Page 3 of The Wallflower Manifesto
It was the dowager countess, who tilted her head in amusement at this greeting.
“I think this is yours,” she said softly, holding up a narrow, leather-bound volume in her manicured hand. “My stablehand found it in the coach.”
“Oh.” Millie took a step back, rubbing the heel of her hand over the grog in her eyes. “Oh, yes, thank you, my lady. It is mine.”
Rather than holding it out so that Millie could take the book, the dowager stood in place, still peering through the crack in the door with a quizzical little smile, and transferred the journal from one hand to the other. “Actually, might I come in for a moment? I wanted to ask you something.”
“Oh. Erm, of course.” Millie thought she couldn’t rightly refuse, despite being in nothing but her chemise and surrounded by a nest of unpinned hair in need of a wash. ”By all means.”
The dowager gave a little titter and saw herself into the room, nudging the door shut behind her. She was still fully dressed, of course, finely turned out in delicate, sky-blue lace. It was the type of frock Millie would reserve for only the finest of events, but for this woman it was simple wear for a day about the house.
“My, but you’re a well-made woman,” the dowager said, her pale eyes gone wide at the skimpy state of Millie’s dress.
Millie scoffed, her cheeks heating as she crossed her arms over her chest. Her generous figure was far from fashionable, of course, and had long been a thorn in her mother’s side. The dowager’s tone did not sound mocking, but it was hard to imagine any admiration from a woman like this in any sincerity. “I would have remained dressed if I had known you were coming, of course.”
“I did not mean to embarrass you, dear,” the dowager said. “I think it is simply difficult to not envy your youth.”
If you say so, Millie thought, while murmuring assurances that no offense was taken.
Well-made, was it? Tell that to the modiste. Every one she’d ever seen had shared the same opinions, frowns, and tutting noises of disapproval.
“Oh, your journal.” The dowager held the book out until Millie wrapped her fingers around the opposite end. She gave her another one of her cryptic smiles. “I have to confess, Miss Yardley, I flipped through it. At first, because I needed to figure out what it was, and then because I found myself very entertained. You have a very sharp mind and a wicked way with words.”
“You … read …?” Millie stammered, her throat going a bit dry. Suddenly, she couldn’t remember anything at all that she’d written in this particular volume, nor just how embarrassed she ought to be. How long had she been dozing in that bed?
“Not all of it, but yes, several excerpts,” the dowager said, without any sense of abashment. “One thing that stood out to me was your descriptions of London. You see the city in a way I never have. You’ve explored streets I have never even dreamed of strolling down. And you … well, you are allowed to do so without accompaniment, aren’t you? Isn’t that something!”
“Not as a matter of habit,” Millie protested, thinking immediately of how her mother would blanch at this revelation. “And really only after I passed a certain age where my prospects were rather unlikely, you see …”
“Oh, nonsense. You haven’t passed that age,” the dowager cut in with a dismissive wave of her hand, “nor is it my concern. You see, I have had an interest in returning to the city of late, once the new countess arrived to take over management of the Nook. I haven’t enjoyed a Season in London since Frederick, that ismyFrederick, was alive, and … well, I have a yearning to do it again, on my own terms.”
“I see,” said Millie politely, though she was entirely at sea in this conversation.
The dowager gave her a little grin, as though she were more than aware of how much sense she wasn’t making. “The truth of the matter is that I have never done such a thing on my own, nor would I know how to even begin. My plan has been to find and hire a lady’s companion to assist me, and after reading this … I wondered. Might you be interested in the role, Miss Yardley?”
There was a beat of silence. Millie blinked, unsure she’d heard the woman correctly. “You wish for me to accompany you through a London Season?” she repeated, a little dumbly. “I am not a debutante. I know nothing of High Society.”
“Oh, that part I need no assistance with,” the dowager said with a dismissive lift of her shoulder. “I wish for you to stay here through the remainder of the winter first, of course, so that we might become accustomed to one another. After that, yes, I would like to return to London and have the Season I have always dreamed of, free of rules, husband, and chaperone, with a canny guide to London as my companion to make many witty observations in my ear. I promise it will be more fun than returning to your mother’s rose gardens. What do you say?”
For a good while, Millie could only stare. But eventually, she managed a semblance of a nod.
And perhaps, after a time, she did get herself to say the wordyes. The journal entry about it never did specify if she managed that feat. It only mentioned the prospect offunand how alien such a thing sounded opposite the towering appetite of the London Season.
All the same, when the Yardley family carriage returned to London two weeks later, Millie was not inside it.
PHASE II: GERMINATION
CHAPTER 1
SPRING
Over the past six months, Millie Yardley had imagined her return to London in a thousand different ways: triumphant, secretive, somber, tearfully sentimental, and so on. In truth, the whole matter of rolling past the city line had turned out to be so anticlimactic that she’d missed it entirely, dozing off with her hat tipped over her eyes as the dowager thumbed through a fashion circular on the other side of the carriage.
Perhaps it had been silly to imagine herself fully changed by such a short time away, but after a lifetime within the bounds of a single city, half a year elsewhere had felt utterly transformative, and Millie fully expected London to need a reacquainting with this new and liberated version of her, who had finally broken free of her parents’ yoke in the rocky idyll of the Cotswolds this winter.
No wonder her mother had protested it so desperately! She must have known, Millie realized, that once her daughters had a taste of freedom, they’d never want to go back to living at home again. She and Claire had discussed as much more than once as those magical months had passed them by at Crooked Nook.
What was odd was that her brothers seemed to be just the opposite. All three had as much freedom as they wanted and seemed to patently refuse to leave the family doorstep in any permanent way. Men were funny that way, she supposed.
