Miss newburys list, p.1
Miss Newbury's List, page 1
© 2023 Megan Walker
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This is a work of fiction. Characters and events in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are represented fictitiously.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Walker, Megan, 1990– author.
Title: Miss Newbury’s list / Megan Walker.
Other titles: Proper romance.
Description: [Salt Lake City]: Shadow Mountain Publishing, [2023] |
Series: Proper romance | Summary: “Rosalind Newbury has a list of ten things she wants to accomplish before she marries the duke. Falling in love with her best friend’s cousin, Charlie, was not one of them.”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022027870 | ISBN 9781639930524 (trade paperback) | eISBN 9781649331243 (eBook)
Subjects: LCSH: Courtship—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Romance / Historical / Regency | FICTION / Romance / Clean & Wholesome | LCGFT: Romance fiction. | Historical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3623. A3595516 M57 2023 | DDC 813/.6—dc23/eng/20220822
LC record available at https: //lccn.loc.gov/2022027870
Printed in the United States of America
Lake Book Manufacturing, Inc., Melrose Park, IL
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Cover art: © Drunaa / Trevillion Images; KathySG / Shutterstock.com
Book design: © Shadow Mountain
Art direction: Richard Erickson
Design: Heather G. Ward
Other Proper Romances
by Megan Walker
Lakeshire Park
For Sophie—
Wherever life takes you, I’ll follow.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Discussion Questions
About the Author
Chapter One
Ashford, England, 1820
I leaned over the trunk at the foot of my bed in a desperate, frantic search.
Liza would be here any moment, and I could not for my life find that sheet of paper.
I’d hidden it years ago after learning that little brothers were as keen as hounds to find their older sister’s secrets. And while Jasper and Nicholas were away at Harrow, Ben at eighteen years of age still played his part exceptionally well.
Apparently, so did I.
I hadn’t slid my paper in any book or drawer, nor under my mattress or in the little space beneath my armoire. It had to be in the trunk. My fingers met fabrics of all sorts, from a soft old dress I’d worn nearly to shreds to scratchy linen sacks filled with broken paintbrushes and pigment jars.
I seemed to remember a little green box with ribbons and pressed flowers . . .
Someone rapped lightly on my door, and my senses seized for the second it took for my maid to poke her head inside. “Miss Newbury?”
I gave Molly wide eyes, and she pinched her lips closed. “Quiet. Right. You’re in hiding. In your own bedroom.” She slid inside, blonde curls poking wildly out of their proper arrangement, and closed the door.
“Yes, and you cannot call out my name like that.” Mama would hear and know exactly where to find me.
Molly stood above me and raised a brow. “Forgive me. How shall I address you then, if not ‘Miss Newbury’?” She made a show of ignorance. “Miss Rosalind Newbury? Just ‘Rosalind’? Or we could practice using ‘Your Gr—’”
“You know what I meant.” I narrowed my gaze at her twitching lips. Ignorant, she was not. Clever, though, for she could tell me exactly what she thought without saying much at all. And I would miss her terribly when I left. “I’ve asked you to distract Mama, and yet here you are. You must have news.”
“The Ollertons have returned home at last.”
Finally! “Is Liza downstairs?” I started to stand, craning my ear for the sound of her footsteps pattering up the stairs. Liza had a knack for solving the unsolvable; she’d help me find my paper. And then, we’d get to work. “You cannot leave her with Mama. The two of them will gossip for an hour.”
Molly cleared her throat. Her gaze settled on the pile of things I’d pulled out of my trunk. “She has not yet come to call.”
“She’s not . . .” I furrowed my brow and turned to peer out my bedroom window.
The fields between our two estates stretched on, separated by a grove of oak trees that, lush with summer leaves, occluded my view. Liza had been in London for her first Season for months. I’d suffered horrible jealousy, mourning my loss and bristling at the unfairness of being kept at home, until one day, just like that, the contract was in front of me, a pen in my hand. I’d made my decision. Why should it matter that I’d met my intended in Father’s study instead of a ballroom? I’d told Liza the barest of details in my last letter, knowing she’d be dying for more. She’d promised to visit as soon as her carriage rolled to a stop.
So where was she?
“Something is amiss, Molly,” I said. “Perhaps I should sneak over.”
I eyed my bonnet hanging loosely on my easel in the corner, but Molly stepped into view. “There are more pressing problems at present,” she said. “Your mother asked me to find you and fetch you right away.”
“What did she say?”
Molly braced herself. “Something about another appointment.”
“Good heavens, how many appointments does one need to plan a wedding?” I sighed heavily and rubbed my temples. Could we not simply say our vows and be done with it?
“I’ve told her you are still reading Fordyce’s sermons.” Molly winced at the lie.
I snorted. “I am sure she loved to hear that.” What would Mama say if she knew the truth? That I was chasing a promise I’d made to myself eight years ago. A promise I had three weeks left to fulfill. And I was failing. “I think I saved my list in a little green box. . . . Oh, where have I hidden it?”
I’d been searching for days. I needed to get started on it, for the whole point was to finish the thing before I married, but moments alone were rare since my engagement, what with Mama and her endless lists of dress fittings and menu changes, Father drawing up addendums to the marriage contract, and my brother Benjamin insisting I follow him around the estate on some grand last adventure. Did they not understand that these were my last days? There were so few of them left.
My skin suddenly seemed three sizes too small. “Molly, I need more time to search. You must distract Mama.”
Molly placed her hands on her slender hips. “What am I to tell her this time? Fordyce was enough of a stretch. She’s bound to catch on.”
I waved a hand in the air. “Tell her that I am . . . writing a sonnet about my feelings.”
Molly drew in a long breath and chewed at her bottom lip like she usually did when attempting to keep her thoughts to herself. Aside from Liza, Molly was my closest alliance. When she held back her cleverly disguised opinions, it was serious.
I kneeled again and dug my arm deep inside the trunk. “Free your tongue. What is it?”
Molly hesitated, watching as I pulled out a wooden horse and set it in the pile, then tucked a loose string of golden hair behind her ear.
“You do not wish to lie to Mama again,” I mused. “You think I am being irrational. That if you were getting married, you would not care about something as silly as a list of hopes and wishes to complete beforehand. But I am not as good as you, Molly. I am a mess. I’ve always been.”
“You do often smear your dresses with paint.”
I only half heard her. My own words felt like a dam about to burst. I felt them in my bones and clawing up my throat. All my life, I’d worked for this moment. I’d polished my accomplishments, learned languages and hostess skills and more manners than I could possibly uphold in an evening. And yet . . .
I glanced up at my maid, who watched me with a serious gaze, waiting.
“Tell me,” Molly said tenderly, kneeling down beside me. “What are you f eeling?”
So many things. Nervous. Frightened of falling short for my family, my intended, and his family. But there was something else, too. Something hard to name. “I feel . . . incomplete. Like I have not lived enough to warrant such a major life change. To be a man’s wife, Molly. To run my own household. Benjamin has experienced more than I have, and he’s two years younger than I am.”
“But that is the way of things, Miss Newbury. Your brother requires a more extensive education. More experience—”
“Because he is the heir, yes, I realize.” That same familiar burning engulfed my chest. I wanted more. Was that so terrible? “I imagined my engagement would feel more satisfying.” Immediately, I wished I could rescind the words. It was a mortifying thing to admit, especially coming from a girl who wanted for nothing. I had no reason to complain or wish or dream because I already had everything, and what I did not have, I was about to get. And all this spoken to my lady’s maid.
Molly watched me with nothing but kindness in her eyes, so I leaned against the foot of my bed and continued, softer, “Where is the excitement?” I laughed at the notion, at my grand expectations, but the sound came out pained and mournful. “There should be music. I feel as if I have been robbed of something I never had. But I think it’s more that I have not yet lived. I am not ready to give my life away.”
Molly hesitated for what felt like an eternity, her blue-green eyes filled with compassion. Then she said, “If I may, miss. You have only been engaged for a few weeks. Even still, I wonder if anyone is ever truly ready for marriage. Is it not a choice that we make based on trust and hope for the future?”
Of course Molly would say something beautiful to make me feel like an utter shrew. “Is it?” I said as I considered her wisdom. Could I trust my intended? I wanted to. I wanted everything between us to be perfect, to fit just right. I wanted to feel as excited as Mama was for my wedding plans, and to revel in my success like Father did. A match as good as mine came once in a century, he’d said.
I could easily recall my aunt Alice’s wedding, the first one I’d ever attended. At twelve years of age, I’d been enchanted by her beautiful dress, her perfect curls adorned with flowers, and how she laughed and grinned the whole day as though she’d never felt so free in all her life.
When I’d told her how I wanted to be just like her on my own wedding day, so happy and glowing and unafraid, she’d pulled me in close. She’d smelled sweetly of lavender, and she’d looked me directly in the eyes, and said, “Rosalind, my darling, wild girl. You are so free and full of adventure. But one day a man will come along and you’ll want to give your entire life to him. Make sure you’ve lived it fully first.” Then she’d tugged out a folded square of paper from her reticule. “I’d meant to give this to Marvin,” she’d said of her new husband. “But I have a copy at home. This is my completed list of all the things I wanted to experience before my wedding. Use it to inspire your own list.”
Wide-eyed and incredulous, and utterly inexperienced in all things, I’d taken her list and spent the next few weeks creating my own, promising myself that when my time came to marry, I’d be as ready as she was.
“A sonnet, then.” Molly stood, backed into the door and opened it, and I nodded my thanks. She offered a small smile and said, “Good luck, Miss Newbury.” She shut the door behind her.
The lie would not hold Mama off for long. Soon, she’d huff all the way to my room to drag me downstairs herself.
I sniffed and wiped a tear from my eye, pushing my emotions firmly down and out of reach. Tears would not serve me now. I needed to find my list and escape to Ivy Manor to see Liza without Mama’s notice. Wringing my hands together, I stood and circled the room. Where had I stashed that little green box?
I returned to my knees and again leaned over the deep wooden trunk. I pulled out each trinket, one by one, each memory I’d accumulated over my twenty years of living, until all that was left were the blankets that lined the bottom of the trunk. How could this be? That single paper was the key to alleviating all my discomfort.
Accomplishing everything on my list as Aunt Alice had instructed, everything I’d wanted for myself, would ensure that I was ready to share the next chapter of my life with someone. I needed to find it. I had to.
Would that I could remember my list from memory. There was a line about the ocean . . . something about a painting of mine . . .
Wherever could I have hidden it? I leaned over the side of my trunk one last time. As I reached in to smooth the corner of a wrinkled blanket, my hand hit something hard.
I froze, eyes focused on the spot.
In a flash, I yanked the blanket back, and there, pressed up against the corner, was a square green box with the word Rosalind painted in black along the lid.
I pulled it out; the box fit perfectly in my hands.
I unlatched the little hook and creaked open the lid. Faded ribbons lay on top. I carefully pulled them out and placed them in my pile. Underneath the ribbons sat a stack of pressed flowers, and beneath the flowers was a neatly folded paper.
My list!
I snatched the little square out of the box and placed it securely behind the ribbon tied tightly around my waist. The only other person I trusted to read my list was Liza. But if I had any hope of seeing her today, I needed to escape to Ivy Manor now, before Mama came looking for me.
In a flash, I tied on my bonnet and raced down the marble staircase as quietly as I could. I stopped on the last step, leaning on the wooden rail. The foyer was empty, but Mama would be somewhere nearby.
Slowly I stepped down the last stair. Should I take the longer route and sneak out the back? Or run the few paces ahead out the front door to my freedom?
A footman walked out of the dining room, stopping next to the entry door. If he opened it, I could dash through like a mouse to its hole. His hand grasped the knob, and my feet decided before my mind had a second to—
“Rosalind Newbury, where on earth do you think you are going in such a rush?”
Drat. Mama stood just outside the drawing room, her hands firmly holding her hips. Had she literally been watching the door for me?
“Mama,” I said sweetly. “The Ollertons have just arrived this morning. I wish to see Liza.”
Her eyes bulged, and she shook her head, causing her silky brown curls to bounce on either side of her face. “You cannot spend all your time over there, Rosalind. Not this year. We have too much to prepare with your intended visiting in a fortnight to dine with us and finalize wedding plans. I pray he got the special license for the wedding to happen at our estate or all our work on the grounds will have been for nothing.” Mama started counting on her fingers. “Flowers must still be ordered, menus finalized. The house needs polishing. As do you, Rosalind. And your dress! Your final fitting is this week.” She shook her head as though the more she thought about it the more confined I needed to be. “My darling, lest you forget, you are marrying—”
“—a duke,” I finished for her. “Yes, I know. And I dearly wish for Liza’s opinion on the matter. She is the closest person I have to a sister. I will have her help me choose flowers to order this afternoon.”
I lifted my chin. People often told me I was Mama’s spitting image. Though my hair was a lighter brown, my skin a touch darker from the sun, and my features fuller than hers, I feared the truth of their opinions when Mama gave me that look and walked toward me.
She took a long breath and let her features relax before saying, “The Newbury name has spanned generations of wealth but has never had a great beauty to tempt a title. Until you.” She smiled, then took my face in her hands. “We are all so immensely proud of you, my dear. You are making the right choice for yourself, for your children, and for Benjamin and our entire family.”
I could not hold her gaze and looked instead at the ruby pendant on her dress. I hated when she said it like that. Like I held the future of our family name on my shoulders. But I knew the significance of adding a dukedom to our line. Benjamin and the boys would move in circles previously unheard of for our family. Doors would open. And soon, Father had said, we’d have it all.
“I am honored to bolster our family name, Mama. And with your help, the wedding will be fit for a queen.”
