Regency Miss by Alex Melbourne

Author:Alex Melbourne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2024-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

24: A Confession

Alicia arose the next day with a wrenching headache. All night long she had dreamed of mazes, dreams which were variations of the one she had had after Vauxhall. When she got up, her glass showed her that she looked as wretched as she felt.

Charlotte came in and inquired whether they were going to the Frost Fair.

“I don’t think I am going today,” said Alicia. “Perhaps tomorrow?”

“What is wrong, Alicia? You don’t look at all like the happy fiancée.”

Looking into the sympathetic and intelligent face of her friend, Alicia made her decision.

“There is something about you, Charlotte, that makes me want to tell you everything I shouldn’t.”

“Oh, secrets!” said Charlotte in happy anticipation. “Let me get settled in this chair. There. I hope it is excessively shocking.”

“It is,” said Alicia grimly, “and, as you will see, it is not a story that I would tell just anyone. You are the only other person besides myself who will know it.”

“Of course I would tell no one,” said Charlotte, with a look of gay expectation.

“When I was young, about sixteen, my brother, who is ten years my senior, married Amelia, about whom I have told you a little. She thought it her duty to prepare me for life as the wife of a wealthy man, and she told me stories of women who had married fortunes, and what their lives were like. But it was not only from Amelia that I heard stories of how great ladies lived—Amelia’s friends would come and gossip with her, and I would hear everything. You cannot imagine how it affected me.

“What I heard sickened me. My father brought me up to expect something better from marriage than faithless wives and philandering husbands. All these women saw virginity as the main commodity a woman could offer, but they expected nothing but deception after marriage, especially if one married into the world of the ton. There, it seemed, ladies could have bastard children by all the lovers they pleased, if they only remembered to be discreet in public.

“I was exposed to these women for two years, and a little after my eighteenth birthday I resolved to do something that would prevent me from turning out like Amelia and the women she talked about. I climbed out of my window in the dead of night and rode to an inn which was nearby, determined to give myself to the first man I came upon. Needless to say, I did no such thing. The first man was an ostler who was much too unattractive to consider. But I went into the inn, wrapped in a hooded cloak so that anyone who knew me might not recognize me. I think that at that point I might have contented myself with my adventure so far—just running away, seeing the inn. But then, as luck would have it, the only person sitting in the taproom was one of the maids, and she, taking me for a disreputable character like herself, told me of the handsome nobleman upstairs, who had paid for her presence in his bed the night before.

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.