Chapter Three
Ditty stamped her feet in the freezing cold air and wondered why to goodness she had thought this was a good idea.
Because, she told herself as the few other passengers on the stagecoach passed her as they left the staging post, this is the only client you have right now. Even if he was a small-town lawyer in the middle of nowhere.
London was her home now—small towns, they were filled with naught but sadness and grief. At least, that had been her experience.
But the offer of a job had been better than nothing, especially with Mama running up debts in Brighton with no thought to practicality, and Thalia and Calliope unable to hold on to a shilling for more than a week.
Guilt seared her at the very thought, but it was not so much uncharitable as realistic.
Mama…she had never truly recovered from Papa’s death.
It had been Ditty who had stepped up and sold off the house and most of their things to cover their unexpected debts.
Ditty who had spoken to the tax collector and tried to explain that her father had always paid his taxes.
Ditty who shielded her sisters and her mother from the constant need for just another shilling…
As soon as Ditty could earn money it was spent, and no matter how much she tried to save there was always an emergency, always a debt to pay.
Perhaps it was better that their mother was staying with Aunt Louise in Brighton. Safer that way. Cheaper.
Ditty’s stomach twisted with the familiar panic of it. She had to earn money, she had to keep them afloat. If she were careful, her sisters would never need know the load that her shoulders bore.
She looked up and down the road. No hackney cabs.
She turned back to the staging post. No…staff?
Ditty sighed heavily, her breath blossoming out before her in the cold. Where on earth was she?
Well, at least that was a question she could easily answer. Right opposite her on the side of the road—the only road, it appeared, that went into the town—was a huge, beautifully crafted sign.
Brexley. Home of romance!
Ditty snorted. Right.
But even her cynicism about the destination for her next client couldn’t completely dull the anxiety twisting in her stomach.
Her worries were natural, she tried to tell herself. It was her first job outside of London—who knew if there was even a restaurant in this town! And finding a superb violinist? That was surely going to be tricky…especially if she couldn’t find her way to her lodgings.
Casting her gaze up and down the road, she bit her lip. He was supposed to meet her here, wasn’t he?
‘You all right there, miss?’
Ditty spun around. A beaming older man, dressed in a country jacket, breeches, working boots and a knitted scarf that almost trailed onto the ground, was before her.
‘Mr Cantelli,’ he said, tipping his hat. ‘Not good for a young lady like yourself to be out here on your own.’
Ditty pulled her pelisse closer around her and pulled her trunk nearer her ankle.
In London, words like that would be the opening of something sinister…but he did not look sinister. In fact, he looked quite the opposite. A cheerful local.
She swallowed. Not something she was accustomed to. Goodness, it had been years since she had last left London, now she came to think about it.
When had she grown so cynical?
‘Thank you for your concern, sir,’ Ditty said with a brief smile. ‘But I’m meeting a gentleman here. Paisley.’
Mr Cantelli’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Goodness. Old Paisley, eh?’
Ditty nodded uncertainly. This might have been a mistake.
For all she knew, Mr Paisley wanted to keep the entire thing secret, and she had a growing suspicion news of her arrival on the stagecoach, which arrived daily at Brexley, would be around the town before she arrived at her lodging at the local inn.
Goodness knows what an inn here would be like…
‘Well, much as I don’t like to leave you here alone, old Paisley is one to be trusted,’ said Mr Cantelli grandly. ‘Good afternoon, miss.’
‘Good afternoon, sir.’
Ditty watched as he walked away along the road, his stout boots far more suitable than the elegant shoes she had decided on in the early hours of that morning. If she’d known there would be so much snow on the ground…
Where was this man?
Pulling off a glove and wishing immediately she hadn’t, Ditty opened up her reticule to check the letter this Mr Paisley had sent her.
But before she could open it, her eye was dragged to the newspaper clipping beside it. Despite all her better instincts, despite knowing it would only make her sad, she opened it and read it for the millionth time.
Proposal Planner Ruins Romance
In this exclusive interview with Lord Edward Kilkerney, second son of the Earl of Kilkerney, we can reveal there are predatory individuals right here in London looking to prey upon those in love.
Believe it or not, there are actually ‘proposal planners.’
These are people who will charge you a king’s ransom to do precisely what you would have done anyway: propose marriage to the lady a gentleman is already courting.
Lord Edward has exclusively revealed to the newspaper that, after contracting Miss Aphrodite Oliver (a name which is surely carefully calculated to lure in the gullible) as a proposal planner, he was in the end forbidden from proposing at all by the sharp woman.
‘I wasn’t able to talk about my feelings,’ Lord Edward told our reporter. ‘Miss Oliver said it was quite impossible!’
Despite coming from an excellent family, Lord Edward was informed by Miss Oliver that he was in fact forbidden from making advances toward the young lady who shall, for her sake, remain nameless. As though Miss Oliver knows anything about matrimony, being a spinster as she is herself!
It should shock us all that romance is being commercialised in this senseless fashion, and we at the newspaper can only hope Miss Oliver, and others like her, leave their professions and do some honest work instead—or better still, marry and let their husband care for them.
Ditty’s heartbeat was heavy in her chest as she reached the end of the article.
It had been her own fault. She had asked her sisters to put aside any newspaper articles that mentioned her.
She had done it at first to make sure she heard all the lovely responses she was certain to receive—and she did receive a few.
But after refusing to assist Lord Kilkerney’s son in forcing—persuading, the peer had said—the man’s latest paramour to accept his proposal, the newspapers had grown a little cold… and now this…
Ditty stuffed the newspaper page into her reticule in the hope she could forget about it as soon as she was no longer looking at it. Doing so dislodged two notes that her sisters had clearly hidden in her reticule for her to find.
Don’t read any articles from the newspapers! I’ll tell you why when you get home. I mean it, ignore! Good luck with Brexley. You will be marvellous.
Much love—Thalia
It’s absolute nonsense, you never would have forced that idiot to say or not say anything—ignore it! Keep your head up. Did you write to Mama? Does she have sufficient funds to remain in Brighton?
Calliope
Ditty smiled, despite herself. She had good sisters, but they were too late. She had read and agonised over the article long before she had seen their notes.
Well, all it means is that I have to astound here, she thought sternly as she opened the letter from her new client. She would impress him, help him impress his future fiancée, and then she could at least return to London with her head held high.
It was times like this she wanted her books.
Ditty cast her gaze down the letter from her new client, scanning for the important line. There it was.
You will be met at the staging post and taken to your lodgings at the local inn.
The sound of horse’s hooves made her place the letter in her reticule and look up. There it was—a carriage.
Not quite a carriage. A very old dog cart, by the look of it. Ditty’s nose crinkled as she examined the rust around the wheel arch and the rotting wood.
Not the sort of conveyance one would expect a wealthy lawyer in any town to own, but then, this was the countryside. Perhaps she should not get her hopes up too high.
And so it was that she tried to address the driver with a beaming smile as he pulled the horse’s reins to a halt.
‘Mr Paisley.’
The man glared. ‘I suppose you could call me that. And you are Miss Oliver.’
Ditty nodded. Well, she could see why the man was about to become engaged.
Those eyes—piercing and bold, enticing from the moment their gazes caught.
Any woman would be transfixed. His clothing was suitably fashionable but well-worn.
Very well-worn, in some places. Dark, unruly hair, a chiselled jaw that would surely only be more handsome once he smiled.
He did not smile. ‘Well, let’s get this over with.’
Ditty’s smile faded. Over with? The man wasn’t going to do her the courtesy of helping her get her trunk into the back of the dog cart—or assist her up to her seat?
‘This isn’t London, I’m not a coachman,’ the man said with a grumpy sigh, as though he could read every single thought in her mind. ‘Aren’t you getting cold?’
She certainly was, but the weather was nothing to the frosty temper in his air.
Ditty’s mouth fell open before she was able to force it shut. Why on earth did the man hire her if he had no intent in being the least polite? Wasn’t that what small English towns were famous for—their sense of community and their charming inhabitants?
‘Do you want to leave anytime soon?’
Ditty glared, allowing just a fraction of her irritation to surface, but then she calmed herself and smiled tightly. ‘Yes. Give me a moment.’
The back of the dog cart did not lower as she had expected. She was forced to heave her trunk over the wooden slats, though she was not quite strong enough to get it over, and she knocked a piece of the rotten wood clean off.