Once a Wallflower, At Last His Love (Scandalous Seasons #6)(5)

“Not for your story. You need a duke for your research.”

She tossed aside the paper and tickled her sister in the sensitive spot at the crook of her elbow until the little girl squirmed breathlessly. “But I thought you said I don’t need to meet someone to write of them.”

Great snorting laughs escaped her lips. “S-stop! I—I s-said…” Another bleat. “S-stop.”

She relented.

A cautious glint entered Addie’s eyes and she inched away. “What I was saying is that if you can’t find inspiration within yourself, you must seek it without.” Her grin widened. “If you can’t write a story about a person you’ve not met, well then, you must meet him.” Eager excitement sparkled in the girl’s eyes and she clapped her hands. “You require a duke.”

For the inherent silliness in her sister’s explanation, there was, to Hermione’s writer’s mind, a good deal of sense in those words. Except… “I can’t merely drum up a duke for research purposes.”

Addie waved a finger in front of her face. “Ah, in Surrey perhaps not. But when you go to London, you shall.” She slapped the pages down upon Hermione’s desk. “I see no other choice.” Then in a dramatic flourish she swept the back of her hand across her brow. “If you fail to find one, then your story shall never be told.” She straightened. “Or, your story shall never be told well.” She picked up one of Hermione’s many books. “London’s Most Spectacularly Seedy Establishments.” Her eyes formed moons in her face. “Are we going to go to these seedy—?”

“No.” Hermione ended the question before it could be asked. Even though they did accompany her on her research trips, her younger siblings were certainly not going anywhere remotely seedy.

“But your research!”

She laughed. “How very dedicated you are to my research.”

“Well, someone must be,” Addie mumbled.

Hermione bristled. “Whatever does that mean?” She didn’t care to have her dedication to her craft questioned—even if it was by a judgmental eleven-year-old younger sister.

Addie shrugged. “Of all the authors I know, you’re—”

“I’m the only author you know.”

The girl merely continued over her. “—the only one who writes of dashing noblemen and powerful princes set amidst the dark world of London, yet you’ve never been there.”

Hermione folded her arms. “I’ve been there.” Even if there was merit to the claim, no author liked to have the integrity of her work called into question.

Her sister snorted. “When you were six.”

“Seven,” Hermione said defensively. “And what do you know of it?” She never spoke of those long ago days or the city of London, largely because Addie was indeed correct—she remembered nothing but the thick of fog and the heavy grey clouds overhead.

“Partridge mentioned that our family hadn’t always remained shut away. She said we—you,” she amended, “Elizabeth, Mama, Papa…” She waved a hand about. “That you used to go places.” An excited glimmer shone in her eyes. “And now I, too, shall go to London and have an adventure!”

Regret pulled at Hermione’s heart. She’d become so accustomed to how their small, broken family had been forever transformed by Elizabeth’s illness and their mother’s subsequent death, that too often she forgot how those events had robbed Hugh and Addie of so many experiences known by other children. She dropped a kiss atop her sister’s brow.

Addie wrinkled her nose. “What was that for?”

“Just because I love you.” Had it been Hugh, he’d have run from the room in disgust from the kiss alone. The words of love would have sent him tearing down the old Roman roads, as far away from any such sentimentality as fast as his little legs could take him. Addie however, smiled widely. Hermione pointed to the door. “Now, if you’d rather debate my abilities to write those stories that you claim to love than get ready for our grand adventure…”

Her sister giggled. “You know I adore them.”

“I know you do.” She smiled. “Now, go. There are some final things I must see to.”

“Very well,” Addie said with a sigh. She skipped from the room, not bothering to close the door behind her.

With purposeful strides, Hermione strode over to the damaged violin atop her stack of research books. She trailed her fingers over the wood, once smooth and immaculate; the cherished instrument of a child who’d been so very proficient in all things musical. Violin in hand, she made her way from her room, down the cold, dark corridors of their modest cottage. The silence occasionally punctuated by the bustling steps of the two maids in their employ who hurried to prepare the Rogers family for their impending departure.

She picked her way down the steps and walked to the back of the house, through the kitchens and outside into the overgrown, once well-loved garden. Hermione paused at the threshold. Sunlight bathed her face, warm and comforting and she raised a hand to shield the glare of the rays from her eyes.

Unmindful of propriety or the fabric of her gown, Elizabeth knelt on the ground, still damp from last evening’s rain. She tipped her head toward a rose bush and inhaled the scent. The actions of her lovely sister, now twenty-five and possessed of a golden beauty, were more suited to a young woman, tending her gardens, happily wedded. Then, impulsively, Elizabeth grabbed the bloom by its thorned stem.