Though May Day wasn’t celebrated as much nowadays as it had been in the past, it was still taken very seriously in their small town.
Every year, they had a huge festival. It started at dawn when people would set out to gather flowers for garlands to decorate the May Pole.
There would be food and drink, music and dancing.
And of course, they would crown the May Queen; a young lady chosen to lead the procession to the May Pole and open the ball at the assembly rooms later that evening.
When Beatrice had been a girl in short skirts, she’d dreamed of being crowned the May Queen.
When she’d been perhaps twelve years old, she’d realised that she never would be.
Now the Reverend Altmont and his band of helpers were preparing for the arrival of performers and merchants from all over the county who would descend on the village for the festival.
“Perhaps he’s a trader of some sort,” Talia mused aloud. “And has come to sell his wares at the festivities?”
Beatrice’s stomach dropped at her words. It made sense. It would explain why she’d never seen him before, since she never left the village. In fact, the only times she went anywhere else was when Mama dragged her on a fool’s errand to the marriage mart in London.
“Perhaps,” she agreed, ignoring her disappointment.
If he were a merchant or some sort of trader’s assistant, Mama would never agree to a match.
Beatrice drew to a stop, dragging Talia back when her friend would have walked on.
“Bea? What is it?”
But Beatrice was too busy castigating herself to pay attention to her friend’s question.
Of all the addle-pated dolts.
Had she really been dreaming about matching with a man she’d spoken to for perhaps two minutes, whose name she didn’t even know, all because he’d thrown her a scrap of attention?
She was even more pathetic than she’d known.
“Bea?”
“I am well,” she rushed to assure Natalia, even as she burned with embarrassment on the inside. “I just – I was distracted by, by thoughts of Monsieur Bisset’s instructions on fan holding at a ball.”
Natalia snorted in derision.
“What an odious little man he is. Whatever can Lady Fortescue have been thinking? You were the best student Miss Fincham ever had. And certainly, compared to me your behaviour was always impeccable.” She grinned, her icy-blue eyes twinkling.
“Hmm, well most people’s behaviour was impeccable compared to yours,” Bea laughed. “But it’s no matter. Mama will not be argued with. She’s convinced herself that the reason I am on the edge of spinsterhood is because of flaws that can be fixed. This Season I will be married or die trying, it seems.” She grimaced.
Bea huffed out a breath, blowing a lock of sad, brown hair from her eyes. She wasn’t usually so self-pitying.
“When everyone knows I can’t fix the worst things about myself.”
“Beatrice!”
Natalia turned to face her friend, clasping her arms and forcing Beatrice to look up at her.
“I refuse to allow you to disparage yourself any longer,” Natalia said firmly. “You are so hard upon yourself, you do not see what a treasure you are.”
Bea nodded as though she agreed but she didn’t, of course. Someone like Natalia would never understand what it felt like to be invisible. To want to be invisible.
How could she explain her dread at being paraded around London in front of a group of men who didn’t want her, to the one woman who only had to blink and have men scurrying to her? Who took the attention she’d always garnered in her stride? And who had found love with a man who worshipped the very ground she walked on?
“Now, tell me more about your mystery man.”
“Talia!” Bea laughed as Talia once more gripped her elbow and pulled them into a stroll. “I’ve told you, he’s not my mystery man! I barely even spoke to him. Great love affairs don’t start with colliding with someone’s horse.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Talia responded. “Why, look at Ben and I. We couldn’t stand the sight of each other. We had to pretend to get engaged just to realise we wanted to be engaged.”
“Ben was never as irritated by you as he pretended,” Bea answered quickly. “He couldn’t love you so much if he were.”
“Oh, he could,” Natalia assured her. “For I was absolutely that irritated by him, even when I fell in love with him.”
Bea giggled at Talia’s wickedness, delighting in the fact that her friend was back.
“And now?” she asked.
“Now, I love him more than ever,” she answered.
They walked on a few more steps.
“And he annoys me more than ever!”
“You cannot possibly be speaking of me, for I know I could never annoy you.”
The ladies turned at the sound of Ben’s voice behind them, and Bea watched as his eyes raked over his wife’s face, that look of slight wonder mixed with tenderness that he always wore around Talia lighting his face.
“Of course not, darling.” Natalia quirked a brow. “Did you finish your business?”
Ben leaned down and pressed a kiss on Natalia’s lips, as ever uncaring about propriety.
It was swift and not at all scandalous, apart from it being in public, yet Bea felt as though she were intruding on an intimate moment between the two. But that was nothing new. Love practically oozed from the two of them whenever they were together.
Beatrice wasn’t surprised by the intimacy. She was, however, surprised by the sudden twist of envy in her abdomen.
She’d never felt anything other than joyous when she saw how happy her friend and cousin where. Why then, all of a sudden, did she wish for such a love for herself?
Why did her heart thud painfully?
And why on earth did her mind wander to the man in the woods?
Ben began to discuss whatever it was he’d been doing in the village, and Bea allowed her gaze to travel around the square. Everything was the same. The church, the bakery, the apothecary –
Her gaze suddenly collided with a
