It Begins with a Kiss

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An Excerpt from
Barely a Lady

Also by Eileen Dreyer

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It Begins with a Kiss

1811, Near Windsor

She was incorrigible. That was what Miss Lavinia Chase, the proprietress of Miss Chase’s Finishing School in Sonning, said. It was what the curate from St. Andrew’s down the road said. It was what the Charitable Gift Committee, who traveled the few miles from Reading to oversee her education, said.

Of course, all of the girls at Miss Lavinia Chase’s finishing school were incorrigible. It was why they had been sent there, at what was more vulgarly known as Last Chance Academy. But even in that pantheon of misbehaving, maladroit young women, Fiona Ferguson stood out.

She was always
thinking
. Not in matters of poise or etiquette, not even in the art of being agreeable. No, that would have at least done them all some good. It might have ensured Miss Fiona Ferguson a place, however tenuous, in society. But Miss Ferguson preferred science over penmanship. Philosophy over etiquette. And, dear heavens preserve them all, mathematics over everything. Not simply numbering that could see a wife through her household accounts. Algebra. Geometry. Indecipherable equations made up of unrecognizable symbols that meant nothing to anyone but the chit herself. It was enough to give Miss Chase hives.

The girl wasn’t even saved by having any proper feminine skills. She could not tat or sing or draw. Her needlework was execrable, and her Italian worse. In fact, her only skills were completely unacceptable, as no one wanted a wife who could speak German, discuss physics, or bring down more pheasant than her husband.

Even worse than those failings, though, was the fact that Miss Ferguson had a definite lack of humility. No matter how often she was birched or locked in her room or given psalms to copy out a hundred times, she couldn’t seem to drop her eyes, or bend her knee the appropriate depth. In fact, when her benefactors visited to inspect her progress, she looked them right in the eye and answered as if she had the right to say anything besides “thank you for your benevolence to such an unworthy girl.”

Incorrigible. And if they could find her brother, they would deliver her back into his care. But her brother, an officer with the Highland Brigade, was fighting somewhere on the Continent, which meant they had no hands to deliver Fiona into if they showed her the door. She did have a sister, of course, but even the Charitable Trust knew better than to deliver any human into the care of Mairead Ferguson.

“It’s not that Miss Ferguson doesn’t deserve to be left to that unnatural family of hers,” Lady Bivens sniffed at the board meeting to consider the latest crisis Miss Ferguson had fomented. “Plain, great gawk of a girl. Why, she’d be nothing without us. Cleaning out chamber pots or plying her trade at Covent Garden.”

Across the room Squire Peters snorted. “Not likely. Rather mount a draft horse.”

As usual, Peters was ignored. The rest of the board continued happily blackening Miss Ferguson’s name until their carriages pulled up.

They wouldn’t do anything, of course. They all knew it. Ian Ferguson might be poor as a church mouse, and he might have questionable antecedents, but Britain had made him an officer and a gentleman, and his timely rescue of the Duke of Wellington at a place called Bussaco had made him famous. His sister was safe. For now.

Fiona Ferguson was safe because she was locked in the attic room where all misbehaving girls were sent to ruminate on their sins. After all, the board meeting had been called in response to her attempted flight from school with a groom from the local public stables. And she would have made it, if Letrice Riordan hadn’t discovered the scheme in time to notify Miss Chase.

Fiona had said not a word when she’d been intercepted by the headmistress and John the footman on the back path leading to the mews behind Glebe Lane. She hadn’t said a word all the way back inside and up the four flights to her prison, or when they’d locked the door in her face. She had just stood there, silent and aloof, determined not to give them the satisfaction of seeing her weep.

Not one person had asked why it was she had packed one small bag and run off, a crumpled letter in her hand. And not one person thought to check on her throughout the long October night, to see if she was afraid or hungry. Miss Fiona Ferguson was being punished, and that was enough.

To be honest, Fiona didn’t notice the cold or the hours. She lay atop a thin blanket on the narrow rope bed, fully clothed, staring at a water stain on the ceiling that over the years had taken the shape of Italy. But she wasn’t paying attention to that either. Fiona’s attention was on the paper she clenched in her right hand, which had sent her on her way in the first place. The letter had come to the Reading receiving office five days ago. It had taken her three days to sneak the money to the cook to claim it without Miss Chase finding out. It had taken a day to prepare her escape, and another three hours to be found out and dragged back.

She was still lying in the frigid room thinking of how to manage a more successful escape when she heard the scrape of a key in the lock. It must be close to dawn.

“You can’t just hie off and not let your friends know,” was the greeting she got as an elfin blond girl tiptoed in and shut the door. “We’re supposed to help.”

Fiona didn’t look over as her friend hopped onto the bed and began to pull apples from the deep pockets of her uniform apron.

“I didn’t want you to run afoul of Miss Chase,” Fiona said. “She wouldn’t forgive you for helping me.”

Pippin Knight waved off the words as insignificant. “Oh, what can she do to me?”

Fiona just shot her a look. The subarctic chill of the room should have answered Pippin quite nicely. And if not, Fiona knew that the other girl bore the same bruises she did from the canings they had suffered along with most of the girls in the school.

“You can’t just walk back to Scotland, Fiona,” Pip protested, tilting her head like a bright-eyed sparrow. “I assume that’s where you were headed.”

Fiona sat up and retrieved an apple. “It is.”

“Can’t you wait a bit longer? I’ve sent for my brother Alex. He’ll help. He is one of your brother’s dear friends, after all.”

Pip’s brother had been the one to recommend Miss Chase’s, when there hadn’t been enough money for any other school. For that alone Fiona could dislike him. But his casual recommendation had also netted her the only friends she’d ever had, so in the end it had all evened out.

At least it had until she’d received that letter.

“Why would you think I’d want you to contact your brother?” Fiona asked anyway. “What do you think he could do?”

Pip took a bite of one of the apples and chewed. “I don’t know. But it’s certain we can’t help you, and I don’t like you traveling all that way alone. Besides, it’s about time Alex answered one of my pleas for help.”

Fiona faced Pippin, and saw real concern in her big blue eyes. Fiona almost smiled. With hair like a yellow puffball, a round little figure, and a face like a cherub, Pippin looked as innocent as a child. But innocents didn’t get sent to the Last Chance Academy. Of the four girls who had been crammed into the same low-ceilinged dormer for the last two years, Fiona was the clever one. Sarah Tregallan was the determined one, and Lizzie Ripton unyielding. But Pip was devious, and they had all benefited from it.

“I can’t wait for your brother, Pip,” Fiona admitted, considering the desiccated apple in her palm. “I can’t wait for anybody.”

Fiona hated to make Pip an accomplice. But she needed help. Before she could change her mind, she handed her friend the letter.

Pip quickly scanned it. “Oh, no, Fee,” she breathed, looking up at her friend with true horror in her eyes. “Mairead? Who would want to take Mairead?”

Fiona stood up then and began to pace, as if movement could generate escape. “I don’t know. Our housekeeper, Mrs. McDonnell, says it was a man who claimed to be sent by our grandfather. I don’t have a grandfather.”

Pip frowned. “Everyone has a grandfather, Fee. Two, in fact.”

“My mother’s da died when I was young. The other one never appeared.”

Not a surprise, since Fiona had no idea who her father was. But that wasn’t information Ian wanted her to share. Since getting to know Sarah Tregallan, whose bastardy was a fact widely shared by her adoptive parents, Fiona understood his caution.

“I can’t imagine a missing grandfather suddenly being moved to make our acquaintance,” she said now. “And why take Mairead? She can’t tolerate that kind of surprise; you know she can’t.”

“No,” Pip said, frowning down at the letters Fiona’s housekeeper had painfully drawn on the cheap paper. “She can’t. Even you couldn’t make her tolerate this place. And you’re her twin.”

Fiona scrubbed at her face. “I should have gone with her then. I should have…”

“You should have done just what your brother wanted. He risked his life to give you the chance for an education. You couldn’t just throw that back in his face.”

“I should have. I should have stayed with Mairead. I should have protected her.” Fiona took the letter back, the talisman of her purpose. “I have to get to Edinburgh,” she said. “I have to find her.”

“You can’t do it alone,” Pip protested. “Let Alex help.”

Fiona laughed. “Oh, Pip. I’m sure he’s perfectly lovely. But this is too much to ask any casual acquaintance.”

Pip’s face screwed up in distress. “You think me a casual acquaintance?”

Fiona sat back down and wrapped her arms around her friend. “Now you’re the one who’s being henwitted. But I have no call on your brother’s time. Don’t you see?”

“No. I don’t.” Pip hugged her back and then sat up straight. “He’ll be happy to help you. You just have to wait.”

“Dearest Pip,” Fiona reminded her. “You’ve been trying to get him to help you stop what’s going on here for three years. What makes you think he’ll help now?”

Pip’s smile was deprecating. “Because he’ll be helping
your
brother, who saved his life, and who could never get back from the Peninsula in time to do you any good.”

Fiona didn’t even bother to answer.

“What are you going to do?” Pip finally asked.

Fiona looked over to where her battered old portmanteau sat by the door. “I don’t know. Lizzie is overdue to return from her father’s funeral. I was hoping I could sneak a ride in her coach when it went back to the estate. I could at least get far enough away that Miss Chase won’t be able to track my path.”

Pip’s enthusiasm died. “Ah, well… that won’t happen.”

“What won’t happen?” a new voice chimed in.

Both girls looked up to see Sarah Tregallan shutting the door behind her. Of average height and coloring, the only thing that set Sarah apart was the sharp intelligence and even sharper humor in her soft sherry-colored eyes. She reached into a pocket, pulling out a pasty and a wedge of cheese.

“You daft thing,” she said to Fiona with a soft smile as she handed them over. “I don’t suppose you could wait at least a couple of days before setting the governors off again, could you?”

Fiona took a bite from the pasty. It was cold and bland and gristly, but it was food. “Show her,” she told Pip, motioning to the letter.

But Pip was distracted. “You’re dressed to travel,” she accused Sarah.

Fiona looked up, surprised. Indeed, Sarah was in a gray serge carriage dress and jean half-boots. “It’s the middle of the night. What are you up to?”

Briefly, Sarah looked away. “I’ve been called home.”

“By who?” Pip demanded.

“Whom,” Fiona instinctively corrected. “By whom, Sarah? You have no more family.”

At least no family that acknowledged her. Her adoptive parents had been dead all of four years, leaving her to the mercy of the bank trustees arranged by her real father.

“I’ve passed my sixteenth birthday,” she quietly said, her fingers suddenly occupied with straightening the buttons that marched down the front of her dress. “I am finished with my schooling. Which means it is time for me to marry.”

Pip was on her feet. “What?”

Sarah smiled. “I’m sorry, Pip. But it’s never been a secret that the trustees would only allow me to attend Last Chance until my marriage was arranged. I was notified just before supper. The coach will be here after breakfast.”

“No!” Pip protested, catching Sarah’s hands. “Tell them you won’t go. You don’t need them. Come be my companion. Papa has scads of money. He’d never even notice you.”

Dropping a kiss on Pip’s forehead, Sarah squeezed the girl’s hands and let go. “Not even for you, Pip. Don’t you see? I finally have a chance for a home of my own. Someplace no one can take away from me.” Her eyes grew wistful. “And children. I think I’ll love having children.”