Can you imagine, Miss Pendleton, what happened in my heart at that moment? It was a joy so immense that even the surprise when you first opened the door to my future as a typist, the delight of leaving home to move into my first boarding house, and the excitement of my first day at work, all bundled together, would fall short!

The very next day, I set off for Bath with Miss Lotis. There were lectures and book signings scheduled there. As soon as we arrived, I spent the entire day following her, adjusting the event schedule, preparing her clothes and carriage, and arranging her meals. I became her personal secretary. My salary tripled, and the publisher agreed to cover it entirely. The hours are longer, but to be paid so handsomely for work I’d do for free feels like a windfall!

It’s barely been a week since I started, but I’m already Miss Lotis’s devoted assistant. Managing her papers, clothes, and notebook filled with scribbles as messy as my own handwriting brings me such happiness. And what’s even more joyful than being her secretary is knowing that she’s quite fond of me, too.

Oh, how I wish I could show you my happiness, Miss Pendleton? Could you visit Bath someday? I’d love to introduce you to Miss Lotis, and the three of us could have tea together. I’m sure you’d come to like her as well!

I’ll write again soon. Please pray that I’m not banished from this paradise, Miss Pendleton!

Your dear friend,Jane Hyde

The news wasn’t the promotion to editor she’d been hoping for but something entirely different. Laura pondered and soon concluded that this would greatly aid Miss Hyde’s growth.

Miss Hyde wasn’t someone destined to be confined to an office forever. Active, free, and brave, she would surely benefit from assisting England’s finest travel writer, Mary Lotis, and find her own path.

“It looks like good news, ma’am,” said a voice.

Laura set the letter down, her cheeks faintly flushed.

She spoke about the letter’s contents.

Mrs. Fairfax offered fitting congratulations. Though unfamiliar with books and unaware of who Mary Lotis was, she always held respect for independent women.

“Tell her to visit a restaurant in town called ‘Beatrice.’ It’s run by an Italian chef, and the food is splendid.”

“Come to think of it, you stayed in Bath for quite a while, didn’t you?”

“Yes. My husband fell off a horse and injured his back, so we recovered there together.”

“It’s hard to believe he was ever unwell. He’s so vigorous now.”

“Bath’s hot springs saved him, you could say. If we hadn’t gone, we’d have no children besides Henry.”

Laura blushed. Mrs. Fairfax continued, unperturbed.

“Not just my husband, but I benefited from Bath, too. Tending to him nearly made me ill myself, but drinking the hot springs and visiting fine restaurants restored my vitality. Balls, reading clubs, shopping streets, concerts—no woman could stay melancholy in Bath.”

Shortly after, Laura returned to her room. She took out a sheet of paper and began writing a reply to Miss Hyde, a warm and affectionate letter filled with congratulations and blessings.

Sealing the letter in an envelope, Laura retrieved one sent by Anne.

Since Laura left London, Anne had written regularly, always asking after her, worrying about her life, and devoting much space to disparaging Charles Pendleton, who hosted endless drinking and gambling parties at the inherited townhouse, and cursing Gerald Pendleton, who stood by idly watching his son, wishing he’d drop dead.

Through Anne’s letters, Laura learned of Charles’s reckless sale of her grandmother’s cherished artworks to fund his gambling and her uncle’s recent activities, roaming London’s wealthy circles, making near-fraudulent promises to secure investors for his eldest son’s business.

Laura grew increasingly unsure of what her uncle meant by the “family honor” he claimed to uphold.

Wondering what troubling news this letter might hold, Laura opened and read Anne’s latest.

But its contents completely defied her expectations.

To my dear mistress, Miss Pendleton,

It’s not even two days since my last letter, and here I am, pen in hand again. Forgive me, miss. This isn’t to chatter about trifles. After your last reply, I realized you don’t relish hearing news of the Pendleton family. I’ve seen how my words have pained you, wasting paper, and I deeply regret it.

I resolved to refrain from writing for a month, thinking I’d focus on sweeping and scrubbing this townhouse clean instead of praying for Lord Pendleton to fall off a carriage or for Charles Pendleton to get a kick from Miss Jensen. That was my firm intention.

But this afternoon, a man visited the townhouse, and I had no choice but to uncork the ink bottle again.

Miss, do you know a man named John Ashton?

John Ashton.

Laura dropped the letter.

“John Ashton. John Ashton.”

A man’s image, hidden deep behind the veil of memory, surfaced. Red curly hair. Tawny skin. Bold features. A towering, imposing frame. A bright smile with deep dimples in both cheeks.

With trembling hands, Laura picked up the letter and read on.

He arrived in a grand four-wheeled carriage. A tall man with dark red hair, tawny skin—almost as tall as Lord Dalton. Deep purple eyes, dimples on his cheeks, and a sturdy build—nearly as robust as Lord Dalton. He wore mourning clothes of fine quality.

Does such a man exist in your memory, miss?

He asked for Miss Pendleton, wondering if you still resided here. He knew of Lady Abigail’s passing, too.

I told him you’d left. He wanted to know where you’d gone. When I refused to say, he tried to press money into my hand, and when I refused that, he grew quite angry. But I didn’t flinch.

He said he’d visit again and left in his carriage.

Should I have told him where you are?

I must beg for a reply to know your wishes. Please write soon so I can decide whether to keep my lips sealed like a clam when he returns or to bridge the connection between you and that intriguing gentleman.

With love,Anne Steele

P.S.The knitted gloves are nearly done.I’ll send them with my next letter.I miss you dearly, miss.

Laura sat in a daze for a while.

Her mind drifted back twelve years, to her naive seventeen-year-old self, lost in the illusion of love.

He was a twenty-two-year-old Oxford student. Though striking in appearance, he wasn’t popular in society. Penniless, with incompetent parents and a string of younger siblings in tow, he could only attend university thanks to his patron, Countess Granchard. He was openly called her plaything, though he was, in truth, her distant cousin’s nephew. But London’s high society preferred salacious gossip over plain truth.

So it was perhaps natural that a young man, tormented by scandal, took an interest in Laura. She, too, was a lady shunned for her parents’ disgrace.

She was the only young woman who didn’t refuse his dance, who smiled at his jests.

Who fell in love first was unclear. Who first suggested running away together was uncertain. Twelve years had crumpled and scribbled over those memories like a mischievous boy.

One thing was certain: he abandoned her. Knowing what fate awaited a woman already scorned by society if deserted by him, he left her without a letter or a word of explanation.

“Why has he come back now?”

Reading the letter again, Laura deduced the reason from the mention of his mourning clothes.

His wife must have died.

He’d married soon after leaving her, to the daughter of a wealthy timber merchant, she’d heard. His father-in-law funded his legal studies and built a grand law firm, making him a notable lawyer in England.

“Curious about me now that his wife’s gone, is he? Before, loyalty to her and fear of his father-in-law must have kept him from seeking me out.”

Laura felt uneasy.

She thought she’d forgiven him. He was young, poor, unable to abandon his family—so he abandoned me. Let it go. Forgive him. Hating him only hurts me.

But hearing of him now, buried memories broke through oblivion. The humiliation of being mocked for their scandal, the agony of weeping over his marriage, the skepticism toward love that followed—her wounds were deeper than she’d realized. She didn’t want to see him or share her whereabouts.

Laura took out paper and began a letter to Anne.

“I’m not glad to hear of him. If he comes again, tell him I ran away due to family discord and my fate is unknown.”

Some time later, Whitefield was swept by a commotion.

It began with dozens of invitations sent to London. Invitations reached everyone who’d ever exchanged greetings with Whitefield’s great landowner, Ian Dalton.

Responses poured in, with roughly eighty acceptances. Based on this, Laura began preparing a grand banquet at Whitefield.