Courtship and Curses

Courtship and Curses

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By Marissa Doyle

Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

Copyright © 2012 Marissa Doyle
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780805091878

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Chapter

1
 
London, March 1815

Aunt Isabel was, as usual, exasperated. “Molly, I don’t know why I brought you shopping with us. While that color will do for a creeping plant on a blasted heath somewhere, it will not do for poor Sophie.” She motioned away the bolt of yellowish green satin proffered by the dressmaker’s assistant.
“Ha!” Aunt Molly tilted her head and squinted at the rejected fabric. “I thought it reminded me of something. It’s just the color of toadflax leaves, y’know. But toadflax doesn’t grow on heaths. It’s a meadow and hedge-side plant.”
“I was not knowing that toads had the flax,” Madame Carswell observed. “Do they make linen from it too? English toads must be terribly clever.” She turned her head slightly and winked at the fourth member of the party seated in Mrs. James’s exclusive Bruton Street shop.
The young woman her aunt had called “poor Sophie” caught the wink and smiled down at her lap. Now Aunt Isabel would say something about not having time to examine what grew in the hedgerows and then probably go on to say something about Aunt Molly’s botanical obsession destroying her fashion sense.
“Well, really, Molly. Some of us are far too occupied with worthwhile pursuits to spend our days poking about hedgerows. And I must say, your doing so might account for the shocking state of your hair.”
Ah, well. She’d been half right. Sophie smoothed the wrinkles out of the buttery-soft kidskin gloves in her lap and felt her smile fade. She’d been scrunching up her gloves again. But glove scrunching was the only way she could relieve her feelings, at least here. Shrieking into a pillow would have to wait until she was home, alone in her bedchamber.
Every one of these shopping trips had followed the same course, like the farces at Covent Garden: The shopgirls would end up red-faced with suppressed giggles while Papa’s sisters quarreled over nothing. Or else Aunt Isabel would examine fabric and designs and shake her head, murmuring how they would just not do for Sophie, what with the poor girl’s limitations. Either way, they’d leave the shop empty-handed and move on to the next one, where the same thing would happen. At this rate, she’d never have any gowns made in time for the season’s round of parties and balls. If there were any, now that Napoléon was back on the throne in France and all of Europe in an uproar.
Maybe that would be for the best, said a hateful little voice in her head. Cripples don’t dance at balls. Even if they’re the daughters of marquises with substantial fortunes.
Thus the scrunched gloves. Sophie wished she could scrunch them small enough to stuff in her ears and drown that voice out.
Thank goodness Madame Carswell—Amélie, as she just yesterday asked Sophie to call her—had been staying with her and Papa and Aunt Molly for the last few days. Her company had made today’s shopping trip with the aunts much less odious. If only Mama … but she couldn’t think about Mama now. Her nose turned red when she got the least bit teary, and sharp-eyed Aunt Isabel would notice at once.
Sharp-eyed Aunt Isabel was examining a bolt of cherry pink silk held by the other of Mrs. James’s assistants. Sophie leaned forward, entranced. The color was beautiful, warm and vibrant, but Aunt Isabel’s bushy eyebrows had shot up most of the way to her hairline. “That shade, for Sophie?” Her voice dropped. “Haven’t you eyes to see with?” she hissed at the assistant. “She would stand out like a sore thumb in a color like that! Gray or snuff brown is much more appropriate.”
Sophie sat back. Of course. A color like that would draw attention to her … and to her infirmity. At least to her external one.
“I think it would be perfect for Sophie.” Amélie examined it, head to one side. “See how it would bring up the lovely color in her cheeks. I have a length of sari silk just that shade. It is still in my box, I am thinking.”
“My dear Mrs. Carswell,” Aunt Isabel began. Sophie braced herself. When Aunt Isabel my-deared someone, it was because she felt the person thus addressed anything but dear. “While India is doubtless full of very interesting things, I fear they are not quite, ah, suitable here, and certainly not suitable for poor, dear Sophie. I know you lived there many years, but you are in England now. Surely Mr. Carswell explained—”
“Oh, they don’t make linen from it. Wrong sort of flax,” Aunt Molly said in her botanical lecturer voice. “It’s very good for chickens and keeps them from getting chicken gall, I am led to understand, so why it’s not called chickenflax instead of toadflax is beyond me. Culpeper says it cures the dropsy and pimples, at least when used as a face wash. For the pimples, that is. I don’t think a face wash will do much for dropsy. Do y’suppose chicken gall is the same as dropsy? Unless it’s pimples, and how would you tell if chickens got pimples under all those feathers, that’s what I’d like to know.”
Aunt Isabel had begun to turn a color remarkably similar to the rejected silk. She opened her reticule, pulled out a tiny silver box, flipped open its hinged lid, and sniffed at it. “My head—you’ve no idea how I suffer. Molly, will you please stop prattling about plants for at least a few moments and attend to the matter at hand?”
Aunt Molly’s brow wrinkled. “I was. You were just saying that satin was the same color as toadflax, and I—”
“Sophie.” Amélie Carswell’s soft, French-inflected voice insinuated itself under Aunt Molly’s protest. “Come and look at the ribbons with me. They are very fine, I think.” She rose—gracefully for such a small, plump person—and held out her arm.
Sophie stared up at her arm. True, she limped like a drunken sailor on shore leave, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t rise from her chair by herself and walk a few paces across the shop to—
But no. Mrs. Carswell—er, Amélie—wasn’t the aunts. Her gesture was meant to be a friendly one. It wasn’t always easy not to jump to conclusions. Besides, she was tired, and Amélie’s arm would be a welcome support. Let her heavy, ugly, dull brown cane stay where it was, looped over the back of her chair.
She struggled to her feet and took Amélie’s arm. The flow of the aunts’ bickering didn’t cease as she and Amélie made their way to the display of ribbons and laces on the wall.
“You looked as though you had had enough of that.” Amélie ended her sentence with an expressive lift of her eyebrows. “Your tantes—they mean well, I think, but they are so busy being themselves that it is difficult for them to pay much attention to you.”
“Oh, they pay me plenty of attention. It’s just…” Sophie fell silent. Aunt Isabel frequently reminded her that a cripple should always show the world a patient, forbearing face. “Papa says they’ve always been that way, even when they were small. They mean well, and I’m … used to it.”
“But that doesn’t mean you must like it, eh?” Amélie said, running her finger over a length of pale blue ribbon and glancing sideways at Sophie. “Tell me, do they often remind you that you cannot walk as others do?”
Sophie felt her chin rise defensively and hated herself for it. “Well, I cannot.”
“But that does not mean it must rule your life. Will you tell me how it happened? Or were you born with it?”
Amélie’s voice was gentle but matter-of-fact, and it defused Sophie’s defensiveness far more effectively than pity would have. “No. It happened two years ago this summer, at Lanselling—that’s my family’s seat. There was influenza in the neighborhood, and I came down with it. I nearly died, but my mother brought me through it. Then one morning I woke up and found I couldn’t turn over in bed because my legs ached and wouldn’t work. The doctors said I would never walk again, but Mama was determined to prove them wrong. She wrapped my legs in hot towels and stretched them and massaged them, but one still stayed weak and began to shrivel.” That wasn’t the whole story; Mama had done considerably more than wrap her legs when the doctors weren’t present. But she couldn’t tell Amélie—or anyone—about that. Nor about what else she’d lost after her illness.
“Then my—my little sister…” She paused to steady her voice. “My little sister Harriet came down with it as well. Mama was nearly frantic caring for her, but she couldn’t save her. And then Mama fell ill too and … and died. I think it was exhausting herself nursing us, and then losing Harry.” Sweet little Harry, with her gold curls and soft, round baby face, had been only five.
“She died of grief as well as sickness,” Amélie said softly. “And your leg?”
“It mostly works, but it is shorter than my left leg, and the foot turns in oddly. It makes me walk with a most noticeable limp. It always will,” she couldn’t help adding bitterly. Two years ago, she’d been looking forward to her come-out just as any girl of her age and birth did. She’d longed for the London season, for sweeping through minuets and country dances at balls … and maybe, if she were allowed, dancing the scandalous, delightful new waltz. Mama had seen to it that she learned well, even hiring a dancing master to stay at Lanselling for a month each summer to teach her and neighboring girls when she was fourteen and fifteen. She still dreamed of what it felt like to dance.
Amélie touched her arm. “Yes, you always will limp. But you can walk. It is better than not walking, n’est-ce pas?”
“Not if you listen to the aunts. I sometimes think Aunt Isabel would prefer it if I were a complete invalid. Bringing a cripple out into society is rather trying, though she assures me that we ought to be able to find a younger son, maybe, or a half-pay officer who might be willing to overlook my deformity in light of my family and marriage portion.” Sophie glanced over her shoulder back toward the aunts. Behind Aunt Molly one of the shop assistants was hiding her face in her handkerchief, her shoulders shaking with laughter. That meant they’d probably be leaving soon. She turned back to Amélie and saw that she was frowning ferociously, as if angry. The frown vanished as Sophie met her eyes.
“Never mind. I will tell you what we shall do, you and I,” she said briskly. “We will nod and smile and let your aunt not buy that cherry silk, and then I will make a present of my sari fabric to you for a dress.”
Sophie stifled the exclamation of pleasure that rose to her lips. “Oh, I couldn’t possibly—”
“Ah, ma chère, you gave yourself away when you looked at it, and I shall not permit you to say no. You and your papa have been so kind that it is the least I can do. Besides, it is not a color I shall ever wear again.” She glanced at the mourning ring on her hand.
Sophie reached out and covered it with her own. Drat it, she should stop being so selfish and remember that she wasn’t the only unhappy person in London. “I’m so sorry Mr. Carswell … never reached home. Papa was looking forward to seeing him after all these years. He said they were very close at school.”
“Ah, I too regret it.” Amélie sighed. “And my Jean was so looking forward to coming home to England again. Over twenty years in India he stayed, all for my sake.”
Sophie nodded. Papa had been so pleased when he received a letter from his old Harrow friend last autumn. John Carswell had been the younger son of an earl and had gone into the East India Company because of his lack of prospects in England. Papa had sometimes spoken of him regretfully, though Sophie had never been sure if that regret was due to missing his friend or wishing that he, too, had been a younger son able to adventure in India instead of being ninth Marquis of Lansell.
Mr. Carswell had evidently surprised everyone by marrying in India instead of returning to England on leave to woo and wed a bride … and surprised them further by marrying the daughter of a French military adviser to the ruler of one of the Indian princely states. The long years of war between England and France had made him decide to remain in India and not visit home, lest his wife be snubbed or worse by her English in-laws because of her nationality. But last summer he had written to Papa that he was coming at long last to see his home and old friends and in hopes of regaining his health, worn down by the climate.
Then, just two weeks ago, another letter arrived from Portsmouth bearing sad news. It was from Mrs. Carswell, reporting that Mr. Carswell had died from a bleeding ulcer shortly after setting sail from India. It enclosed a brief, shakily penned note from Mr. Carswell himself, saying that he knew death was imminent and asking Papa to help his widow on her arrival in England. Papa had at once sent his secretary to find Mrs. Carswell at Portsmouth and to accompany her to her husband’s ancestral home to bury his heart there, as he had wished. That sad task accomplished, Mrs. Carswell had come to London to thank Papa. They’d all been charmed by the small, plump, bright-eyed woman in her soft gray pelisse and black gloves and hat, who was devastated by the loss of her beloved “Jean” but obviously interested in London and in them. It hadn’t been hard to convince her to stay with them for a few weeks while she decided what to do.
“Well, I’m glad you are here,” Sophie said staunchly. “If it weren’t for you, I’d—” She glanced at the aunts.
“You need not explain, Sophie. Lady Isabel has no daughters, no? So she cannot resist busying herself with her only niece’s entrée to society … but she is not sure how to present a niece who is out of the ordinary. And Lady Mary—or should I say Molly, as you do? She is a dear, but if you have not leaves or roots or stems, she doesn’t quite see you, I think. And as for you”—Amélie tilted her head to one side—“you are excited for the season yet fearful because of your legs that do not walk gracefully.”
“How do you know all that?” Sophie blinked back sudden tears.
“It is not hard to know things if your eyes are open and you use them. Remember that, Sophie. Your eyes are your best tool.” She made a small humming sound under her breath as she fingered the ribbons. “How old are you, ma petite?”
“Eighteen. I might have come out last year, but I was not strong enough. And we—we did not have the heart for it.” Not that she was sure Papa did, even now. After Mama had died, he had withdrawn into his work on the war like a hermit crab crawling inside a discarded shell. With Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte back in power, would he ever emerge?
“Eh, not a child at all. Then les tantes should not treat you as one. Come, let us choose the dresses you would like. No, do not look back. They are quite happy as they are, so we shall not disturb them.” Amélie took her arm and led her across the shop, beckoning to Mrs. James, who hovered behind the aunts, looking anxious. “I shall give you my sari length. That would be lovely for a dinner dress, no? Ah, Madame James, as you see, the other ladies are busy, so we shall choose some pretty dresses for my friend here. What will the jeunes filles be wearing at your Almack’s this spring?”
The dressmaker looked relieved that a sale seemed much more imminent. “Yes, madam.” She studied Sophie a moment, then nodded. “Clear, true colors. White rather than ivory, too, for collars—high ruffs at the neck will be much seen again this year. Let me see.…”
In a few moments, the counter was piled with lengths of muslin and poplin and crepe. Amélie regarded them with satisfaction. “Now we are getting somewhere. If you will be so kind as to bring a chair for my friend here … yes, that will do.” She unrolled a bolt of apple green sarcenet to hold up next to Sophie’s face. “A walking dress in this, I think, with the skirt white and a spencer to match, and a snip of fabric we may take to the milliner.” She handed the bolt to Mrs. James and selected another.
“You are so kind,” Sophie said to her when a happy Mrs. James scuttled back into her storeroom for more fabric.
Amélie’s cupid-bow mouth curved into a smile. “But it is not all kindness. By helping you, I help myself. We take each other’s minds off our sadnesses for a little while, yes?”
“Oh, not a little while!” Sophie made up her mind to broach the idea that had been simmering in the back of her mind. “Won’t you stay with us for at least part of the season? If you’re going to direct my wardrobe, you must stay and see me wear it.”
“But your family—your papa—he will not wish to keep a stranger at his table so long—”
“You are not a stranger,” Sophie interrupted her. “You’re his dear friend’s wife … and you’re my friend. If … if it would not be too disagreeable, I would very much like you to stay with me.”
Amélie smiled again. Some of the melancholy had faded from her eyes. “Thank you, chère Sophie. When you say it thus, then I must say yes, if your good papa agrees.”
The bell on the door jangled, announcing the arrival of another customer. Aunt Isabel and Molly ceased quarreling as the newcomer paused on the threshold to survey the room, then swooped toward them like a large predatory bird oddly attired in tropical plumage. “Lady Isabel! Lady Mary! What a delightful surprise!” The woman nearly skidded to a halt beside the aunts and rested a gloved hand on her ample breast, as if transported by joy.
Aunt Molly squinted at the woman in her shortsighted way and looked dubious. Aunt Isabel did too, but nodded pleasantly enough. “Umm … oh, yes. Lady Lumley—it is still Lady Lumley, isn’t it? How do you do?”
The woman curtsied. She looked about the aunts’ age, but her bonnet was in a much more youthful style than theirs. “Very well, thank you, and yes, still Lady Lumley. I’ve yet to meet anyone who might make me forget my dear Sir William, rest his soul. Is it not wonderful that spring is finally here? I have been quite pining to see old friends again. Are you here for the season?” Lady Lumley’s tone remained effusive, but there was a questioning gleam in her eye.
Aunt Isabel bowed slightly in her chair. “We are. My niece Sophronia is making her come-out this year, and—”
Sophie winced, just as she always did when anyone used her full name.
“Your niece? Not”—Lady Lumley blinked rapidly—“not dear Lord Lansell’s daughter? But I thought…” She leaned toward Aunt Isabel and muttered behind her hand—not that it muffled her words any. “Well, I had heard that she was feeble-minded and a hunchback. In fact, just the other day someone mentioned—”
Aunt Isabel drew herself up. “You heard wrong,” she said coldly, and beckoned to Sophie. “Lady Lumley, my niece Lady Sophronia Rosier. Sophie, Lady Lumley.”
“Good day, Lady Lumley.” Sophie rose as gracefully as she could and curtsied. To her surprise, her voice was calm, unshaken by the anger that this woman’s thoughtless babbling had roused. How had such a rumor started? And would she hear it at every event she attended this season? How pleasant to meet you, Lady Sophie! Why, you hardly look half-witted at all!
Lady Lumley examined her closely. “Oh … er … you’re very like your mother, though I’m sure I can see your dear papa in you as well. Such a handsome man.… It will be a pleasure to see him—er, see you in society this year.” Lady Lumley looked past Sophie to Amélie, who still stood at the counter piled with their chosen fabrics. “Another relation? How charming that all your aunts—”
“Oh, Madame Carswell is not a relation,” Sophie corrected her.
Lady Lumley’s smile dimmed. “Isn’t she?”
“She is a dear friend of the family. In fact, she will be staying with Papa—er, my father and me for some weeks as the season begins. May I present her?”
Lady Lumley now looked distinctly dismayed. “Oh … ah, how-de-do.” She barely bobbed her head in Amélie’s direction, then turned back to Aunt Isabel, her smile widening. “I shall call soon. It will be delightful to resume our acquaintance. Are you both staying at Lansell House?”
“I am at my own home, thank you,” Aunt Isabel replied, slightly testily. “Mary and Sophie are, of course, with my brother.”
“Charming! He is quite the hero, is he not, with all the work he has done in the War Office defeating the wicked French? I must come and lay a laurel at his feet.” Lady Lumley positively simpered—Sophie had read the word in a novel once without quite being able to picture the action, but now she could. Clearly. She curtsied again and went back to the counter and Amélie.
“That vulture,” she whispered. “Not all the French are wicked just because of Napoléon! And the only reason she wants to call is so she can make eyes at Papa.”
“Not everyone has the understanding to make the distinction between the emperor and his empire,” Amélie said mildly. “And yes, I expect that is the reason for her wish to call. It is not surprising that the unmarried ladies will cluster round him like bees to the flower, hoping that they may catch him.”
“Catch him! But…” Sophie fell silent. Amélie was right. Mama was gone, and Papa was a widower. What else should she expect?
“Sophie.” Amélie patted her hand. “Your papa is a grown man and can take care of himself. You should be thinking instead about the young men who will be clustering around you after they see you in these dresses we have chosen.”
What young men? Hadn’t Amélie heard what the loathsome Lumley woman had just said? Hunchbacked … feeble-minded.… The hunchbacked part would be easily disproved; hopefully the feeble-minded part would as well. But there was no denying that she limped and resorted to using a cane when tired or forced to remain on her feet for long. Why would any young man want to woo such a young woman, apart from those drawn by the fact that she was a marquis’s daughter with £35,000 to bring to her prospective husband?
And why would she want anyone who wanted her for those reasons?
“Well, ma chère.” Amélie was putting her gloves back on. “Your tantes seem to be at loose ends, and we should—how does the expression go?—we should poke while the iron is hot. Go to them and suggest they order the carriage, and I shall speak with good Madame James here about these dresses.”
“Strike while it’s hot, I think you mean, but…” Sophie swallowed and watched Lady Lumley finally relinquish Aunt Isabel and turn to the shop assistant waiting patiently by her side. “But I’m not sure it’s worth the trouble.”
Amélie stopped tugging her glove over her wrist and looked at her. “It is worth the trouble because I say it is. And you will see that I am right.”
Sophie opened her mouth to disagree, then instead bent—Amélie was shorter than she—and kissed her cheek. “Yes, Amélie. Thank you.”
“Ah.” Amélie’s eyes got that misty look again. “Go, and I shall strike that iron.”
Sophie did her best to keep the aunts distracted as they collected gloves and made sure their pelisses were properly fastened, and she watched Lady Lumley glower at Amélie during the consultation with Mrs. James. As their footman opened the shop’s door and Mrs. James came to bow them out to their carriage, Amélie took Sophie’s arm. “We have stricken the iron. Your first fitting is tomorrow,” she murmured.
“But how will we get away?”
Amélie pursed her lips. “Leave that to me, ma chère.”
“Oh, are you leaving?” Lady Lumley’s penetrating voice followed after them. “Why, I am as well. Dear Lady Isabel, I hope I can prevail upon you to give me a place in your carriage as I fear it is coming on rain, which always gives me the headache. Surely your friend won’t mind riding with the coachman just this once—”
Sophie turned. Lady Lumley was hurrying toward them past the shop’s counter, her skirt fluttering in the breeze of her haste, her eyes narrow with determination above her wide smile. Loathsome indeed—and how dare she insult Amélie like that?
Before she could stop herself or even think, she inhaled deeply, drawing in her concentration with her breath, and focused on the edge of the wooden counter. The polished oak split into splintery fingers and caught at the back of Lady Lumley’s dress. A thin but satisfying ripping sound was heard, followed by an even more satisfying shriek from Lady Lumley.
Good heavens, she’d done it! She’d actually done it!
Aunt Isabel was already through the door, but Aunt Molly paused and looked over her shoulder. “Did you say something, Lady Lumley?”
The Loathsome Lumley had come to a halt, both hands behind her back. “Uhh-h-hhh … no … that is, yes, I … g-good day to you, Lady Mary. It was m-most pleasant to see you.”
“Oh. Good day.” For a moment, Aunt Molly looked as if she were going to return to shake hands. Sophie pressed her lips together, trying not to giggle: If Aunt Molly did, Lady Lumley would have to let go of her skirt, now torn down her backside. But Aunt Molly just bobbed her head and hurried after Aunt Isabel. Sophie nodded graciously at Lady Lumley and, still holding Amélie’s arm, followed Aunt Molly through the door.
“Most singular, that Lumley woman,” Aunt Molly said when they were safely ensconced in Papa’s carriage. “Where do we know her from?”
“We were at Mrs. Harmon’s school with her that year—I think it was ’87. Mousy little thing then, always watching. Her father was a solicitor who did well with his investments, else she never would have gotten in. Mrs. Harmon was usually most particular about the social station of her students, but money often made up for breeding.” Aunt Isabel sat ramrod straight as usual.
“She appeared more like the cat now than the mouse,” Amélie observed, looking at Sophie.
“Except for her squeak,” Sophie said under her breath. But her glee had faded. Why had she done that, right in front of the entire shop?
Maybe because she hadn’t expected it would work.
Two years ago, she’d lost something besides Mama and the ability to walk freely. She’d also lost her magic.
She’d been very small when the magic lessons started. Between four and half-past five every afternoon, Mama had locked her sitting room door lest a footman wander in with more coal for the fire, and they had practiced together—the easier things like moving spells (her collection of Chinese snuffboxes dancing a precise minuet in midair) to more complicated changing spells (turning Mama’s dozing Abyssinian cat from golden brown to purple to green) and spells harder still, like the windows Mama could cut in the air that let them look onto Polynesian islands and Icelandic volcanoes and herds of American bison on endless grassy plains.
Mama had told Sophie that she had been so thankful to have at least one daughter who also possessed her powers. Not that boys could not as well, but it was much less common; Sophie’s younger brothers, Francis and Wrenford, had never shown the least magical aptitude. Then Harriet—Harry—had been born, the little sister she’d always wanted. She and Mama had been so happy when Harry had frightened her nursemaid into a faint by making the animals in her wooden Noah’s ark march up the gangplank two by two—well, not happy about frightening the poor girl—and had planned how they would teach her together.
But Mama and Harry were gone, and so was Sophie’s magic—vanished, as if she’d never had it. For the first year, there hadn’t been a glimmer of it, and all her concentration and will couldn’t move as much as a dead leaf. Life had been very black—at least, what she could remember of it. There had been no one she could ask about it, no one to explain why this had happened to her. Had her illness maimed her mind and spirit, just as it had maimed her body?
Over the last several months, though, she’d seen hints that perhaps she hadn’t lost all of it. Very occasionally she would point at a dropped pencil and it would drift up into her hand just as it had before. It could happen after fifty tries or after one; there seemed to be no pattern or indication that practice was helping her regain her power.
So perhaps Lady Lumley was right after all. Maybe she was feeble-minded. Maybe she had lost more than just her magic—maybe she’d lost that spark that made her her. Some days she couldn’t bring herself to care about anything … and on the days she did, someone like Aunt Isabel or Lady Lumley would happen along to remind her of what she was now.
Sophie sighed and stared out the carriage window at the passing London street. For years she’d looked forward to coming to London for her first season. Now that she was here—now that it was here—she understood that getting through it was going to be the hardest thing she’d ever done.


 
Copyright © 2012 by Marissa Doyle


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Excerpted from Courtship and Curses by Marissa Doyle Copyright © 2012 by Marissa Doyle. Excerpted by permission.
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