Page 5 of My Favorite Mistake
Becky looped one arm through Fanny’s elbow and the other through Billy’s and strode off across the open field before them.
“Becky, wait!” Ralph cried behind them. But Becky’s pace did not slow.
“Has he been bothering you?” Billy asked, his brow creased and his eyes fixed on Becky.
“Not so terribly. He’s a bit persistent, but nothing I can’t handle.” A becoming flush rose to her cheeks. “I just wouldn’t want you to think I’d encouraged him, or that I had a sweetheart. Because I haven’t, and I don’t.”
Now Billy’s cheeks were ruddy. “No, I didn’t… I mean… that’s—that’s grand.”
Fanny sighed. Was there anything more awkward than being young and infatuated?
“In any case,” Becky said, “you don’t need to worry about Ralph.”
Fanny cast a glance over her shoulder. Ralph was still standing there, his dark glare fixed upon the back of Billy’s head.
Fanny wasn’t sure Becky had the right of it. She had a bad feeling about this Ralph fellow.
But she didn’t say anything about it and allowed Becky to lead them toward a great old oak tree at the far side of the meadow.
CHAPTER3
Becky led them beneath the branches of the old oak tree. An empty meadow stretched before them and a wood lay behind them, and no one was close enough to overhear.
“So,” Becky said, settling on the grass and leaning forward in anticipation of a juicy tale. “Tell us everything.”
Fanny sat down and leaned against the tree trunk. She wasn’t prepared to tell them quiteeverything. Becky and Billy were young and impressionable, and she hoped they might make better decisions than she had.
But still, it would feel good to get this off her chest.
“It was sixteen years ago, a month after my twentieth birthday, and I’d just got my first job as a proper lady’s maid. It was a bright, sunny spring day, very much like this one, at another little village fair, this one in the town of Birchington-on-Sea…”
* * *
Fanny sighed as she stood in front of the peddler’s cart.
It was her first week in Birchington-on-Sea, and her first time visiting its weekly market. She had left her hometown of Faversham, about twenty miles away, to accept a job working as lady’s maid to Arabella Pomphrey, Lady Findley, whose baron husband had gone and left her a widow at the tender age of seventeen. The baron had children from a previous marriage, and his eldest son had inherited most of the estate. But he had left his young widow a charming little villa just outside of Birchington-on-Sea, and that was where Lady Findley was now setting up house.
As she had only been in Lady Findley’s employ for six days, Fanny did not yet know her mistress well, but what she’d seen so far left her feeling uneasy. Lady Findley was sweet as shortbread most of the time, but every now and again, she would go and make a little speech on the perils of immorality.
Now, Fanny understood that for the lords and ladies and those who aped them, a woman’s virginity was a prized commodity and a requirement for making a good match. But working-class girls like Fanny didn’t have to be quite so starchy about these things.
Fanny’s own mother had taught her to count the days after her courses to see if she was likely to find herself in the family way if she were to engage in certain activities. And she might have availed herself of this knowledge a time or two.
All right. Three.
But the point was, Fanny didn’t subscribe to all of this hellfire-and-damnation business, and although she could smile and nod as well as anyone, Lady Findley’s little speeches were becoming tiresome, and Fanny was starting to wonder how well they would rub along together long-term.
So, when Lady Findley offered her all of Saturday off, instead of just her usual half-day, so she could have a chance to acclimate herself to the village, Fanny jumped at the chance.
And when she arrived in town and found that it was market day, her spirits lifted even higher. She’d wanted to buy a couple of the sausages an old woman with a gap-toothed smile was selling, but with her father’s injury, she knew she needed to save every penny of her wages to send back home. But at least she could have a good wander.
That was how she found herself standing before a bright red peddler’s wagon, sighing over his selection of parasols.
He had a half-dozen of them, and they were all beautiful. But one in particular, made of soft, butter-yellow silk with a little white fringe dangling off the edges, was just about the prettiest thing she’d ever seen.
She turned to the man minding the cart, a short fellow wearing a red coat with bright gold buttons and the tallest hat at the fair. “How much for the yellow one?”
He smoothed his mustache. “That one’s a guinea.”
