Her Cinderella Season. Deb Marlowe

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      Lily stared. ‘I must thank you for the compliment to my mother, Mr Cooperage, but surely you state your case in terms too strong?’

      ‘Impossible!’ he scoffed. His voice rang so loud that several passers-by turned to look. ‘I could not rate my respect for the woman your mother is now any higher, nor my contempt for those who cling to a life of vanity and mindless amusement—’ he flicked a condemnatory wave towards the park and the stream of people now entering ‘—any lower.’

      Had Lily been having this conversation yesterday, or last week, or at any given time in the last seven years, she would have swallowed her irritation and tactfully steered the missionary to a less volatile topic. But today—there was something different about today. Perhaps she’d had too much time to think, or perhaps she had for some time been moving towards an elemental shift, but today the rebel in her—the one with the taste for adventure novels—had got the bit in her teeth.

      She sucked in a fortifying breath and straightened her spine. ‘Firstly, Mr Cooperage, I feel compelled to tell you that my mother has been worthy of your admiration, and anyone else’s, for her entire life. Secondly, I would ask that you not be so quick to disparage the pleasure seekers about us.’ She cocked her head at him. ‘For is that not what today is all about—the happy mix of amusement and altruism?’

      Displeasure marred his pleasing features, but only for a moment. He chuckled and assumed an air of condescension. ‘Your innocence is refreshing, Miss Beecham.’ He sighed. ‘The sad truth is that if it would give them a moment’s pleasure, most of these people would as soon toss their coin in the gutter as donate it to our cause.’

      ‘But surely you don’t believe that merriment and worthiness are mutually exclusive?’ Her father’s image immediately rose up in her mind. His quick smile and ready laugh were two of her most cherished memories. ‘I’m certain you will agree that it is possible to work hard, to become a useful and praiseworthy soul and still partake of the joy in life?’

      ‘The joy in life?’ Mr Cooperage appeared startled by the concept. ‘My dear, we were not put on this earth to enjoy life—’ He cut himself abruptly off. Lily could see that it pained him greatly. She suspected he wanted badly to inform her exactly what he thought her purpose on this earth to be.

      Instead, he forced a smile. ‘I will not waste our few moments of conversation.’ He paused and began again in a lower, almost normal conversational tone. ‘I do thank you for your efforts today. However they are gained, I mean to put today’s profits to good use. I hope to accomplish much of God’s work in my time abroad.’

      ‘How impatient you must be to begin,’ she said, grateful for a topic on which they could agree. ‘I can only imagine your excitement at the prospect of helping so many people, learning their customs and culture, seeing strange lands and exotic sights.’ She sighed. ‘I do envy you the experience!’

      ‘You should not,’ he objected. ‘I donot complain. I will endure the strange lodgings, heathen food and poor company because I have a duty, but I would not subject a woman to the hardships of travel.’

      She should not have been surprised. ‘But what if a woman has a calling such as yours, sir? What then? Or do you not believe such a thing to be possible?’

      He returned her serious expression. ‘I believe it to be rare, but possible.’ He glanced back towards the park gate. ‘Your mother, I believe, has been called. I do think she will answer.’

      Her mother had been called? To do what?

      ‘My mission will keep me from the shores of England for a little more than a year, Miss Beecham, but your good mother assures me that there are no other suitors in the wings and that a year is not too long a wait.’ He roamed an earnest gaze over her face. ‘Was she wrong?’

      Lily took a step back. Surprise? He had succeeded in shocking her. ‘You wish my mother to wait for you, sir? Do you mean to court her?’

      He chuckled. ‘Your modesty reflects well on you, my dear. No—it is you who I wish to wait for me. You who I mean to court most assiduously when I return.’

      His eyes left her face, and darted over the rest of her. ‘Your mother was agreeable to the notion. I hope you feel the same?’

      Lily stood frozen—not shocked, but numb. Completely taken aback. Mr Cooperage wished to marry her? And her mother had consented? It must be a mistake. At first she could not even wrap her mind about such an idea, but then she had to struggle to breathe as the bleak image of such a life swept over her.

      ‘Miss Beecham?’ Mr Cooperage sounded anxious, and mildly annoyed. ‘A year is too long?’ he asked.

      She couldn’t breathe. She willed her chest to expand, tried to gasp for the air that she desperately needed. She was going to die. She would collapse to the ground right here, buried and suffocated under the weight of a future she did not want.

      Her life was never going to change. The truth hit her hard, at last knocking the breath back into her starving lungs. She gasped out loud and Mr Cooperage began to look truly alarmed. Seven years. So long she had laboured; she had tried her best and squashed the truest part of her nature, all in the attempt to get her mother to look at her with pride. Was this, then, what it would take? The sacrifice of her future?

      Lily took a step back, and then another. Only vaguely did she realise how close she had come to the busy street behind her. She only thought to distance herself from the grim reality of the life unfolding in front of her.

      ‘Miss Beecham!’ called Mr Cooperage. ‘Watch your step. Watch behind you!’ he thundered. ‘Miss Beecham!’

      A short, heavy snort sounded near her. Lily turned. A team of horses, heads tossing wildly, surged towards her.

      Her gaze met one wild, rolling eye. A call of fright rang out. Had she made the sound, or had the horse?

      ‘Miss Beecham!’

      Chapter Two

      Jack Alden pulled as hard as he dared on the ribbons. Pain seared its way up his injured arm. Pettigrew’s ill-tempered bays responded at last, subsiding to a sweating, quivering stop.

      ‘I warned you that these nags were too much for that arm,’ his brother Charles said. His hand gripped the side of the borrowed crane-neck phaeton.

      ‘Stow it, Charles,’ Jack growled. He stared ahead. ‘Hell and damnation, it’s a woman in the street!’

      ‘Well, no wonder that park drag ground to a halt. I told you when it started into the other lane that this damned flighty team would bolt.’

      ‘She’s not moving,’ Jack complained. Was the woman mad? Oblivious to the fact that she’d nearly been trampled like a turnip off a farm cart, she stood stock still. She wasn’t even looking their way now; her attention appeared focused on something on the pavement. Jack could not see just what held her interest with near deadly result. Nor could he see her face, covered as it was by a singularly ugly brown bonnet.

      ‘You nearly ran her down. She’s likely frozen in fear,’ Charles suggested.

      ‘For God’s sake!’ Jack thrust the reins into his brother’s hands and swung down. Another jolt of pain ripped through his arm. ‘Hold them fast!’ he growled in exasperation.

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