A Lady's Guide to Courtship

X. An Invitation

Meet me. I beg of you to meet me. Let me prove to you that I am ready for this, that I am the man for you. If you are not ready for that, if you are still inclined to have this other man, meet me still. Ease my bleeding heart and free me of this unstoppable force inside my chest for I do not think I could live the rest of my days wondering who you are.

I shall be waiting in the library after midnight.

Love,

William

Ysabella stared at the letters and allowed a tear to smudge his name.

He was not supposed to fall in love with Lady Weis!

Emma was correct. Everything had gone awry.

She had made him fall in love with Lady Weis.

Now, what could she do?

She carefully folded the letter with shaking hands and wiped the tears from her face.

No, she was not going to reply. She had promised not merely Emma, but herself as well.

This letter from Wakefield was enough proof that she had failed as Lady Weis.

She looked into the mirror and fixed her black hair and wiped her face dry. She squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and let it out with a practiced smile.

Returning to the box under her bed, she hid the last letter from Wakefield inside.

Lady Weis was no more.

It was time for Ysabella Everard to do more.

*****

"Something is wrong," Aurora noted in concern, frowning at Ysabella's pale face. "Your eyes are swollen. Have you been crying?"

"No," she lied, averting her gaze.

"Is it Emma? Is that why she has not come out to see me since I've arrived?"

Ysabella shook her head. She was not good at this, truly she was not. The silence in the parlour was deafening, making her even more uncomfortable. "She is with Lindsay, making her sleep. She shall come down once she is done."

"Ysa, what is wrong? Please, I tell me. Is it your brothers? Have they—"

"No, it is not that," she snapped, looking at her friend and realizing that she was being such an arse. "I am sorry. Please, forgive me."

"Then is it Wakefield? Has he said something more? Mayhap I should personally deliver his coat so he could hear a piece of my mind. The things he said to you in the lake were horrible!" Aurora reached for her hand it was the last straw. Ysabella's shoulders started to shake. "Oh, Ysa, I hate to see you like this. Tell me what to do."

"There is none," she sobbed, desperately wiping at her tears to put up a brave face. "I have done this to myself."

"Why? What have you done?" Aurora asked.

Ysabella stared at her friend, her lips trembling. And then she started talking. "Nearly three years past, I made a wager with Samuel Theobald. You know of him."

"Of course, I do."

"He is a friend of Ralph's and Emma and I. He told me that mayhap the reason why Wakefield would not look at me as a woman is because I am the sister of his friend. Mayhap, if I could find a way to reach him as someone else, he would notice that someone." She saw Aurora's face start to change into that of disbelief to what would come next. "And so I wrote a stupid missive, one I thought he would ignore."