“I wouldn’t know,” Allegra answered. “I was still gestating at the time.”
“She’s twenty-nine, not forty,” Dorcas said. “Honestly, you should try to learn something.”
“I know things,” Portia protested. “I acquit myself better than you at the pianoforte!” She turned to Allegra. “Will you teach me your new reel when we go home?”
“You’d better hope you won’t be there to learn it,” Dorcas said before Allegra could answer. “I thought your plan was to marry a sailor while we’re here.”
“An officer,” Portia corrected. Her merry expression went melancholy. “I won’t know what to do without you around, Allegra. Perhaps you can live with my new husband and me until Captain L’Amour returns?”
“Absolutely not,” Dorcas said. “I claimed her first.”
“I didn’t hear you claim anyone!”
“You did, but you don’t remember, because you don’t pay attention to anything.”
“Well…that’s true, I guess.” She looked up at Allegra hopefully. “You’ll stay with us some of the time, won’t you? You and Captain L’Amour?”
“When is he sailing back from Australia?”
“I couldn’t say.” Allegra infused her voice with sorrow. “I haven’t had a letter from him in months. I hope no ill has befallen him.”
As soon as her cousins were married, Allegra planned to let the noble Captain L’Amour succumb to one final adventure in a tragic, but heroic accident. It was time.
She was three months away from her thirtieth birthday…and freedom.
Allegra was the poor relation for now—had been the poor relation for seventeen-and-a-half years—but, due to the generosity and foresight of her and her cousins’ maternal grandmother, Allegra would soon come into a small inheritance on her thirtieth birthday if she were still unwed. There was an even larger provision if she were to marry before her birthday…but in dowry form, meaning it would belong to the future husband, not his bride.
Allegra planned to remain unwed forever. Why not? Financial independence was almost in her grasp. She wouldn’t ruin her chance for blissful autonomy this close to the finish line.
Once she finally had a home of her own, she had no interest at all in sharing it with someone else. She was a curmudgeon and proud of it. There were only three people in all the world whom she could stand. Two of them were in this carriage, and the other was a figment of her imagination.
Living alone with no mouths to feed but her own, no clothes to mend but her own, no chores to attend to but her own, no commands to follow but her own… It not only sounded like bliss, but was also the shining light that had pulled her through all the dark times when her uncle had done his best to make Allegra’s life unbearable.
She had been living on his charity ever since she’d been orphaned. Living in whatever castoffs even the maids did not want. Eating downstairs with the servants, until she began tutoring her cousins. Governesses took meals with their host families, so Allegra was allowed to join the table. There were no wages to scrimp and save. She was supposed to survive on gratefulness alone that benevolent Uncle Townsend had the mercy not to toss her into the street.
The truth was, Allegra would do just fine on the street. With her years of experience sewing and hair dressing and teaching from the books in the family library, she could find a salaried post just about anywhere.
She would have done so in a heartbeat…if it would not have meant leaving Portia and Dorcas behind.
Her latest assignment was to marry them off as soon as possible. The hurry was in part due to the ton’s ridiculous opinion that a girl a handful of years out of the schoolroom was an undesirable spinster. Uncle Townsend was not ton, but he had high aspirations for his daughters. They were sweet and beautiful, and he saw no reason for them not to manage a viscount or a younger son of an upper peer, at least.
The other reason for the rush was Allegra’s advanced age. The morning she turned thirty, she would no longer be a compulsory wallflower. She need not heed her uncle’s commands ever again. She could walk into the Bank of England—provided her uncle loaned her the three-shilling fare back to London—and collect her inheritance, never to be seen or ordered about again. But first, she had to settle her cousins.
“I hope Captain L’Amour comes back before you turn thirty so that you two inherit the full dowry,” Portia fretted.
“See?” Dorcas said with pride. “That is an important date and a wise thing to worry about. You’d better not let potential suitors catch you being so clever.”
Portia covered her mouth with horror.
“We’ll see what happens,” Allegra said lightly.
Their maternal grandmother had used her own mother’s inheritance to create a trust for all future females down the maternal line. Each was to receive a respectable amount to be used as a dowry at the time of her come-out. If they failed to attract a suitor, they merely received half that sum on their thirtieth birthday instead.
For Allegra, there was nothing “mere” about it. Her spinster portion totaled one thousand pounds—a mind-boggling sum. She could purchase the grand piano of her dreams and live with her music in humble but comfortable lodgings for the rest of her life. She could be scandalous for real, instead of just making up wild stories. Once her cousins were married off, Allegra needn’t worry about her actions affecting their prospects.
But Dorcas and Portia worried. They loved Allegra with all their hearts and wished her to have love and romance. Difficult, since Allegra had never had a come-out. Her long list of chores meant she rarely emerged from the Townsend residence at all, except on the occasions she was required to chaperone her cousins.
Rough hands and dowdy clothes did not help the matter, either.
Allegra didn’t care about any of that. She liked her rags and hand-me-downs. Had sewn them into styles of her own making, without giving a flying fig what This Season’s Look was supposed to be according to fashion magazines. Wearing her unsuitableness with pride was one of the few things she could do with her life.
Love was not for her. A husband was definitely not for her.
Not even perfect, unattainable Captain L’Amour.
“I bet he’s thinking about you at this very moment,” Portia said. “Probably making his bard write another shanty in your honor. It’s so romantic how he pines for the sea when on land, and pines for you when at sea. It would be a tragedy for him to return too late to collect your dowry.”
“That’s one way to describe it,” Allegra murmured.
“Oh!” Dorcas stared at her sister. “This means, no matter what, this is our final summer with Allegra. We have to make it the best one yet.”
Portia’s eyes sparkled. “No—the wildest one yet. We must send you to your wedding day with stories of your own to tell Captain L’Amour.”
Allegra chuckled. “I’m sure the good captain does not need the tepid tales of a spinster.”
“Start with this.” Portia threw the reins into Allegra’s lap. “Tell him the first time you held the ribbons, you were perched in a smart phaeton in the middle of Brighton.”
Allegra tossed the reins back. “You take them. I can’t drive.”