A Lady of Persuasion (The Wanton Dairymaid Trilogy #3)

Isabel hadn’t meant to go looking for The Book.

Really, she hadn’t. She came across it almost entirely by accident. Sophia and Gray were out that evening, attending yet another ball. Bel had stayed home, presumably to rest—but she found herself unable to sleep. The closer her wedding day approached, the more her sense of nervous excitement grew. Ridiculous, really. Weddings were meant to be solemn, quiet affairs between a man, his bride, and their God. The pomp and extravagant display that would accompany the ceremony were for the benefit of drawing public notice, not to swell Bel’s own vanity.

Still, when she laid her head on the pillow at night and closed her eyes, she could not stop her imagination from tracing the pearl-seeded trim of her gown, the Belgian lace flounce that would lap at her silk slippers, the posy of hot house blooms she would carry … Fourteen orange blossoms!

No, she couldn’t sleep at all.

Reluctant to rouse the maid at this late hour, Bel rose from her bed and crept to Sophia’s bedchamber. She knew her sister-in-law had been having similar problems finding sleep, in these early months of her pregnancy, and Miss Osborne had given her some sort of sleeping draught. Although Sophia’s insomnia was due to the aftereffects of marriage, not the anticipation thereof, Bel reasoned the draught might be of aid to her as well. By the light of a single taper, she cautiously searched the drawers of Sophia’s vanity. Finding nothing but earbobs and hairbrushes, she moved to the small bedside table. The drawer slid open noiselessly, revealing the corked blue bottle of sleeping draught and—

And a book.

The Book.

This must be The Book, the subject of Lucy’s insistent hinting and Sophia’s equally insistent denial.

Tilting the leather binding until the embossed letters caught the candlelight, she read the title in a whisper. “The Memoirs of a Wanton Dairymaid.”

Oh my.

Bel recognized that this moment was one of those little tests life presented, from time to time. She held The Book in her hand, and now she must decide what to do with it. The right thing to do with it, she suspected, would be to put it back in the drawer, take the sleeping draught, and return to her bedchamber immediately.

But then, here was one of those little ironies life presented, from time to time. Knowing the right thing to do was far simpler in daylight, with people looking on and all potential regrets fully illuminated. When one was alone at midnight in a candlelit bedchamber, and any future beyond the present moment was as vague as the shadows … discerning the right course—or, more to the point, following it—was considerably more difficult.

A very large, very curious part of her wanted to open the book. And that was what she did. It began innocently enough. There was a printed text, and then there were pen-and-ink illustrations, which looked to have been inserted after the printing. In parallel, both words and images told the story of a courtship between a dairymaid and her gentleman employer. The dairymaid possessed a buxom, rounded figure, which immediately endeared her to Bel. And perhaps she imagined it, but the gentleman suitor bore a passing resemblance to Toby—lean, dashing, classically handsome.

Feeling reassured, Bel fixed her taper in a candlestick and settled herself on the edge of the bed to continue reading.

The beginnings of the lovers’ assignations were almost sweet, she thought, despite her general disinclination to romance. A kiss on the hand here, a whispered endearment there … She lingered over one depiction of the couple in a lovely pastoral scene, with rolling countryside in the background and gauzy clouds overhead. Those deft, light strokes, the attention to detail—it was the oddest thing, but Bel felt that the style of illustration was somehow familiar to her. Feeling certain that a proposal of marriage would be imminent, Bel eagerly flipped another page

—and nearly dropped the book.