“Jennie, darling! Did you hear that?” I turn to Mavis. “Everyone knows that family’s the worst kind of snobs. It was only two months ago they all but refused my friendship.”

“Oh, but Miss, this wedding’ll make you the belle of Brookline.” Mavis chuckles. “Both those sisters had set their caps tight for Mister Quinn ’fore he left for the war. My sister, Betsey, howled to watch ’em fuss and preen.”

I smile. “I’d forgotten.”

Mavis twinkles. “He was always tweaking one sister off t’other.

And never serious with neither. Oh, no man in his right mind would marry either of those two spoiled nobodies!”

But I’m not thinking of the plight of the charmless Wortley sisters. The echoes of too many voices hold my ear.

Didn’t you land feet up in the butter…

Isn’t gone mad, as most everyone thought…

A demon close. A bad business.

Quinn will only laugh it off and tell me that it’s the rare soul who’s truly happy for another’s good fortune. Especially not a fraudulent medium, or a family of social climbers, or a pregnant servant girl.

Still, I cringe from public speculation, so easily given and so bruising. I make up my mind to order some engraved calling cards just as soon as Quinn and I are wed.

“A June wedding would be beautiful,” I mention to Mavis on the ride back, quietly enough that Uncle Henry doesn’t hear. “But I’d prefer something modest. Anything extravagant might be dishonorable to Will’s memory.”

Mavis pulls on her agreeable face, though I know she thinks I ought to do just as I please and have as sumptuous a wedding as I want. Honor be damned.

I have to wonder if Will would have paid me the same courtesy.


26.