The Unexpected Heiress. Kaitlin O'Riley
placed on polished tables, adorned with fresh flowers in crystal vases. There was even an area with refreshments, filled with baskets of fragrant muffins and scones and pots of hot tea. Elegant signs on the shelves marked each section of books by category.
As she contentedly wandered about the shop, Meredith breathed in deep, relaxing completely for the first moment since she left New York. It had been a whirlwind of a time, packing up and leaving the only home she had ever known to come to London.
The saddest part had been being forced to leave behind the beloved writing desk that had belonged to her mother.
The day before they left, her aunt Delilah found Meredith sobbing over the elegant, cherrywood desk. She did not wish to part with it.
“It’s all right, my dear. You won’t have to give up your mother’s desk,” Delilah had comforted her. “We shall leave it next door with Mrs. Deane. She’s holding on to a few of my treasured pieces in her attic too. We can send for our things once we’re settled in London and have you safely married. But everything else is being sold with the house as is.”
Grateful that she wouldn’t have to part with her treasured desk forever, Meredith breathed a little lighter. Vowing to herself that she would send for the desk just as soon as she could, she continued packing the rest of her things with a little less heavy heart.
Then Aunt Delilah had surprised Meredith by stripping away all of their black mourning clothes.
“We will not arrive in London in black, looking like a pair of sad old crows,” she announced with a fierceness that took Meredith aback. “Don’t pack a single black dress.”
“But Aunt Delilah . . . isn’t it disrespectful?” Meredith ventured to ask.
She was in shock at her aunt’s flouting of such strict societal conventions. Her father hadn’t been gone a month yet. Proper mourning for him required her to wear black for the remainder of the year, at the very least.
“It is not disrespectful at all. I did the same thing after my first husband died. I came to America without my black mourning clothes. Joseph Remington wouldn’t have given me a second glance back then if I’d been dressed in black, moping about in widow’s weeds. And I won’t wear them this time either. I think your father would agree with me where you’re concerned and your mother, too, for that matter, would agree. You’re far too young and beautiful to be buried alive in such awful black clothing. Since we are starting a new life, where no one knew your father or my husband, we shall not remain in mourning any longer. We are both being fitted for an entire new wardrobe as soon as we get to London. We have just enough money left. It’s all a part of the plan.”
The plan.
Delilah’s great plan to save the family was to get them both married to wealthy gentlemen just as soon as she could.
The plan hung over Meredith like a heavy weight. It was more of a charade than a plan, and Meredith did not agree with it. But before she knew it, they were on a steamship heading for England, without her black mourning dresses or her writing desk.
Although the sea air buoyed her sagging spirits, her salvation onboard was writing in her leather-bound journal and continuing work on her book, The Edge of Danger. At one point about halfway across the Atlantic, she came to the realization that a change of scenery truly was good for the soul.
Relishing the journey, she walked the deck every morning and evening, the salty spray of the ocean covering her cheeks. She wrote in her journal each day, worked on her manuscript, read every book she could find onboard, and played games with Harry and Lilly, while Delilah lay miserably in her room, too seasick to do anything but whimper and moan.
But true to her word, as soon as they were safely ensconced at the London townhouse of Lady Lavinia Eastwood, Delilah had taken them straight to a seamstress to have new gowns made for their grand entrance into London society. The fashionable wardrobe would be lovely, but Meredith would rather have been at home working on her book.
Instead, she had spent a week going from shop to shop and being introduced to all of Lavinia’s friends, who declared with delight that Meredith would be wed within a month. They were already telling her about the many upcoming social events for the Season, and how Meredith just had to be at each and every one. In fact, her first entrance into English society was to be later that evening at Lord and Lady Braithwaite’s ball, and Meredith’s elegant new ball gown had already been delivered to Lavinia’s house.
As she sat waiting impatiently in a millinery shop while Delilah was trying on an array of feathered hats, Meredith gazed through the window. That was the moment she first spied the sign for a quaint-looking bookstore. She fairly flew out of the chair with excitement and informed a preoccupied Delilah that she would be across the street.
And so Meredith ventured forth on her own and found a little slice of heaven in Hamilton’s Book Shoppe.
It would be wonderful to remain in the shop and browse and read all day, but she took what little time she had, found a cozy chair and a copy of Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, and settled in. She had heard that the book was a bit scandalous and had meant to read it for some time. It was the perfect thing to take her mind off the plan.
Delilah’s great plan was worrying her. It involved subterfuge and required Meredith to marry as soon as possible. And, as she had not suddenly discovered a great need within herself to find a husband since she’d sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, the plan filled her with dread.
“We shall let everyone believe you have inherited a great fortune from your father, so you shall be very sought after. No one in London will have yet learned that the Remington Oil Company is on the brink of bankruptcy, and you shall wed the richest gentleman who offers for you first, Meredith,” Delilah had explained. “It’s the only way to save our family. I shall put myself on the market as well, but Meredith . . . you are the young and beautiful one. You must marry well.”
“But what do we do when the gentleman discovers that I have no fortune at all?” Meredith asked anxiously. “Surely we can’t keep that a secret forever.”
Their ruse would most certainly be discovered at some point. How long could she pretend to be an heiress before someone discovered the truth?
“By then you shall be safely married, and it will be too late for him to do anything about it, and since you shan’t be wedding anyone in dire financial straits, your finances won’t be an issue,” Delilah explained with a matter-of-fact air about her.
“How do we explain the lie then?” Meredith worried.
“Once you are wed, we can simply say the lawyers only just told us of our financial situation. We’re simply fudging the timing a little, my dear. And the truth is, a few weeks ago you believed you were an heiress, Meredith. Trust me, this plan will work.”
Meredith sighed heavily. Her love for her aunt made it impossible to refuse her anything. Delilah had been incredibly kind to Meredith and taken such good care of her all these years, that she had no choice but to go along with her. Delilah Remington was all the family that Meredith had left in the world.
“It’s not my fault that my husband left me with no money, nor is it your fault that your father left you nothing when we had both been told that we were taken care of,” Delilah went on to say pragmatically. “In this world, women are taken care of by men. To that end, we both need to find husbands.”
“Can’t we simply be honest and marry that way?”
“You catch more flies with honey, my dear. And American oil money is the finest honey there is. Men will be buzzing around us. You wait and see.”
Aunt Delilah’s mind was made up, and Meredith didn’t see another way out.
The whole idea of being put on the “marriage mart” and being paraded around like a prized cow at an auction was abhorrent to her. But as her aunt indicated quite firmly, not having a home and starving on the street was even more abhorrent. Delilah Remington had a valid point there.
Meredith