The Wallflower's Wicked Wager (The Wallflower Wins Book 2) Read online

  Pippa cocked her head to the side. “So am I.”

  “As am I,” Eloisa said, nodding her blonde head enthusiastically.

  Lucy, petite and feisty, all but bolted up. “Och, I agree!”

  “Let us lead the charge. We shall no longer be wallflowers but adventuresses,” declared Helena.

  “Of course, trust you to say ‘adventuresses,’” Eloisa teased, her soft brown eyes perfect rounds in her pale face.

  “Well, don’t we all have dreams?” Helena demanded, clapping a hand on her thigh.

  “Indeed we do,” Pippa confirmed boldly.

  “Then we should follow them,” Helena insisted before she lifted her glass to her lips and took a formidable swallow.

  They all looked at her askance for a moment.

  “Come now,” Helena queried. “Are we mice, or are we men?”

  “We are young women,” Eloisa offered before she worried her lower lip.

  “Indeed we are,” she said softly, knowing her friend’s greatest wish was to sing the most beautiful arias of their time upon the stage, “but that shall not stop us, for I think that we all have the capability of doing something great, far greater than what our families think of us.”

  Pippa’s brow furrowed, and she had that faraway look she often had when considering history and antiquities. She blinked rapidly and said firmly, “I think you’re right. And I do not think that we should delay. I think we should make plans.”

  “Agreed!” Helena said. “I cannot bear this circumstance another moment. I must begin a three-volume novel and publish it. And then I can prove to my aunt and uncle that, well, I am not in need of someone like Baron Garfield.”

  “Hear, hear!” Lucy cried, lifting her glass of wine.

  Eloisa’s eyes lit with a combination of excitement, anticipation, and alarm.

  Helena reached out and took her friend’s hand. “We all know what you wish, Eloisa.”

  Eloisa blinked tears away. “What I wish is completely impossible.”

  Helena held her hand tightly and asked firmly, “According to whom?”

  “According to my family.”

  “Tosh to our families!”

  They all gaped at Helena’s shocking statement.

  “Oh, I know they love us,” Helena hedged quickly. “They love us dearly. But it is time to be little rebels, don’t you think? I think it is time that we all decided to become ourselves and not who they think we are.”

  Lucy stared, amazed. “What a novel concept,” she said.

  “Yes, isn’t it?” Helena replied, quite pleased with herself.

  Eloisa cocked her head to the side. “But how shall we do it?”

  Lucy grinned. “We shall make a pact.” She leaned forward, her eyes shining with determination. “I know we shall make a pact this very night that we shall go on adventures and live out our dreams.”

  Helena gave a firm nod. “Let us take hands and swear.”

  Carefully, each one put down their wine glasses and then they took each other’s hands.

  “Now say,” Lucy said boldly. “I so swear I shall live out my dreams. Do you all swear?”

  They looked around at each other until all of them were smiling, their excitement and determination palpable.

  “I swear,” vowed Pippa.

  “I swear too,” Helena committed.

  “And I too swear, my dear friends,” Eloisa agreed, her eyes shining bright with passion.

  Now that it had been made into a vow, Helena felt her first little hint of fear.

  The pursuit of dreams had been proclaimed.

  Now it must be done.

  And it was a great distance from saying to doing.

  But Helena was ready to do.

  Chapter 2

  Six months later

  Somewhere in the Western Highlands of Scotland

  Helena was not entirely certain how long she had been traveling. What she was certain of was that she was in a general area close to the sea.

  Luckily, she had been blessed with an excellent sense of direction and had been able to go out whenever she pleased upon the family estate in the wilds of Cornwall as a child.

  She had no dilemma negotiating mountains or coves or beaches as some did.

  And so, rather than feeling turned upside down, Scotland was a revelation of absolute beauty to her.

  It was, however, a revelation that she did not expect.

  The letter had clearly told her that the house she would be a governess at was in the north of England.

  However, upon arriving in the north of England, she had been given a note at said manor that the entire family had decamped to their ancestral seat in Scotland.

  It was a mystery.

  Helena liked mysteries.

  So all of this was quite exciting. Some might have been alarmed that their future employer lived in the furthest wilds of the island. Not Helena. This was simply more fodder for future novels!

  She had thought that she would be in some sort of bucolic northern adventure, but this, this was something else entirely.

  This was absolutely romantic and dramatic scenery.

  When she’d decided, with the help of her friends, that the only way she was ever going to be able to write a full novel and publish it was away from her family, she’d chosen to seek a position. And the only one available based on her abilities was that of a governess.

  Lucy had been provided an introduction to a family she knew, one who could be trusted. One who was not mad or dangerous. Helena had let her aunt and uncle believe she’d been invited for a prolonged visit with friends in the north.

  North, indeed.

  The coach had left Edinburgh days ago.

  In fact, she had no idea how many days she had been traveling since departing London.

  If she tried, she could probably deduce it, but she’d spent so many hours rocking back and forth in the coach of the family she had been hired by that she was no longer entirely certain which day of the week it was. She was still fairly certain of the month, thank goodness.

  It was June.

  This did not seem, however, to influence the weather.

  The fact that it was summer seemed to bear no importance at all upon the climate. Rain lashed the coach from one direction, then lashed it from another. Wind howled down the glens and shook the coach.

  She adored it.

  It was the most remarkable thing she had ever experienced, as were the jaw-dropping sites.

  As the coach rounded impossibly dangerous roads, she could see rocks skittering down the sides of hills into the sea lochs as they made their way along precarious passes.

  With each moment, her heart sang at the glory of it all.

  She all but swooned with the majesty of the sights outside the window. Scotland was a place like nothing she could ever have imagined.

  And suddenly she understood Lucy so much more.

  Lucy had always seemed to be a fairy child, as if at any moment she might disappear into a magical world with her mischievousness and sense of humor.

  There always seemed to be some sort of magical wisdom behind her friend’s eyes, and now Helena understood why.

  When being raised in such a place as magnificent as this, how could one not be tainted by the fairy brush?

  Surely, at any moment, the old ones would come out of their ancient hiding places and Helena would hear the songs of legends past.

  She could hardly wait to begin her novel.

  Oh, she had been sketching out plot lines the entire journey, but she knew that attempting to write any sort of significant volume in a bouncing coach would be agonizing for her and for the writing desk that she had brought.

  If she made the attempt, ink would be all over the place, and really that would be a disaster, for she did not have enough funds to buy new gowns, new paper, or new nibs. Nibs which she might break in one of the great plunges the coach took when negotiating the horrendous roads.

  No, she would have to wait unt
il she had a more stable writing apparatus than her lap. After all, her lap was affixed to the bench of the coach, and the coach rocked over holes in the road that she thought might actually be able to swallow up an entire man.

  Another view of the shimmering sea loch came up before her, and she drew in a rapturous breath.

  Oh, she could not wait to write about heroines running across the Highlands, their skirts catching in the purple heather, their wild hair out behind them in the wind, drinking in the scent of the rich, damp earth.

  And the heroes.

  Oh! The heroes she would write would be the boldest, most handsome men ever to be imagined.

  They would be dark and stormy individuals with eyes as black as any Scottish night. Their hearts would be hard as stone, needing to be opened by love. The dramas that she would write! The cruelty that would happen! It would be remarkable. She made a promise to herself that it would be so.

  Helena could not wait to begin.

  Certainly, she would have a great deal of time to write once established in her new position.

  After all, being a governess, how particularly difficult could it be?

  She had been fortunate enough to secure this position which would give her funds and time to write.

  Yes, there had been some slight deceptions in the fact that she had never actually been a governess, but she was always good with children. She liked children. Children liked her.

  She’d gotten along very well with the children that had lived upon her family’s estate, and they had played many wonderful games.

  They’d always seemed to enjoy her company and she’d reveled in theirs. Children had the very best imaginations after all.

  And after a good, hard play, they’d gone back to their parents, and she’d often wished that she’d been able to spend more time with them.

  In fact, it was the only thing that she disliked about being a wallflower.

  She’d rather hoped to have a large brood of her own, for she truly did find children to be a good deal of fun. They had such a wonderful ability to forget reality and believe in the pretend, just as she did.

  They were natural-born storytellers and natural-born actors.

  She did not have the skill of an actor, but she could play. And she certainly could tell stories.

  It gave her great courage that she felt confident the boys she would look after would love the magical and horrifying tales she would regale them with by the light of a candle in the middle of the night.

  It would be wonderful.

  And then, once the children had gone to sleep, she would be able to spend all of her time writing, bless the dears.

  Just as she was certain that they were going to finally plunge somewhere into the North Sea, for they had been going on and on and on, she caught sight of it.

  No, it could not be.

  They weren’t possibly going there, were they?

  But then she realized that indeed they were, for the coach began to descend a narrow road that wound towards a jutting craggy piece of land that dashed into the sea loch.

  Upon that immense craggy rock sat a mighty fortress of a castle.

  Its battlements soared into the sky, and flags of the deepest red flew from the parapets. It was larger than any castle she’d ever seen, including Edinburgh Castle itself. Even larger than Alnwick, which she had visited once upon a time.

  This was a true medieval castle, and she could barely draw breath for the magnificence of it.

  As the coach rolled down the road, it crossed over a small bridge between the land and the loch, and she was amazed to realize that she could look down and see the dashing waves of the steely gray waters below as they took the precarious stone way over to the castle.

  Yes, at one time, this castle had been meant for defense.

  Defense against the English.

  Specifically, against Edward Longshanks most likely, and possibly other Scottish war lairds who had been intent on taking the land.

  Much more recently, she wondered if it had played a part in the fight of good Bonnie Prince Charlie against the rather dodgy and questionable King George.

  She had to admit, she was rather on the side of the Scots in terms of that particular war. She could understand the anger of the Stuarts. They thought they had been getting a jolly good show to have both parts of the kingdom.

  It had not worked out well in the end for them.

  She’d never particularly understood the phrase “have one’s cake and eat it too,” for she’d never understood why one would want to have cake and not eat it. But she rather felt the Stuarts understood it. They had gotten their cake and not been allowed to eat it after all.

  She was rather sure that they would have liked to.

  Who wouldn’t?

  It was a rather sad ending for the Scots, but it was beautiful to see that there was such a castle still in existence.

  From her readings over the years, she understood most of them had been demolished around the time of Robert the Bruce to keep the English from using them.

  This one stood resplendent in a glen with hills soaring up into the sky. Those mountains towering over the castle looked positively mammoth. And the castle stood like a gigantic sentry in the sea loch, as if it could stop anyone coming in from the sea and ward them off from the land within.

  My goodness, how many war lairds had owned this castle over the centuries? How many armies had been called to battle? How many women had stood upon the battlements waving their men off to war?

  And had there been women who had fought too?

  In the days of old, in the time of the Picts and the Gaels, women had gone to war as well. So said the Roman writers she’d studied, at any rate.

  Helena all but bounced upon her seat cushion with excitement at the idea of finally being free as the coach pulled into the stone courtyard.

  Even her young bones ached, and the rattling was a bit difficult. Much to her benefit, she was accustomed to a good long drive.

  After all, it was no short distance from her family’s estate in Cornwall to London. Even so, this had been a particularly long distance, and she’d done it entirely on her own.

  Luckily, the family had sent good supplies for her and she’d eaten well the entire time. So she felt rather fortified. And she’d had the foresight to bring at least two dozen novels in her traveling trunk.

  While she’d read a good deal in the south, she’d chosen to look out and see the splendor of the north and the splendors of Scotland as they unveiled themselves to her. She was not as tired as some might have been, for she was inspired by everything she saw.

  And now she could not tear her eyes away from the magnificence of the inner castle.

  The coach wheels clattered over the slick stones.

  They proceeded through a large stone archway carved in a medieval fashion, with little faces staring down at her.

  Then they burst out into a large open area.

  The coach pulled up before an immense set of stairs which led to a door. The enormity of it would have made anyone terrified, even if they had been to the Tower of London.

  She gasped with delight as she took it all in.

  Of all the places a novelist could possibly end up, this had to be the best.

  Surely there would be tales here which would encourage her to write many novels.

  Her mind would simply riot with the joy of it. It already was fairly rioting.

  There would never be a moment in which she did not have the energy to write, of that she was certain.

  Oh no, she would burn candlelit hours away writing page after page after page filled with enthusiasm for the stories that would unfold to her in such a place.

  After a moment, a footman hurried down the stone stairs and opened the door for her.

  She eagerly took his white-gloved hand and jumped down.

  Pain lanced straight up her legs with the jarring sensation of actually standing upon hard ground. She had been sitting for hours and i
t had taken its effect.

  She winced, unwilling to be daunted by it.

  Helena wiggled around a bit, hoping that she could shake off the sensation before she met anyone from the house.

  Suddenly, a loud whoop and holler came at her and she was certain that the ghosts she’d been about to imagine had suddenly come to life.

  Three small bodies ran down the steps in such an array of movement that she could scarce realize what was happening.

  The whirlwind of energy might have overwhelmed some. Not Helena. She thrilled to it.

  The three little boys ran right up to her and, with curious hands, pulled at her skirts, her cloak, and her ribbons.

  “Are you the new governess?”

  “Are you the new governess?”

  “Are you the new governess?” they asked, chanting in unison as they repeated the question several times in their excitement.

  They looked like little copies of each other, with their dark hair, light blue eyes, and reedy bodies, but she could tell that one was taller than the rest.

  “Indeed I am,” she said happily, unwilling to be put off by their exuberant presence.

  After all, she was rather exuberant herself.

  “And I suppose the three of you must be the lairds of the castle. Is that it?” she asked, knowing full well it was not true.

  “No, we are not the lairds of the castle,” the eldest boy said, laughing.

  In feigned innocence, she queried, “Are you indeed not?”

  “No. That is our uncle Gideon, and Uncle Gideon is not here. So you will have to make do with us,” piped the youngest one.

  “Well, first of all, I think it is most important,” she said, folding her hands calmly before she knelt down so she might look them in the eye without towering over them, “that we have an introduction if I am to make do with you. After all, don’t you think that’s what we should do?”

  The middle one suddenly stopped.

  He was truly a middling height between the other two. He gave her quite a serious stare. His blue eyes reflected the sky overhead and his dark curling hair teased about his face. He gave her a quirked smile, “Och, I don’t know. Perhaps we should send you back to London straightaway. We doona like English people here.”