike enough. Besides, you ought to have at least one person you can speak freely in front of without worrying about them ordering your head on a platter.”
Penelope gave a small smile at this, though somehow her eyes managed to betray her sadness at the same time. Then giving herself a little shake she brightened considerably.
“Oh dear me,” she said mischievously.
“What?” said Ebony suspiciously.
“Now I hate to be the one to disappoint you, Eb darling, but it looks as though Admiral and Lady Worthington have come alone. Unless of course that is their son driving the carriage. No, surely not – he never was much of a horse person.”
And with that she tripped gaily down the remaining stairs and out the front doors, which were wedged open by ornamental door stoppers.
“And what exactly are you implying by that… assertion?”
“So sorry darling,” called Penelope from the front steps. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
Narrowing her eyes in annoyance Ebony picked up her skirts and flew after he friend, almost tripping over the door frame on the way.
The bright sunlight purpled her vision, forcing her to pause a moment on the top step so she might see were she was going. As her eyes focused she saw that the Worthingtons had indeed arrived and were now descending from their carriage. Penelope’s speculation was proved right as Admiral Worthington helped down his wife and the footman shut the door. Master Worthington had not appeared. Being right did not, however, allow for her implying anything else. To this purpose Ebony picked up her skirts once more and, keeping to the shadows so that her father couldn’t rope her into welcoming their guests, followed her friend off around to the side of the house and into the gardens. Seeing Penelope crouched at the foot of the trellis leading to the ornamental planted gardens she caught up to her and tugged at her shoulder.
“Quick or the prigs will be after us. We can hide in the maze until father locks them away in the dungeon.”
Penelope stood with a sprig of honeysuckle plucked from the trellis in her hand and obediently skipped after Ebony up an aisle of roses to the twisted hedge arch that marked the entrance of the maze.
The maze was a simple one barely even rising to Ebony’s shoulder and covering no more than 400 square feet in total. Its purpose was more decoration than confusion. They reached the centre minutes after leaving the house, the route well familiar to them and both sat in one of the two white painted wooden arbours there. An ornamental bird bath stood in the middle of the hedged in circle, the water glinting in the sun. They sat in silence for a while, Ebony still pondering Pen’s hidden meaning and Penelope slitting the ends of her honeysuckle to allow her to squeeze out the inner sweetness.
“Honeysuckle?” she offered her friend after a moment.
Ebony took the orange bloom silently and broke off its green stub.
“Penny,” she began. “What did you mean when… inside you said something about… Master Worthington.”
Penny blinked. “Did- Oh, yes I remember now.”
Ebony twisted her fingers into her skirts uncomfortably.
Penny’s eyes twinkled. “Surely you haven’t forgotten that garden party last summer at the Heyers’. You wouldn’t take your eyes off him all afternoon and moped for the rest of the week.”
Ebony flushed pink. She had practically forgotten about that day but remembered it well now. She hadn’t thought anyone had noticed who was being paid all her attention. Now she flicked her hair back over her shoulder and raised her chin.
“I was young and inexperienced and overly influenced by romance novels,” she said haughtily.
Penny grinned, unable to help herself.
“So what’s changed?”
Ebony threw the stalk of her flower at her then stood up and started pacing slowly around the birdbath, tracing it gently with her fingertips. What had changed? She wasn’t quite sure, but of course something must have. She felt somehow disconnected from the Ebony she had been less than a year ago. One thing of course was that she was no longer quite as preoccupied with a certain young gentleman. She was still young, she was still inexperienced – in matters of the heart that is.
“I no longer believe in love at first sight. And the hold romance novels had over me has loosened and lost its grip. Now they’re just amusing, not something to base my feelings around.”
“As they should be. You should lead your own life, not that of a character in a novel.”
Ebony dipped one hand in the tepid water.
“It’s going to be positively scorching later,” she observed. The sun hadn’t yet risen directly overhead. Penelope agreed and joined the other girl at the pedestal. She cupped both hands under the water and they emerged dripping but with a clear pool in the hollow between them. It shivered and gradually shimmered to a standstill. Then all of a sudden she dropped her hands and the liquid splashed back into the bowl, splattering her bodice.
“Look at me,” she sighed, wiping her hands dry on her skirts and brushing at the splashes of wet on her dress. “I’m supposed to be choosing a husband before autumn and here I am playing in a birdbath.”
Instead of being insulted – after all she was ‘playing in a birdbath’ too – Ebony thought for an instant before saying, “Live for the present, not the future.”
“I wish I had the choice,” muttered Pen miserably. “What am I to do, Eb? One month of freedom left, then either chained to some tedious fellow for life or at my mother’s mercy. I wish I could have just the chance to fall in love,” she said in a small voice.
Ebony stood on tiptoe so she could hug the other girl and let her rest her head on her shoulder.
“Everything’s not lost yet.”
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