by K. Lyn Smith (excerpt)
As a reward for his efforts these last years, Cadan was known behind gloves and fans as Newford’s Cupid—a moniker he most certainly had not encouraged. He would, in fact, have discouraged it in the strongest terms, had he been consulted on its creation. He could—and had—devised a dozen or more names that were imminently more suitable than Cupid—names that were far more vigorous and chivalrous than cherubic.
He might have been The Valentine Gentleman (elegant, without any claim to pretension).
Or perhaps The Red Wax Rogue (a mouthful, to be sure, but it had a certain dash).
He would have even appreciated The Scarlet Correspondent (a nice name with some heft to it—even if it did sound vaguely treasonous).
He could go on, but already the dawn sky was lightening, so he squared his folded missives. After counting out his coins and placing them in the drawer, he marked each letter Paid. Drawing his postal ledger to him, he recorded the day’s sum before placing his letters in a delivery bag. Twelve in all—more than any previous year. It ought to be enough, but something felt… unfinished. Not in the letters weighing his bag but in himself.
He set his pen down. There were still a few sheets of unused paper left on the counter. He opened the drawer to return them, but unbidden, the name Miss Enderby came to him. Miss Verity Enderby, his cousin’s new governess at Penhale.
Verity. He knew her given name because of course he’d seen it on the letters from her sister in St. Ives. It was a fine name, being neither too soft nor sentimental like Charlotte or Susan or Judith, but clear and clean. Polished. It suited her. There was something precise about the way she carried herself, something thoughtful in the way she spoke. A name like Verity belonged to a woman who measured her words, and he couldn’t imagine her called by anything else.
Not that he was so very well acquainted with the governess—they’d only exchanged a dozen sentences in the months since she’d arrived to take charge of young Emilia Marsh. But something about Miss Enderby had stayed with him long after each encounter. Perhaps it was the flash of intelligence in her fern-green eyes when she’d asked if he received the Morning Chronicle. (He did not, though he’d promptly ordered it.) Or maybe it was the way she stood with the rest of Newford at church, slightly apart, observant but separate. As an incomer to Newford, and a governess, she must feel her place to be a tenuous one—a circumstance which made her the perfect candidate for a letter from Newford’s Cupid.
And yet, he’d left her off of his list. He’d no wish to write for Miss Enderby the same sort of verse he’d prepared for Miss Carew. He didn’t want to send nothing too loverly. Quite the opposite, in fact. He wanted to speak to Miss Enderby in a voice too plain for society and too personal for polite conversation.
He glared at his pen. “Fool,” he muttered, but his fingers reached for the inkwell anyway.
He would only write a line or two—simply to see what the words might look like on the page. Perhaps that might satisfy his urge to do more.
K. Lyn Smith’s motto is “Never leave
home without it”—a book, that is. She writes sweet historical romances set in Regency and Victorian
England—tales full of kisses, courtship and cobbled lanes. Find her at her website, www.klynsmithauthor.com.
