Barbara Metzger by Wedded Bliss

seemed to manage before.”
    Of course, that was before the boys needed more lessons than Alissa could give them, and the fees her father had set aside for Aminta’s young ladies’ seminary had run out, and Alissa’s prize drawing student went off to London for her come-out. “We shall just have to economize further, that is all.”
    “Or I could seek a governess post, Lissie. You know I am well educated enough, even if I did not finish the term at Miss Plum’s academy.”
    Alissa also knew her sister was too young and too pretty to find a position in a respectable household. Without experience and references, heaven only knew where she might land. Besides, their father had not meant either of his daughters to go into service. He had not paid for their excellent schooling so they might drudge in some other woman’s household, but so they might make good marriages. How could Amy find a husband tucked away in some attic nursery? All her lovely young sister would find, Alissa worried, was improper advances and insult, like Lord Rockford and his sort usually offered unprotected females. Or widows.
    “Fustian nonsense,” Alissa said now. “You shall do no such thing as seeking employment with some harridan too spoiled to care for her own children. You shall find a fine young gentleman to marry and live happily ever after, with angels of your own to cherish.”
    Aminta sighed, a young girl’s sigh of high hopes and daydreams, of air castles and knights on white chargers. “I do hope so.” Then her feet touched the ground again, where her soles were thin and her stockings were darned. She pulled her knit shawl closer around her shoulders. “But I still do not understand why you refused his lordship’s offer, and in so harsh a manner. Willy and Kendall need schooling if they are to amount to anything. You know that.”
    Alissa took one more look down the carriageway before shutting the door. “I do know they need an education, but I refused, you see, because that is not what the earl offered to pay for. He offered to send them to a school, a school of his choice. Not one I would select after meeting the headmaster and instructors and checking their credentials, not one close to home so I could visit frequently, not one that has boys from all stations in life, not just those with titles before their names. I would never send Willy and Ken somewhere they would be nothing except Lord Rockford’s dependents, the poor waifs he supports out of charity. The other boys would know, and the teachers. Can you imagine how your nephews would be treated at such a place? What kind of instruction they would receive? Besides, Willy is far too young to be sent away. No, if His Arrogance wished to be helpful, he could have offered to pay for the lessons at Vicar’s. That I could have accepted gladly.”
    Amy sighed again. “Lord Rockford might be arrogant, but his pride is not without cause, I swear. And not just because he has a title and wealth and that air of worldly experience about him. Why, his shoulders barely fit in through the doorway.”
    “Enough,” Alissa said, the image of his lordship’s bare shoulders doing somersaults in her skull. “He is merely a man, an overconfident, overbearing, overindulged man, nothing more.”
    “Nothing more? Gracious, he is so handsome, I doubt I have ever seen a finer looking gentleman.”
    “At seventeen and country-bred, goose, you have seen few enough gentlemen to compare. I suppose Rockford is well enough in his way,” Alissa added, lying through her teeth as she headed for the kitchen. “William was better-looking.”
    Amy looked at her older sister as if Alissa’s eyes had clouded over, along with the sky.
    “He was,” Alissa insisted. “My William was an attractive man, without that hard edge of hauteur his lordship wears like an ermine mantle. I much prefer William’s fair coloring to Rockford’s dark looks, besides.”
    “Well, I found him stunning.”
    “I found him