Her Secret Fantasy Read Free Page A

across in London, who I think might just be
perfect
for you.”
    Lily groaned, then reconsidered, and abruptly blurted out a cheeky question: “Are they rich?”
    “Lily, darling,” Mrs. Clearwell chided with a merry wink, “rich as princes. Otherwise, I wouldn’t waste your time.”
    “Hmm,” she murmured, glancing over her shoulder at the big, cold, and gloomy Balfour Manor. The roof was probably leaking even now.
    When Mrs. Clearwell gestured invitingly toward her carriage, Lily looked at her intently, then closed her umbrella and stepped up inside.
             
    By the end of that very trying day, Lily’s mind was settled on the matter. After all their visitors had left, save Mrs. Clearwell, who was upstairs in the guest bedroom at the moment, she called her kinswomen together in the drawing room.
    She stood before the fire and faced them with her hands clasped behind her back. “There is something I wish to say to you all together. Something private.”
    “Yes, daughter?” Her mother lifted her chin.
    Lily squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. “I have decided to accept Mrs. Clearwell’s invitation to London. It’s no use protesting,” she informed them. “We all know something must be done.”
    Aunt Daisy frowned and cast an anxious glance at Lady Clarissa, then at Lily again. “But what about your mourning, dear?”
    “I think in this case, Grandfather would understand,” she said softly. She hesitated. “As the new owner of this house, I must take action if I am to keep a roof over our heads. So, you see, I shall go to London and find a man of means to be my husband—then none of us shall have to worry long,” she finished hastily over the sound of their gasps.
    The three ladies stared at her in shock.
    “You’re…going to marry?” her spinster cousin breathed.
    “Oh, bless you, Lily, my dear, brave girl!” Aunt Daisy whispered, dabbing her eyes with her handkerchief. “I feared we were headed for the almshouse!”
    Lily glanced at her mother to read her reaction. She waited on tenterhooks, searching her face.
    Lady Clarissa was silent for a long moment. Then she lowered her embroidery needle and frame. “You are certain you can carry it off?”
    Steeling herself to her task, Lily swallowed hard. “I can.”
    Her mother’s sapphire eyes narrowed shrewdly. “
All
of it? A husband will have…certain expectations.”
    “Yes. I am aware of that, ma’am. I shall be prepared.”
    “But—Mother! Aunt Clarissa! Surely you can’t let her do this!” Cousin Pamela burst out in alarm.
    Nobody answered.
    “I know we are poor, but you can’t let Lily sell herself like—like an unmentionable female! It’s perfectly macabre!”
    “Macabre?” Aunt Daisy echoed, furrowing her brow.
    “There must be some other way!” Cousin Pamela insisted. “I know!” She suddenly brightened. “I could sell one of my novels!”
    “No!”
both of their mothers said in unison.
    “My God, you and your Gothic horrors, you will ruin any shred of respectability this family has left,” Lady Clarissa muttered with a dismissive shudder. “I will hear no more of such talk. Ladies
don’t
write novels.”
    “But I could publish it under a pseudonym—”
    “
We
would still know it was you, Pamela,” Lady Clarissa said with great long-suffering. “Honor is honor. Marriage at least is a respectable occupation for a woman. You might have tried it if you hadn’t wasted your youth on all your pointless scribbling,” she added under her breath.
    “Yes, ma’am,” Cousin Pamela said faintly. She dropped her gaze, timid and crestfallen once more behind her spectacles.
    A flicker of a frown passed over Lily’s face. That was Mother for you. Always correct and straight to the point.
    Carelessly cruel.
    “You needn’t worry, Pam,” she spoke up, trying to hearten her plain, rather pitiful cousin with a wan smile. “It might seem a little, er, macabre, but I don’t mind it,” she lied, “and