Winnifred nodded with breathless encouragement. “It’s practically an epidemic. There must be dozens who’ve mistakenly believed they were being courted with honest intent.”
“Or more,” Jane agreed. “And if we did uncover the mystery between an honorable gentleman’s pursuit and a scoundrel’s seductive charm . . . Why, just think of how much more prepared it would make us.”
“If you were any more prepared, you’d be a fortune-teller.” Ellie laughed. “But how do you propose to come by this information, oh scholar of the ages?”
“It will have to be the three of us. Or rather, just the two of us, since Winnie will be married in a week and then on her wedding trip.”
“I’m not taking a wedding trip,” she announced, feeling another suffocating pinch inside her lungs. Only this time, it wasn’t from the corset. “Mr. Woodbine wishes to buy a grand house as soon as my dowry fills his coffers. Therefore, you can certainly rely on me to do my part for the primer.”
Jane tilted her head in speculation. “Doesn’t he already own a townhouse?”
“Yes, but we both agree that keeping separate residences is more the thing. After all, my parents live on completely separate floors, so it’s as if they are in different houses. The practice works swimmingly for them.”
Trying to appear unaffected, she turned away and made a show of taking the letter back to the escritoire.
“Is that truly the life you want?” Ellie asked.
“Well, I’m hardly inclined to hang on Mr. Woodbine’s waistcoat like a golden watch fob. Let him keep his house and his mistress while I enjoy freedom for the first time in my life.”
“Freedom is the key word in your little speech,” Jane said as she rose from the settee.
Then, in a blur of sprigged muslin, her sprite-like form darted across the room to the open doorway. After a quick peek into the hall, she closed the pair of white glazed doors, then went about rummaging through her reticule once more.
Confused, Winnifred looked to Ellie, who shrugged but quickly averted her gaze as if there were certain goings-on that they didn’t want to tell her.
“Ah-ha!” Jane said with triumph. Pulling out a metronome, she placed it on the floor and set it to a quick meter.
“Do you have a sudden urge to sing to us?” Winnifred asked.
Jane took her hand and led her back to the chair. “We can’t risk anyone overhearing us.”
“You’re quite right,” Ellie agreed with a stern nod. “Our plan is too important to risk being thwarted by eavesdroppers.”
Winnifred looked from one friend to the other, suddenly wary. “Plan? What plan?”
Jane absently sat on the table, her expression set. Resolute. “To free you from marrying Mr. Woodbine. He—”
“Doesn’t deserve you,” Ellie interjected, her fist raised.
“—has proven himself to be deaf to any desire of yours. Do you truly want to marry—”
“A pompous stuffed shirt who cannot see past your fortune?”
“Ellie, please,” Jane said with a pointed stare. “I have practiced this speech all morning. We’ll never get past page one at this rate.”
“Then, just skip to the page where Winnifred dashes out of the church on the morning of her wedding and escapes in your cousin’s carriage.”
“Whot?”
“Now you’ve done it. Winnie needs to be eased into these things and you’ve skipped directly to page three.” Demonstrating, Jane withdrew folded papers from the infamous reticule, shuffling past the first and second pages before pointing to a sketch on the third.
It depicted a rudimentary drawing of a figure in a bell-shaped gown, slipping through a church window that was engulfed in . . . “Are those flames coming out of the window? Surely your plan isn’t to set the church on fire?”
Jane squinted at the drawing. “Those are pigeons, of course.”
Winnifred looked again, unconvinced. “And on top of my head?”
“Well, that’s your hair, obviously. I planned your escape to follow the release of two dozen pigeons into the church. The chaos that would ensue afterward would give you time to shimmy through the window. You see, I’ve broken down each component into stages . . .”
“I cannot run away from my own wedding.”
“Actually, you are capable of doing anything you choose,” Jane said firmly, then continued in a softer tone. “And it is your choice to make. This is the nineteenth century, after all.”
“Winnie, I cannot bear the thought of you marrying a man who frowns with disapproval over everything you say and do, and who refuses to take you on a wedding trip even though you’ve been waiting your entire life to travel abroad.” After her speech, Ellie drew in an enviably large breath.
The truth was, Mr. Woodbine didn’t see merit in many things that interested Winnifred. He didn’t even want to tour Hyde Park with her.
She looked down at the drawing again. “But imagine the embarrassment my parents would suffer. I’ve disappointed them every day of my entire life, first by being born a girl and then by being not quite right in every other way. The least I could do as my final duty to them is to enter into my marriage without a scandal.”
Ellie huffed. “But they aren’t marrying the odious Mr. Woodbine. You are.”
“But to run away from my own wedding . . .”
“I have considered the possible ramifications. Page four,” Jane added, tapping the blunt end of a stubby black pencil to the papers. “And from what I’ve determined, the worst possible outcome would be going through with the wedding. After all, since your father frowns upon unnecessary travels and never ventures farther from London than his country estate, I highly doubt he would send you away like Prue’s parents did her.”
“No, they have other methods of showing disapproval, the primary one being silence. To give you an example, my father hasn’t spoken to his own sister in ten years. He barely speaks to my mother. I imagine he wouldn’t think twice about completely cutting me out of his life.”
“If you ask me, your parents don’t deserve you,” Jane said. “They certainly don’t appreciate you enough. I’d like to have my parents adopt you. With eleven of us romping through the halls, it isn’t likely they’d even realize someone new had been added to the brood.”
Ellie reached out and clasped her hand. “And my aunts love you, as well. You could live with us whenever Jane wanders off and loses herself in a pile of books for days.”
Winnifred laughed softly, feeling tears prick her eyes. She was inordinately grateful to have such friends.
Even so, the list of ramifications on page four terrified her. Her actions would wreak so much havoc in their lives. And, honestly, she couldn’t guarantee that the outcome would grant her a better life. Or a chance at love.
She might go through all this only to discover that a man could never love her without the promise of a fortune. The last thing she wanted was proof of this suspicion.
Shaking her head, she relinquished the pages. “I cannot—or rather—I will not do this.”
There. She’d said it. A firm declaration.
She waited for a sense of rightness to overtake her. A weight to lift. But that feeling never came.