always taken as an assurance that women had an accepted place beyond homemaking. “She is your trusted partner in most of your ventures, I gather.”
“She is a city wife.”
He did not need to elaborate. City merchants were happy to have wives who were helpmeets, whereas gentry marriages were bound by an entirely different set of rules. What gentry husbands looked for were meek and dutiful wives. What a man like Edmund Ashfield would be looking for was a meek and dutiful wife, not a know-it-all.
Not me.
“Your father chose me as your guardian because he knew I would make a good guardian for Tickenham Court,” Mr. Merrick continued. “You have me and the trustees to thank for the fact that you shall have an income of six hundred pounds a year.” He touched the bedraggled edge of my dress with the toe of his highly polished buckled shoe. “Enough to keep you in pretty gowns, no matter how many you’ll undoubtedly ruin by wandering around like a Romany. But pretty gowns do not come cheap and I’d like to see a return on my investment. I’d like to see you betrothed and off my hands as soon as possible.” He glanced at the book he had been holding, drummed his stubby beringed fingers on the cover. “This is the only book you will be reading from now on, and since you are so keen on study, I urge you to study this particularly well.”
He held it out to me and I took it reluctantly, glanced at the cover.
“It’s a conduct book, in case you are wondering. For most gentry girls it is as important as the Bible. It instructs you on how to behave. The skills you will need in order to secure a husband and then fulfill your wifely duties.”
Stubbornly, I knelt back down on the ground. I laid the conduct book to one side on the grass and attacked another dandelion. But as soon as Mr. Merrick had gone, I picked up the book and flicked through the pages.
EDMUND ASHFIELD ARRIVED at Tickenham Court in the early evening while Bess was dressing me in my new gown. He and Mr. Merrick immediately shut themselves away in the parlor, so I did not get to see him until supper, when my guardian seated himself beside our guest at the polished oak refectory table.
I took the place directly opposite Edmund and tried not to gaze at him and act the mute ninny I had been before. It was not easy. For he was just as I had remembered him after all, and more. He had filled out in the intervening years, lost any trace of boyish lankiness, so that he seemed even taller and broader-shouldered and more imposing than ever. But his gray eyes were just as merry, and in the light from the candles in the wall sconces his wavy copper hair rippled and shone luxuriantly. If I touched it, I wondered, would it be soft as kitten fur or prickly as a bulrush?
As he helped himself to a slice of cold beef off the pewter platter, I stared at the flurry of pale freckles and red-gold hairs scattered across the back of his hand. I reached out for a slice and my fingers brushed his and made every fiber of my body start to tingle. Solicitously, he moved the platter nearer to me, but I found that I was not in the least hungry, despite the fact that I had been too excited to eat all day. I did not think I could manage one bite. There was no room in my belly anyway. With my corset laced up tight, there was hardly room to take air into my lungs, not that I was complaining. With my hair piled on my head and ringlets coiling down to my shoulders, I had never felt so grown-up or so elegant.
I watched Edmund cut his meat as if I had never seen a person use a knife before. Then he stopped cutting and his hands were quite still. I looked up and our eyes met. He gave me one of his gloriously sunlit smiles and my heart skipped.
“Eat up, girl,” Mr. Merrick scolded. “What’s the matter with you today?”
“Yes, do eat, Miss Goodricke,” Edmund said, and the little apple in his neck bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “I have never tasted beef this
“She is a city wife.”
He did not need to elaborate. City merchants were happy to have wives who were helpmeets, whereas gentry marriages were bound by an entirely different set of rules. What gentry husbands looked for were meek and dutiful wives. What a man like Edmund Ashfield would be looking for was a meek and dutiful wife, not a know-it-all.
Not me.
“Your father chose me as your guardian because he knew I would make a good guardian for Tickenham Court,” Mr. Merrick continued. “You have me and the trustees to thank for the fact that you shall have an income of six hundred pounds a year.” He touched the bedraggled edge of my dress with the toe of his highly polished buckled shoe. “Enough to keep you in pretty gowns, no matter how many you’ll undoubtedly ruin by wandering around like a Romany. But pretty gowns do not come cheap and I’d like to see a return on my investment. I’d like to see you betrothed and off my hands as soon as possible.” He glanced at the book he had been holding, drummed his stubby beringed fingers on the cover. “This is the only book you will be reading from now on, and since you are so keen on study, I urge you to study this particularly well.”
He held it out to me and I took it reluctantly, glanced at the cover.
“It’s a conduct book, in case you are wondering. For most gentry girls it is as important as the Bible. It instructs you on how to behave. The skills you will need in order to secure a husband and then fulfill your wifely duties.”
Stubbornly, I knelt back down on the ground. I laid the conduct book to one side on the grass and attacked another dandelion. But as soon as Mr. Merrick had gone, I picked up the book and flicked through the pages.
EDMUND ASHFIELD ARRIVED at Tickenham Court in the early evening while Bess was dressing me in my new gown. He and Mr. Merrick immediately shut themselves away in the parlor, so I did not get to see him until supper, when my guardian seated himself beside our guest at the polished oak refectory table.
I took the place directly opposite Edmund and tried not to gaze at him and act the mute ninny I had been before. It was not easy. For he was just as I had remembered him after all, and more. He had filled out in the intervening years, lost any trace of boyish lankiness, so that he seemed even taller and broader-shouldered and more imposing than ever. But his gray eyes were just as merry, and in the light from the candles in the wall sconces his wavy copper hair rippled and shone luxuriantly. If I touched it, I wondered, would it be soft as kitten fur or prickly as a bulrush?
As he helped himself to a slice of cold beef off the pewter platter, I stared at the flurry of pale freckles and red-gold hairs scattered across the back of his hand. I reached out for a slice and my fingers brushed his and made every fiber of my body start to tingle. Solicitously, he moved the platter nearer to me, but I found that I was not in the least hungry, despite the fact that I had been too excited to eat all day. I did not think I could manage one bite. There was no room in my belly anyway. With my corset laced up tight, there was hardly room to take air into my lungs, not that I was complaining. With my hair piled on my head and ringlets coiling down to my shoulders, I had never felt so grown-up or so elegant.
I watched Edmund cut his meat as if I had never seen a person use a knife before. Then he stopped cutting and his hands were quite still. I looked up and our eyes met. He gave me one of his gloriously sunlit smiles and my heart skipped.
“Eat up, girl,” Mr. Merrick scolded. “What’s the matter with you today?”
“Yes, do eat, Miss Goodricke,” Edmund said, and the little apple in his neck bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “I have never tasted beef this
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