Today's Reading
CHAPTER ONE
Sylvia Bryant hadn't expected there to be anyone actually in the carriage. 'Whoops!' she said in a rush, skirts flying, bonnet clinging to her head for dear life. 'My apologies—did I whack you very hard?'
The gentleman—for gentleman he certainly was, one could tell by the exquisite cut of his coat and the astonished look in his eye—merely spluttered, 'But—but you can't—'
'I am afraid I am commandeering this carriage for an escape,' Sylvia said blithely, trying to ignore her heart racing most uncomfortably in her chest. 'You don't mind, do you?'
It was all she could do to catch her breath.
She hadn't had much time to prepare. Oh, she was always looking for an opportunity to run away, had been for a year or so now, but it wasn't as easy as that—as she had discovered.
The hot summer air had been stifling outside on the gravel drive, but inside this coach it was thick like honey. The day had so far drifted by in a haze of discomfiting expectations, as it always did at the Wallflower Academy.
A lesson on the correct way to enquire as to a gentleman's marital status, then Miss Pike had demanded that she examine their walks. Up and down, up and down, the wallflowers currently in residence were forced to demonstrate their elegance along the terrace beside the orangery. Eventually, Sylvia had pleaded a headache, and been instructed to go upstairs and fetch a bonnet.
And then return to the terrace.
Miss Pike really was a menace. But then, Sylvia rather supposed she should thank her. If she had not been sent upstairs, she would not have peered out of her bedchamber window—and she would not have seen the carriage. The livery—it was clearly a ducal crest, whose she could not quite remember, having fallen asleep during that particular class.
It had looked tiny from up there. Now Sylvia was seated inside, she could see it was in fact quite spacious.
And in that space was a man.
'Who on earth are you?' the gentleman asked.
Well, Sylvia thought with a wry smile, it wasn't every day that a woman burst into his carriage, she supposed.
'I am Miss Sylvia Bryant,' she said, by way of explanation.
No, that probably wasn't sufficient. The gentleman, at any rate, did not appear calmed.
'And I am Theodore Featherstonehaugh—'
'Goodness, what a mouthful,' Sylvia said conversationally, rapping on the top of the carriage roof. 'Can we be away?'
'We absolutely cannot. Please leave this carriage at once.'
The man's outrage barely registered. Oh, they were always outraged, she thought ruefully. Always surprised that she wanted to leave the Wallflower Academy—but then, they never had to live there. Had never been subjected to Miss Pike's ire. Never had to sit there like a dressed-up doll, waiting for the pitying people of the 'ton' to turn up and stare.
'Waiting for a friend?' Sylvia said aloud. 'He can find his own way back, I'm sure—I'd like to be away immediately.'
Before Miss Pike realises I'm gone—
That had been the trouble with her last—what, five attempts to leave the Wallflower Academy—not getting away quickly enough. It was all very well to decide to run away, but if one didn't move sharply, the Pike had a terrible habit of noticing that she wasn't there.
The silence probably did it.
Sylvia laughed quietly to herself and saw the confused eyes of the man— Mr Featherstonehaugh—widen in curiosity.
'Look, it's very simple,' Sylvia said calmly, folding her hands on her lap as she had been taught, then immediately frowning and placing them underneath her legs. 'I am a wallflower—well, not really, but I've been stuck here for years, and I've decided I've had enough. Folding napkins and embroidering cushions and smirking at gentlemen and conversation lessons—I cannot take any more! You see, I'm escaping. At least, I will be once I can get this carriage moving.'
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