Dedication
To my grandmothers, Marguerite (Bobbi) Hensley and Gloria Belle Plentl. For always loving me and encouraging me, even when I was sassy.
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Chapter 1
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 4
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 5
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 6
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 7
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 8
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 9
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 10
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 11
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 12
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 13
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 14
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 15
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 16
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 17
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 18
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 19
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 20
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 21
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 22
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 25
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 26
From the Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Epilogue
Excerpt from Diary of an Accidental Wallflower
About the Author
By Jennifer McQuiston
Copyright
About the Publisher
Acknowledgments
As always, I want to thank the usual suspects: my agent, Kevan Lyon; my wonderful editor, Tessa Woodward, and the fabulous Gabrielle Keck; the publicity team at Avon, especially Caroline Perny; the Avon art department, especially Tom Egner, who has a knack for creating the perfect covers for my books; my friends and critique partners, who know who they are; my amazing readers, for cheering me on and anxiously awaiting the next book; and of course, my patient and enthusiastic family.
This time, however, I want to extend my thanks further.
In particular, I feel compelled to thank everyone who followed me on my journey as I travelled to Sierra Leone in October 2014 to fight the Ebola epidemic, as part of my day-job with the CDC. I was incredibly touched by the outpouring of support, the thousands of new Facebook followers, the people who told me my posts helped educate them and relieved their fear. That was a long, hard, unforgettable deployment. I didn’t get any writing done: it is hard to conjure drama on the page when you are working twenty hours a day on something as dreadful as Ebola. But I did feel closer to the romance community than I ever had before, thanks to so many new friends. Thank you for your prayers, your support, and your kind words. They meant the world to me.
Prologue
London, 1850
It was a closed casket by necessity, not protocol.
But that didn’t keep people from coming.
They milled about the drawing room, somber clothing and whispered voices coalescing into a dark smear of sight and sound. Some had come to grieve, others to gawk. He was far too drunk to remember their names but not yet drunk enough to drown them all out, so he took another surreptitious swig of whisky from his flask and tried not to scowl.
Through the din of the room’s murmured speculations, his mind added its own rehearsed explanations for his sister’s closed casket.
She suffered terribly, in the end.
She’d not want to be remembered that way.
Ensuring, unfortunately, that Josephine would be remembered the other way.
Young. Pregnant. Unmarried.
Damn it all, but what was he supposed to say to these people? That Josephine had wanted to die? That perhaps now, at least, she could find the sort of peace and respect she had been denied in life? The guests might be here in his home offering their condolences, but there was an edge of macabre fascination to their voices. They’d never have forgotten the scandal as long as she had lived among them. Well, Josephine had solved that problem, hadn’t she? The entire room believed she had died in childbirth, the babe along with her.
The truth, however, was somewhat more damning.
“I must speak with you, Lord Branston.”
Thomas was startled enough to momentarily forget the siren’s call of the whisky. Here, at least, was a name he could remember, even dead drunk. Miss Gabrielle Highton. He turned his head until his bleary gaze focused on the face of the woman he still hoped to marry, despite all that had transpired. “Gabrielle?” he croaked.
“Yes.” She wrinkled her pretty nose. “Are you . . . unwell?”
Unwell. That was one way to put it. He breathed in, wishing the room wasn’t swaying. “I . . . I am glad you came.” He hadn’t been sure she would.
She stepped closer, until he could smell her perfume, a floral scent that reminded him now, too much, of the flowers draped across his sister’s casket. Lilium candium, his brain helpfully supplied. It was telling, perhaps, that he could remember the flower’s name in his drunken state, but not the names of half the people in the room.
How long had it been since he’d studied botany at university?
A far less important question than how many minutes he ought to wait before taking another swig of whisky.
His fingers tightened against the flask as Gabrielle’s gaze hovered to the left and right, but wouldn’t quite meet his. “I came because I needed to tell you.” She drew a deep breath, making dread shift in his stomach, pooling alongside the whisky. “And because I knew you would be here.” Her eyes finally met his and held. “You’ve not been at home the other times I tried, you see,” she accused.
Thomas gritted his teeth. No, he’d not been at home. There were arrangements to make. Funerals to organize.
Bottles to drink.
And tell him what, precisely? He could understand if Gabrielle had a desire to speak with him, considering the depth of his sister’s scandal. But whatever his betrothed had to say was a conversation best had in private, not at the foot of a casket. He deserved a chance to explain.
Beg, if necessary.
“I will call on you tomorrow,” he said, his voice hoarse, his hand outstretched. “We might speak then.”
But she was already twisting the betrothal ring from her finger. He felt the cold press of it against his open palm. “I am sorry, my lord. But I think it is best if I do not see you again.”
His fingers curled over the ring. Bloody hell. Would she no longer even call him Thomas? He’d kissed this woman, for Christ’s sake. Offered her his hand and title in marriage. But apparently his intended conside
red the title of marchioness a poor payment for enduring the taint left by his sister’s ruin, because she was already turning for the door.
Gabrielle’s departure had not gone unnoticed, either. Around him the crowd was stirring, the whispers shifting. It was one thing to be left at the altar, but this was a different notion entirely. As the vultures circled closer and the woman who had once been his future slipped out of the drawing room door, he took another generous sip of whisky, not even bothering to try to hide the flask this time. Let them gawk. Let them talk. It no longer mattered.
Perhaps his sister had found the right solution after all.
And perhaps it was time for him to disappear as well.
Chapter 1
London, April 1853
Wilson, the aging butler who ruled Cardwell House with a glove-covered fist, sometimes acted as though there was a metal prod shoved up his bum. Not that good posture wasn’t an essential element of the position, and by all accounts Wilson was excellent at his job.
But today that prod looked to have been heated in a fire prior to insertion.
And that meant someone—most likely her—was about to catch a scolding.
Lucy Westmore sighed into the silence of the greenhouse, resenting this small intrusion more than she should. Wilson didn’t say a word as he pulled to a halt in front of her, carrying his omnipresent silver tray. Not that he had to. His scowl was loud enough. But years of dealing with the old butler’s frowns had taught her the best recourse was to head off his lecture with a well-placed apology. So she brushed the dirt from her hands, peered up from where she was kneeling, and tried to fit a repentant smile to her face.
“I know I missed calling hours again, Wilson. And I am sorry, truly I am. I just need a few more minutes.” She shoved a fistful of blond hair out of her eyes while she waited for his response. Damn, but it was hot in the greenhouse today, the air thick and musty and oppressive. Perhaps she had spent one too many hours here, sweltering over the sweet pea seedlings she was preparing for the St. James Orphanage community garden.
A drop of sweat slid down her nose, and Lucy’s gaze settled on the butler’s balding pate. It would be heavenly to do something similar with her own unruly hair. She was tempted to giggle as she imagined what his scowl might look like then, but giggling never helped her cause where Wilson was concerned.
He’d been butler to her father for seventeen years, and to the previous Lord Cardwell for twenty-odd years before that. As such, he commanded a familiarity none of the other servants dared. She might be twenty-one years old and of an age to mind her own affairs, but he never failed to scold her, should the circumstances call for it.
Which, admittedly, they usually did.
But couldn’t he see this was important?
Growing impatient now, Lucy rocked back on her heels and gestured to her dirt-stained trousers. “Surely you wouldn’t have wanted me to receive callers dressed like this? It would have been ever so much worse.” When his scowl deepened, she switched tactics. “Would it help if I promised to apologize to Mother and Lydia later?” Although, she was quite sure Lydia wouldn’t mind. As far as sisters went, she was the lovely, forgiving sort.
Mother, on the other hand . . .
The thought of her mother’s reaction to her tardiness—and her trousers—was enough to make Lucy wince. She should have quit the greenhouse hours ago, but she’d simply lost track of time. Yes, that was what she would say.
Hopefully, it sounded like a more reasonable excuse than the truth, which was that she’d rather extract Wilson’s metal prod from his bum and shove it in her eye than suffer through another round of prescribed calling hours with Mother. For Lucy, they were an excruciating reminder of just how awfully her life was about to change. She might have agreed to go through with it but she’d be damned if she delivered herself trussed and bound for the upcoming Season one second earlier than necessary.
“I will change before dinner,” she added. “And I promise I will try to remember calling hours next week. But these seedlings are wilting and I must—”
“Miss Lucy,” Wilson interrupted, which would have seemed a terribly rude thing for a butler to do if she hadn’t been so relieved he was finally speaking to her. “Save your explanations for your mother. I suspect you will need them this time.”
She bit her lip. “She is very angry?”
Two bushy brows lifted high, like gray mustaches above his eyes. “Lady Cardwell spent half the afternoon making excuses for your absence, and the other half bemoaning your future. I even saw her look out the front window, no doubt to see if you were swinging from a tree.”
Lucy flushed. “I haven’t done that since I was a child.”
Wilson cocked his head, his silence deafening.
“Fine. Since I was seventeen.” She sighed, realizing how awful that sounded. What self-respecting seventeen-year-old still climbed trees? But she’d never been like other girls. And despite her best intentions, despite constantly stifling her natural impulses and trying to behave the way a proper lady would, she was beginning to reach the conclusion she probably never would. “Honestly, I am not trying to upset her, Wilson. I just have different interests.”
He shook his head, as though she were a hopeless case. “Well, I have not come because of your mother, or even because of the calling hours you have so predictably missed.” He leaned forward, slowly extending the tray he carried. “You’ve a package. It came in today’s post.”
Lucy was startled enough to fall silent. Not quite the vehemence of his usual objections to her penchant for wallowing in dirt and trouble, but then, Wilson was as slippery as an eel. No doubt he was biding his time, waiting for her guard to drop.
She climbed to her feet and eyed the proffered tray. At first glance the package seemed rather innocuous. About ten inches square and wrapped in brown paper, it sat on the butler’s silver salver like a large, plain cousin to the dainty white letters that surrounded it. Its appearance sparked some mild curiosity, but then again, most correspondence did.
She regularly received letters from her brother, Geoffrey, who was partway through his first year at university. She also maintained a vigorous communication with several philanthropic organizations, and a felon or two besides, if one considered her campaign to improve the conditions for prisoners in Newgate.
But as her eyes settled over the handwriting on the outside of the package, she felt a sudden quiver in her stomach. Because the parcel was addressed in the same distinctive scrawl that adorned the Christmas cards Aunt E sent every year from Cornwall.
And a package from Aunt E engendered more than mild curiosity when you considered the woman had died two weeks ago.
Her fingers reached out and Wilson jerked back the tray. “Oh, no, Miss Lucy. Not until you wash your hands.”
She glared down at her fingers. Bugger it all. They were only a little dirty. Not to mention the fact she was a goddamned grown woman of twenty-one years.
“You are a cruel beast of a man, Wilson.”
A smile finally claimed his broad, wrinkled face. “I am at least a clean, cruel beast of a man.” He pointed a gloved finger toward the washstand that waited at the greenhouse entrance. “And I’ll not have you sullying my tray. We’ve just polished the silver.”
Lucy stalked toward the washstand, grumbling out loud—mainly because she knew Wilson expected her to. As she scrubbed her hands, she pondered what the arrival of such a parcel could mean. For years, her aunt’s only correspondence with the family had been a single annual Christmas card, signed with an impersonal “E.” It was unconventional at best, coldhearted at worst, an annual reminder the woman cared so little for her family she couldn’t be bothered to think of them more than once a year.
She didn’t even wait for the butler’s footsteps to fade before tearing open the brown paper wrapping. Several items fell to the greenhouse floor, tinkling on the Egyptian tile, but she was too intrigued by the series of leather-bound books emerging in her hand
s to pay them much mind. Why had Aunt E sent her books? And more to the point, how had she done it, given that the package clearly must have been posted after her death?
Lucy opened the cover of the top book and read the inscription on the first page.
The Diary of Edith Lucille Westmore
January 1, 1813
Though the air in the greenhouse was warm and heavy, a chill rippled down her spine. Apparently, her mysterious Aunt E had a name. A real name, not just a single, detached letter.
Part of it, at least, was Lucy’s own name.
Why had no one ever told her?
She closed the cover, suddenly feeling nervous. There appeared to be four volumes, and in her hands they felt terribly old, with small cracks in the leather and gaps in the stitching. But the physical history of the diaries paled in comparison to the history of the woman they represented. Lucy was holding a more intimate knowledge of her aunt than she had ever been permitted to know in real life, and she didn’t know whether to lock the books away unread or fall upon them voraciously and read them from cover to cracked cover.
She glanced down at the drooping seedlings, suddenly feeling far less enthusiastic about the orphanage’s garden. Her gaze shifted to several other items, scattered about her feet and glinting amidst the spilled dirt. There was a folded letter of some sort, as well as a key and a piece of jewelry. She bent down and reached out her hand, gathering them up.
The Spinster's Guide to Scandalous Behavior Page 1
