Page 1 of Miss Devon’s Choice

Chapter One

August 8th, 1814

“Your father is here to see you, Rebecca.”

Slamming her novel closed, Rebecca Devon hastily shoved it beneath the cushion of her chair, then tried to appear unruffled when she glanced over her shoulder to where her aunt stood in the doorway. Aunt Jacqueline, wearing a mauve silk gown and a purple jeweled comb, looked every inch a dowager countess. From her silver-fox hair to her well-turned heel, the woman exuded elegance and snobbery.

“Were we expecting him?” Rebecca asked, standing quickly and using her knee to nudge the spine of her novel further beneath the seat. Aunt did not approve of novels. She also did not approve of a slovenly appearance, which made Rebecca instantly regret leaving her hair half down today. Her straight brown hair was held back by a clever braid invented by her maid, but the majority of it hung loose to her waist.

She hadn’t expected to see her aunt until dinner. It was Aunt Jacqueline’s day to visit the shops.

“No.” Nary a sigh, groan, or frown accompanied the answer, but Rebecca knew her aunt well enough by now to recognize her irritation. “And he is staying to dine with us.”

For all that Rebecca’s aunt and father had in common, they didn’t like each other very much. Jacqueline was older than her brother by twelve years, and she’d married young, so they’d had hardly any time together before adulthood. Rebecca didn’t think either of them minded it.

Rebecca dropped into a curtsy, a respectful gesture her aunt insisted upon even for relatives. “I’ll see him at once, Aunt.”

Her aunt looked down her long nose at Rebecca and something strange gleamed in her eye, almost like a look of pity. “Mind your lessons on deportment, child. You will need them today.”

What a strange remark. Rebecca walked with care past her aunt and went down the hall, knowing she’d find her father in the best parlor of the house. Her aunt always made him wait there, because it was the most elegantly furnished of the three public rooms, and thus the most uncomfortable.

Since coming to London to live with her aunt two years prior, Rebecca had only seen her father every two or three months. He resided in London most of the year but couldn’t be bothered to interact with a daughter on any sort of regular basis. As long as her social standing didn’t slip, he stayed away.

His neglect mostly came as a relief.

Rebecca paused before entering the parlor, looking down at the black marble floor as she gathered her thoughts. When Father visited, he always questioned her on what she had learned, where she had been invited, and who she spent her time with; rarely did her answers please him.

She further knew the scattering of freckles across her nose would fall prey to his external inspection of her person. He could never understand, of course, the lure of reading in the park during the summer. Or the irritation caused by bonnets meant to keep the sun off one’s face.

Swallowing, Rebecca put her shoulders back, knowing there wasn’t time to run upstairs and conceal the traitorous dots with face powder. She would just have to face him and weather his remarks until he left, which was usually directly after he’d had dinner.

She went inside, her eyes taking in the whole of the room. The floor-to-ceiling windows allowed sunlight to flood the parlor, making the pale pinks and blues of the furniture appear brighter. Plush green rugs muffled the sound of her footsteps as she approached her father, who stood at the mantel, glaring up at his late brother-in-law’s portrait.

That was another reason Aunt Jacqueline chose this room for her younger brother’s visits. Her late husband, a wealthy earl, had elevated the entire family’s position in society, and she was not about to let Rebecca’s father forget it.

“Good afternoon, Father,” Rebecca said, remembering to keep her voice soft, but projecting it enough to be heard.

He turned and Rebecca dropped into a curtsy.

Before he’d even said a word, she could see the censure in his cold blue eyes. Something about her had already caused his disapproval; she suddenly worried that she’d somehow become a point of gossip. Had he learned of the way she laughed when Lord Moren fell out of his carriage in the park? Or perhaps he’d been informed she’d been going about barefoot in her aunt’s gardens. Had someone informed him about her disastrous performance on the pianoforte at Miss Gilderoy’s home the day before?

If she did not live up to her father’s expectations, he would make her life very unpleasant. Rebecca directed her gaze to the ground.

“Rebecca.” Charles Devon, a wealthy gentleman, had spent nearly all his adult life accumulating riches and social standing. Nothing could be of greater importance to him.

Even his children, all four of them, fell second to his ambition. Really, Rebecca supposed the only reason he’d ever had children was to use them as tools to reach his lofty goals. The fact that his eldest two daughters had thwarted those plans, around the same time Rebecca had been sent to live with her aunt, made him only more determined to bend Rebecca and her only brother, Horace, to his will.

“Stand up straight,” he directed, his tone stern, though his voice remained quiet.

She lifted her head to meet his eyes and squared her shoulders. She wanted to sink a little lower, if only to avoid remarks on her unfashionable height. It was hardly her fault she was tall. She’d obviously inherited that trait from him.

His eyes flicked from the top of her hair down to the hem of her gown and back. “You are very thin.”

She swallowed and tucked her hands behind her back, clenching them into fists. What did one say to that? “Yes, sir.”

He stepped toward her and let out a sigh, one she’d heard before, of disappointment. “It really doesn’t matter now, I think. I daresay, in a few years, after you’ve had a child or two your figure will be more in proportion.”

She felt heat creep up the back of her neck and into her ears. She hated being inspected this way. It was worse than being a horse at Tattersall’s. Those fine animals were at least afforded a little respect by prospective buyers.