Page 32 of The Wallflower Manifesto
“I have a small project I intend to work on,” she said, her voice smaller, as though speaking from inside her own mind. “It is thefirst thing I want to do with that journal I commissioned today. I want to write a letter about my experiences over the past few months, something to share with girls who are like me.”
“There are no girls like you,” he told her firmly.
She looked up at him with the ghost of a smile on her face. “I mean girls like Miss Lazarus, whom I spoke to in the garden at the Wharton ball that night. Girls who do not fit the mold of English rose, and as such, may feel lost in the world.”
“You don’t consider yourself an English rose?” he asked, baffled when she shook her head. “What, then? Some sort of hothouse orchid, even more beautiful?”
She released a little scoff. “Hardly! No, I think of myself more like the morning glory vine that Dot gave to the shopkeeper this morning. A wildflower. Perhaps even a weed. Something that needs space to grow, but no cultivation, no interference for the sake of presentation.”
Abe nodded but was not entirely sure he understood. “So you are writing a letter to your fellow wildflowers?”
“I want to,” she answered, giving a little shiver from the warm gust of wind that encircled them, rustling the leaves above. “I am going to try to. Say what you will of Lady Bentley, but she has shown me that there are many ways to be a woman in this world.”
“And what way do you wish to go?” he asked softly, admiring the way the breeze lifted and stirred her gleaming brown curls.
“I haven’t a single idea,” she said happily. “And for the first time, that seems acceptable to me. I am suddenly seeing all the avenues in the world that were previously invisible to me. Why,just this morning I was talking to my maid about her plight and she told me that …”
She trailed off, stopping again with her eyes wide.
Abe had taken two additional steps before he realized that her hand had slipped from the crook of his elbow. He turned, staring at her frozen visage.
“She told you what?” Abe prompted when it became apparent that she had lost herself in whatever had struck her.
“She … Abe!” She broke into motion again, lunging forward the two steps that had separated them. She grabbed his hands excitedly, squeezing them and gazing up into his face, her focus darting back and forth over his visage. “Irene … my maid … she told me that she used to be hiredone day at a timebefore she found her current placement.”
“Did she?” he asked, completely at a loss. “That seems rather trying.”
“Abe!” She bounced on her toes, those whiskey-brown eyes sparkling like bonfires. “What do you think she was hired for, one day at a time? She mentioned an agency.”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” he told her, baffled but enjoying her enthusiasm. “I suppose extra work projects? Renovations? Or events like weddings or …”
“Or balls and soirees!” she finished, her enthusiasm drawing some disapproving glances from another pair of ladies who were strolling in their vicinity. “Where all of the thefts occurred!”
He felt the idea click into place in his mind like a key turning in a lock. “Good lord!” he exclaimed, using her grip on his handsto pull her close to him. “Extra staff, you say? Millie, that is brilliant. You are brilliant!”
She was grinning so widely, it made his heart ache. He wanted to snatch her up to his chest and press a hard kiss to her lips. The little minx had just done what every investigator in the city had failed to accomplish.
She bounced again on her toes. “Abe, you have to visit these agencies. That must be the answer! It must be!”
“Come with me,” he said, low and deep as he held her close to him. “Come help me investigate.”
“Oh! Oh, I would love to, but I … drat and damnation!” She squeezed his hands again, shaking her head. “I have duties today, this afternoon. You must go and report back to me. I wish to know everything. Absolutely everything!”
“My dear,” he said with utter and complete sincerity. “I have never wanted to share everything with someone so much as I do with you.”
CHAPTER 13
The early wave of heat had finally broken. With a spectacular series of thunder booms and jagged flashes of light, London had spent three full days held hostage by rainfall.
Millie had loved every second of it.
She’d always enjoyed a good storm, especially if it had the good sense to occur during her evening routine. It was calming and comforting in a way that made one feel overly grateful for four sturdy walls and a roof over one’s head.
She wrote to it. She fell asleep to it. She watched it from the windows while sipping hot tea.
What could be better?
Perhaps she really was a wildflower, after all. The thought made her smile. For blooms like Millie Yardley, one required a hearty rainfall in the absence of watering cans.
