Today's Reading

CHAPTER ONE

Many wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills.
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet

October 1819

If a quill pen was truly more powerful than a rapier, as Shakespeare suggested, then a pen must also be more powerful than a needle.

Emily Summers mused on this as she sat in the parlour, writing in a notebook. Around her, her mother and sisters sewed together over tea and pleasant conversation. Even Viola, her recently married twin, had come over from Westmount with her needlework bag to join them. Only their oldest sister, Claire, was absent.

Emily was not fond of sewing and, except for one childish sampler completed years before, avoided the task. The only one of her family less skilled with a needle was the youngest, sixteen-year-old Georgiana, who sat bent over a wad of fabric and knotted embroidery floss that was supposed to become her sampler. Mamma required each of her girls to finish one, insisting all young ladies should be skilled in needlework.

Glancing at Georgie's bird's nest of tangled thread, Emily doubted her mother's aspirations would come to fruition. Emily's own sampler had not been much better. Mamma had not even bothered to frame it as she had the others. Viola's and Sarah's hung in Mamma's room even now. She had no idea where Claire's had ended up.

Despite the warm chatter around her and the warm tea inside her, Emily felt a cold knot of emptiness in her chest. An awareness that something or someone was missing—or more accurately, two someones.

She paused to consider the feeling. She had long desired three things in life: to be reunited with her eldest sister, to return to May Hill and marry Charles Parker, and to become a published author. She had little confidence any of these would ever happen. Claire was living in exile in Scotland after a failed elopement, and Charles, the neighbor Emily had always loved, had broken her heart by cutting ties with their family at that threat of scandal.

Despite all that, however, her last goal seemed the most unlikely.

With a sigh, Emily scratched out a few more lines in the novel she was attempting to write. It felt as tangled and patternless as Georgiana's sampler.

Giving up, she placed the quill back in its holder, set the notebook aside, and picked up a book instead. She had begun reading a new work Mr. Wallis had lately published called Scenery on the Southern Coast of Devonshire; Comprising Picturesque Views, at or near the Fashionable Watering Places: Sidmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Exmouth, Dawlish, Teignmouth, and Torquay. Why authors insisted on such long titles, she did not know.

Emily had not been to all the featured towns. Her interest was piqued by their descriptions, and she hoped she might one day visit them.

At the thought of travel, she caught her twin sister's eye. "Any progress in convincing the major to take a wedding trip?"

Viola lifted one shoulder in an unconcerned shrug, her focus returning to the new shirt she was stitching for her husband. "Jack is not keen to travel. Not yet, at any rate. Had his fill sailing to and from India." She turned toward their older sister. "Would you please pass the scissors?"

Sarah paused in her embroidery to oblige her.

Viola snipped a thread, then shifted her gaze to the volume in Emily's lap. "How is Mr. Wallis's new book?"

"Interesting. Although it would have been improved by skillful editing. I have noticed several repetitions and missing words."

Viola nodded. "I know I've said it before, but you should offer to edit for him."

"I doubt he would appreciate my interference," Emily replied. "Not everyone admires my ability to point out the mistakes of others." She winked at Viola, who had been a regular recipient of Emily's criticisms in the past. Thankfully their relationship had improved over the last year.

"Perhaps if he learns of your talents, he would also be willing to publish your novel—that is, if you ever finish it."

Emily tilted her head to study her sister's face. "Why are you so eager to find employment for me? I am hardly idle."

Georgiana spoke up. "It's only fair. After all, you found employment for Vi, placing that advertisement without her knowledge."

"It worked out rather well, you must admit," Emily defended.

Her twin looked up from her needle with a barely suppressed smile and a hint of a blush. "It certainly did."
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