Love and Lavender by Josi S. Kilpack

Author:Josi S. Kilpack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Mountain Publishing
Published: 2021-08-05T20:06:15+00:00

Duncan helped Hazel create her own set of ledgers, a business one that tracked her expenses and interest from the inheritance, now managed at Gurney’s Bank in Norwich, and a personal ledger where she accounted for everything she spent aside from that of the school. He had taught her how to use the different columns and how to properly separate expenses, which she reviewed and updated every morning. It was a heady experience to see the numbers on the page that reflected her personal wealth.

Wealth.

Hazel Stillman . . . Penhale, had lived a life that had been paid for and managed by other people, namely Uncle Elliott, until she reached the age where she could care for herself. She’d never had more than sixty pounds at one time in all the years she’d taught, and she had grit her teeth when she had to buy a new dress or stockings. Having so much money at her disposal now should give her a sense of freedom and extravagance; perhaps she should buy a collection of hats and parasols and face creams from France guaranteed to give her a glowing complexion.

The idea of spending the money, however, made her heart rate speed up and her palms sweat. Face creams from France seemed as frivolous now as they had when she could not afford them. Having the means to buy an entire collection of hats invited a fear that she would buy all the hats and never be satisfied. What if one day she turned from admiring her extensive hat collection to find that she had no money left? What if it all became a case of easy come, easy go?

All she’d had to do was speak a few vows in a church to earn the money in the first place. Could a few misspoken sentences make it disappear again?

What if she were more like Harry than she thought and she became reckless and hedonistic?

She could not imagine herself in what she suspected the London gaming hells to be—dark, smoky rooms filled with leering men, grasping at her purse—but she had not been able to imagine herself as the mistress of a house a few months ago. She was still unable to imagine herself in the scene of her mother giving instructions to the housekeeper. Yet she had met with the cook just that morning, following the pattern of the meeting she’d learned from Amelia. The weekly meetings still felt awkward, as if she were grasping at a place above what she deserved. She didn’t imagine it had felt like that for her mother.

Perhaps because her mother had always expected one day to fill that place and Hazel never had. That she was filling that position now still felt false because there were only forty-seven weeks left in the one-year arrangement in which she was the kind of woman who gave instructions to housekeepers. Then she would instead be a headmistress who instructed staff, teachers, and students. The thought pushed her back in her chair, and she found herself as unable to picture herself as Mrs.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.