My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel(50)

…handsome young vicar? Reverend Loveday smiles warmly at you.

“I am terribly sorry, I hope I didn’t startle you,” he says, his blue eyes full of gentle concern.

“Oh, Reverend,” you cry in relief. “I fear I have lost my way here, for I do not know how to get back. Could you possibly point me in the proper direction?” You feel like a complete ninny, but the vicar smiles and allays your fears.

“Oh, I can do much better than that, I think!” He offers his arm. “Allow me to show you the way.”

As you walk, you are overcome by the sensation of his warm body against the unearthly chill of the day. It is comforting, and yet somehow arousing. If the vicar notices, he gives no indication. You talk carefully of neutral topics such as the weather and funeral rites…until your curiosity gets the better of you.

“The late Lady Craven,” you say finally, “did you know her?”

“Indeed I did,” he says with enthusiasm. “She was a sweet woman, adored by all.”

This is not what you wanted to hear. “She didn’t seem…troubled to you?”

The vicar’s guileless blue eyes darken. “Before her death, she did come to me,” he says quietly. “She told me she was frightened, but of what or whom she did not say. I often wonder if I didn’t do enough to help her.”

“I’m sure you did everything you could,” you say reassuringly. The vicar looks at you and pauses for a moment.

“I must confess, I was traveling toward Hopesend with a purpose. You see, shortly after Lady Craven’s death I received a diary written in her hand, with a note from her asking me to keep hold of it and pass it on to someone who could help her beloved son.” He presses a small leather-bound volume into your hands. “It felt wrong to give it to Craven, but I cannot let it languish any longer. You may have noticed my regular visits to Hopesend have been more frequent than usual? I should have—that is, I meant to give this to you earlier…But, the coward that I am, I lost my nerve. Forgive me.”

You know not what to say.

“Reverend Loveday, I…” Looking up, you see the familiar foreboding shape of Hopesend looming ahead. The vicar doffs his hat politely and disappears into the mist as you clutch the book to your bosom.





Well, you can’t not read it…Turn to this page.





You take Fabien’s angularly handsome face into your hands. “You are no one’s second choice, Fabien, and I refuse to make you mine. Goodbye to you, and to my friends. I will see you, perhaps, in another life.”

“Well spoken, my lady.” Fabien drops his head, and a small tear lands softly on your still-outstretched hand. For a moment, you fancy it to be a jewel of the Nile. You blink and the jewel is gone, evaporated in the desert heat.

You walk over to the camels waiting patiently in the shadow of the newly risen temple. With ease and grace, you hop astride one.

“One last thing, Fabien,” you say with a grit and authority you did not quite have when you arrived in Egypt.

“Yes, my lady?” Hope flashes in his eyes.

“Will you point me in the direction of Cairo?”

Once you make the long and arduous return to the city, you must decide what you truly wish to do.





Do you want to give the ton another chance? If so, turn to this page.

Or are you kind of over normal society? Do you think managing a single rich child in a far-off mansion sounds like a nice departure from all this nonsense? If so, turn to this page.





You arrive in America and soon become governess to a sweet girl who often calls you Mama by accident. This causes her to blush furiously and her handsome, young, new-money, widowed fabric-merchant father, a Mr. Haven, to laugh heartily. He lost his wife to influenza but gained you by a sheer stroke of luck, and when he gives you the gift of a fine dress, you surprise him by stripping bare in front of him to try it on.

He is a tender but ferocious lover, and the two of you have many lovely, hearty, smiling children together.

His first child is, of course, the flower girl at your wedding. Sometimes at night, when Mr. Haven has laced your ample bosom with a brocade of his ecstasy, you think of Lord Craven. You silently thank him for the gift of love, the promise of freedom, and the stroke of fate that allows you now to stroke your American lover’s face as it travels south to pleasure your sex in an enthusiastic, endless demonstration of your new love’s work ethic and aim to please.

The End





“Oh, Ollie!” you cry. He cups your face and then kisses you with long-unfulfilled passion, as if all those years apart, all those years of pain, had never happened. He pulls you closer and gently nips your shell-like ear.

“I cannot believe you became a spy!” you say with a sigh. “That is so…romantic. And thrilling.”

Ollie releases your ear. “No, no, NO,” he says, “this really isn’t as attractive as it sounds. It’s dark work I’ve had to do. Dark work, for the sake of my country.”

“But…” you say, starry-eyed. Ollie groans and massages his temples.

“Listen, I’ve only revealed myself because you have taken a job with someone very dangerous. I’ve been trailing him for quite some time. When you turned up in London, I couldn’t believe it. But I couldn’t let you just stumble into this lion’s den without warning you.”