A melia detested waiting.
Unfortunately, the price of escaping her house to do calls with Thea usually meant exercising the patience she so sorely lacked.
Calls at the house in Cavendish Square had never been the most fascinating things, especially when the Dowager Countess seemed to think good hospitality entailed long passages of reading and a detailed reckoning of all her latest medical woes rather than tea or cake.
Given what Thea had told her about the old countess’s ailments being mostly exaggerated, Amelia felt even less patience than usual today.
But by her side, Thea bore the countess’s complaints with remarkable calm, responding to each dramatic declaration with a cool head and kind remarks. It was an impressive display of courtesy, and Amelia could only wonder if the day would ever come for herself to be able to act the same way .
Today was not that day.
Calls at Cavendish Square, even with the endless complaining and reading aloud, were better than sitting at home and enduring Mother’s constant remarks—ranging from the petty to the spiteful.
Amelia was genuinely grateful for her dear cousins including her in their rounds.
But it still wasn’t the sort of activity to enthuse anyone with any sense of adventure.
Every opportunity to spend time away from Mother, Jane, and Sarah was an exciting prospect, but the thrill only ever lasted the first five minutes of the walk or drive, most of the time.
Amelia glanced at the mantelpiece clock, its cracked glass marring its otherwise elegant appearance, eager for their time with old Lady Aldbury to end so she could talk alone with Thea once more.
Had they truly read to her for that many hours?
Mother’s lecture would only grow longer the later Amelia returned.
Then the door swung open, revealing the one cousin Amelia least expected to see.
“Jem!” She jumped up to embrace her cousin, who sweetly welcomed her hug and her kiss.
Amelia smiled brightly as she stepped aside for Thea, who’d now risen as well and reached out for Jem’s hands.
Lady Jemima Fitzwater, the eldest and most highly-connected of them all, was a companion to the Princess of Wales herself.
She simply had to have news more exciting than her mother’s whining.
Amelia grinned at both her cousins. She might always be different from her stepsisters at home. But at least her cousins, older and titled though they might be, let her feel a semblance of belonging she never could seem to find anywhere else apart from Papa’ s bouts of reminiscence.
“Jem, dear. Is that you?” The Dowager Countess called out in a weak voice, though she certainly looked hale and hearty enough. “How peculiar to see you without any notice that you were coming. Is Princess Charlotte gone away on holiday?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Jem answered her mother.
“Curious that she did not take you with her,” responded the old woman from the couch. “I suppose you’ll be wanting your old room for a few days.”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“No, no. I’m sure I can manage it.”
For a quick moment, Amelia felt almost like a child amidst adults as her cousins seemed to exchange an unspoken moment of communication.
They must have reached a mutual conclusion quickly, for no sooner had Jem whispered, “I’ll see you downstairs,” that Thea ushered Amelia to the fading drawing room below.
Amelia sighed as she sank into the old couch. Did they have to sit and wait when something exciting was finally happening? Thank goodness Thea rang for plum cake and tea. At least their waiting did not have to be so starving this time around.
It was not until she’d spent a good ten minutes sipping a very sad excuse for a cup of tea that Jem finally reappeared, looking even more frazzled than she did upstairs.
“What’s happened, Jem?” Thea asked, sliding her teacup aside. Amelia looked up, the same question on her tongue. “Has the Princess taken a dislike to you?”
“No, not the Princess.” Jem swallowed visibly. “But I’ve been let go from my post.”
Amelia gasped.
“It was the Prince Regent,” Jem said slowly.
She slipped onto a chair, and Thea, with the ease of a seasoned lady, readily handed their listless cousin a cup of comforting tea.
“He’s furious with Charlotte for breaking off the engagement with William of Orange, and he’s determined that her household is a corrupting influence.
He turned us all out of doors, even Miss Knight. ”
“I think the Princess was right to reject Slender Billy,” said Thea, using the foreign prince’s nickname with impressive familiarity.
“I wouldn’t have trusted the Prince Regent’s promise that she wouldn’t be obliged to live in the Netherlands.
Why would she want to spend any time there at all?
Her life is here, in England, where she’s always lived.
As for her intended’s personal attractions, or lack of them?—”
“And she barely knew him,” Amelia said, shuddering internally at the thought. “I can’t imagine being consigned to marriage with a stranger.”
“The life of a royal, I suppose,” said Jem.
She took a sip of tea and wrinkled her nose.
Amelia had thought the tea mediocre, although she’d questioned her own judgement immediately after.
It was slightly comforting to see that her more experienced cousins seemed to agree.
And then Jem added, “The worst part of it is, rather than go with her Papa, the Princess took to her heels and ran away.”
“Ran away?” Amelia gasped. “By herself? That sounds like madness.”
Beside her, Thea reacted with similar surprise, although she expressed it in a much more ladylike manner, as usual. Amelia mulled on the thought for a fleeting moment.
The Princess escaped! What a jaw- dropping twist of events that was.
Mother was always pointing to Princess Charlotte as the perfect example of womanly grace.
She’d even attempted, on several occasions, to ingratiate her own daughters with the eldest Fitzwater cousin in an effort to have her progeny meet the Princess, even if Jem never entertained her subtle and not-so-subtle hints.
But what was a princess to do when faced with the prospect of a forced marriage to a total stranger?
Amelia couldn’t say she entirely blamed the future queen of England for her daring.
Running away certainly sounded like madness, yet at the same time, Amelia couldn’t help but note, “But I suppose it could also be a glorious adventure.”
“Young ladies in real life aren’t allowed to have adventures,” said Thea, her voice tight. “I believe it’s an unwritten rule.”
“If they do have adventures, they are required to pay for them later,” said Jem.
Amelia shrugged, unable to argue otherwise.
“It’ll be all over the newspapers tomorrow,” said Thea sagely as the cousins reflected on the shocking news. “Nothing Princess Charlotte does evades the press for long.”
Amelia heaved an internal sigh. Any excitement she might have initially felt at Jem’s surprise arrival was being well and truly squished by the morose turn of events.
She sighed, audibly this time, before turning to her fretting cousin.
“What are you going to do with yourself now, Jem? Will you stay here in Cavendish Square?”
The house was technically still Jem’s home, but Amelia couldn’t quite imagine wanting to return under a parent’s roof. The dowager countess wasn’t exactly a nurturing figure, even if Jem didn’t have a judgmental step-parent lurking at every corner.
“It is rather lowering to think of living at home again,” Jem answered slowly.
“Do you remember what we said when we were girls?” Thea asked.
“We said a lot of things,” Jem replied. “I remember we all planned to marry dukes and be fabulously wealthy and eat sweetmeats whenever we wanted.”
“That was a foolish scheme.” Thea wiped her lip clean after a small bite of cake.
“It wouldn’t make us happy, besides being most unlikely.
I wouldn’t choose to marry any of the dukes I’ve met, especially the royal ones.
They are looking to marry a fortune, not bestow one.
And they’re all old and fat and related to Prinny.
No, I wasn’t thinking of marriage. Quite the opposite, in fact. Of how we said we would?—"
A memory sparked.
“Oh!” Amelia smiled. “Are you referring to the plan?”
Thea smiled encouragingly at her and nodded.
Jem took only a moment to remember. “We said we would live together like sisters, here in London.”
“Exactly,” said Thea. “Maybe it’s time to put that plan into action.”
“Three unmarried ladies with only their pin money between them—we can’t exactly let a house in Mayfair. It wouldn’t be proper, or praticable.”
Thea raised her eyebrows. “My dear Jem, do you have to be so annoyingly practical and squash our dreams with a single blow? Where there’s a will?—”
Amelia watched with fascination as her older cousins seemed to seriously consider what had always felt like a moment of childhood play to her.
“Maybe we could all live here in Cavendish Square?” she suggested, eager to offer some sort of contribution. “I’m sure your mother has enough room for all of us if Thea and I share a bedroom. Then you wouldn’t have to be alone, Jem, and Thea and I could escape our homes too.”
“Escape?” asked Jem. “What do you need to escape from, Amy?”
Amelia sighed. She wasn’t keen to leave Papa, but having another home to escape to didn’t sound entirely unappealing. “Well, Mother—that is, my stepmother, she—she likes to say things at times, not very pleasant things, especially when Papa isn’t around to hear them.”
“You poor love.” Jem reached out to press Amelia’s fingers. Her eyes turned the other way. “Surely, nothing so terrible has happened to you, Thea?”
“No,” said Thea, “but life is becoming a trifle uncomfortable at home. Papa seems more determined than ever to see me wed, and I’m afraid he won’t be pleased if I refuse the latest suitor of his choosing.”
Jem shifted back and squared her shoulders, letting go of Amelia’s hand in the process.
Amelia herself sat back, eager to act the part of an adult amidst her illustrious cousins.
“It sounds like I came home just in time,” said Jem. “I don’t know what my mother will say, but I shall ask her if you can both stay in Cavendish Square for at least a fortnight.”
Amelia smiled. It was not for forever. Only marriage was for forever, and she was hardly at the point in her life to have to worry overly much about such a thing yet.
But with Jem’s suggestion, at least she might yet have the chance to live away from Mother, Sarah, and Jane for a while.
It wouldn’t be quite as exciting as the life of oriental royalty her own mother once led, but it certainly sounded adventurous enough.
Amelia couldn’t wait.