CHAPTERONE
“Can anyone see the girls?” Phoebe Wilson’s worried gaze scoured the giddy crowd, her skin prickling with a familiar unease—the kind she imagined a rabbit felt when scenting a fox nearby. “They were right there! I swear, it is like shepherding frogs. Just when I think I have them where I need them, they hop off.”
Leah Forbes, formerly Bolton, rested a calming hand on Phoebe’s shoulder. “They are young, they are excited, there are young ladies of their age everywhere, and while I would not dare to tell you how to take care of them, for you do it so well, perhaps you might not fret so much. Bergfield Manor is perfectly safe. There is little harm that can come to them, unless they were to… I do not know, wander too close to the pond or something.”
“The pond?” Phoebe groaned. “Why would you say that? Now, all I can think about is them slipping down the banks and hurting themselves.”
Leah pulled an apologetic face. “The pond is very shallow. It would only be their pride that was wounded, and their gowns might be muddy, but nothing that would not wash out in the laundry.”
“Nor would they go outside,” Olivia Thorne added quickly. “It is March, not August. They would have to be quite mad to leave the warmth of the house.”
“I am doing it again, am I not?” Phoebe wheezed out a stressed laugh.
It had been an entire month since she had last been with all of her friends in the same place, and her nerves were ruining it. She saw Matilda and Anna often enough, for they resided closest to her own home, Woodholme Manor, but Olivia and Leah—the still beloved “traitors” of the Spinsters’ Club—now lived further afield, and with fine husbands to distract them, it had been difficult to coax the pair back into the fold. Of course, all five members of the group wrote to one another at least once a week, but letters were no replacement for actually being together.
“You are like a mother to them,” Olivia said gently. “It is natural for you to worry.”
“Yet, they ought to be allowed to run a little wild,” Matilda Elkins chimed in—the steadfast “leader” of their merry band. “Do you not remember us at their age?”
Phoebe sighed. “I do, and I wish they were more like us, in truth. We would hide away in any empty room we could find and spend the evening in amusing discussions, not parading ourselves in front of young gentlemen.” She took a cup of lemonade from a passing tray and sipped it to wet her dry throat. “It is impossible.”
“They are sweet girls,” Anna Dennis, the youngest of the group, interjected. “They are not impossible.”
Phoebe took another sip, the heat of the ballroom making her feel somewhat dizzy. “I did not mean that they were impossible, though they have their moments,” she replied. “I mean, finding suitable suitors, much less husbands, is a greater challenge than I had anticipated. Indeed, I am beginning to think there are no good gentlemen left in England.”
Leah cleared her throat pointedly.
“Except your husband,” Phoebe apologized, “and yours, too, of course, Olivia. But they are of no use to me, even so, for they are married to you. You have snared the last two respectable fellows in the country.”
Matilda came to stand in front of Phoebe, taking hold of both of her hands. “My dearest Phoebe, I am saying this because I cherish you and because you are my friend, and friends have a solemn duty to be honest with one another.” She took a breath. “You are stifling them, dear girl.”
“Pardon?” Phoebe flinched, her friend’s words stinging.
Matilda smiled warmly. “I know nothing of child-rearing, nor of motherhood, nor do I wish to,” she went on, “but I know what it is like to be a young woman of nine-and-ten. They flee from you because you are stifling them, just as we once fled from our mothers and fathers to enjoy some peace.”
“That was different!” Phoebe insisted, wounded. “Wevowed to be spinsters. My sisters… well, they must marry, for their own sakes. I will not resign them to a life of solitude, simply because it is what I desire, nor do I think they share my thoughts about marriage. They are almost too eager to find suitors, and that is the trouble—they do not know what is good for them. I do not want them making a mistake that will cost them their reputations.”
It was at that moment that Phoebe heard it—the very thing that Matilda had spoken about. Even to her own ears, Phoebe sounded suffocating, determined to control every aspect of her twin sisters’ lives until they were in the care of their husbands. Yet, if she had to be the villain, then so be it. She would not rest until her sisters were safe and secure in the best possible matches.
“We understand, my dear,” Olivia insisted. “But how are they to ever find a husband when you are like an angry goose, chasing away any gentleman who comes too close?”
Phoebe scoffed, struggling to hide the hurt in her voice. “I am not a goose.” She paused. “And if I am somewhat protective, and perhaps a little strict, it is only because I need to be.”
“No one is denying that,” Matilda said, giving Phoebe’s hands a tender squeeze. “Your intentions are well meant, we know that, but your execution is… rather too brutal.”
Anna gasped as if she had just remembered something. “Oh, you mean like the time that darling Phoebe threw her strawberry ice on that red-haired fellow because he held onto Ellen’s hand for too long?”
“Hehad been in the scandal sheets for kissing a young lady, not two weeks before he held my sister’s hand,” Phoebe shot back, feeling suddenly overwhelmingly cornered.
“And what of the fellow you berated with some of the most creative insults I have ever heard?” Matilda said. “I cannot deny, I was proud of the words that came out of your mouth, but that young man has likely never recovered. I cannot even remember what his crime was.”
Leah raised her hand. “He broke off an engagement the year before.”
“No,hewas a notorious rake,” Phoebe insisted, her heart beating wildly.
These women were supposed to be her friends, supporting her in her hardest moments, so why were they making her want to find her own dark room to hide away in, far from them?
Olivia smiled. “But there was nothing wrong with Mr. Barkley, that sweet, young clergyman who fell so deeply in love with Joanna.”
