Free Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink by Stephanie Kate Strohm

lucky that I’d just happened to choose the pretty pink flowered dress today! Taking a deep breath, I flung open the heavy wooden door.
    I was almost finished with
Northanger Abbey,
mostly because I’d discovered Ashling talked to me less if I was reading, so for lack of a better option, I’d started scouting out the romance novels in the house “library” for my next book. I swear to God, the cover art for
Let Sleeping Rogues Lie
had leaped off the page and shown up on my doorstep.
    â€œMiss Libby,” he said bowing deeply. “I’ve come calling.” He grinned, shaking the hair out of his eyes, and I was hit with the full force of how unbearably, impossibly gorgeous he was. Yes, sure, the (very small) handful of boys who’d been interested in me in the past weren’t total trolls, but they had left me completely unprepared for the movie-star-hot manifestation of my dream man. It was like I’d opened a door to the magical fantasyland in my head. I was frozen to the step like the little delft milkmaid on the shelf in the parlor.
    â€œLet him in!” one of the girls shrieked. The rest took it up, chanting, “Let him in! Let him in!”
    â€œI think you’d better let me in. Or it might get ugly in there,” he said, widening his eyes.
    â€œI think I’d better,” I agreed, and, heart hammering, I let him in. I closed the door behind me and led him to the parlor.
    â€œLadies.” Cam swept an elaborate bow. The girls giggled. “Miss Libby,” he stage-whispered loud enough for them to overhear, “can they have candy?” He shook the little white bag.
    â€œPlease! Please, Miss Libby, please can we have candy? Please, please, please!” they all begged.
    â€œOf course.” The day was almost over. If they got hyper, their parents would have to deal with it. And how cute was it that he’d brought them candy! Cam went over to the girls and gave them each one of those swirly-stick candies they sold in the gift shop.
    â€œMithter Cameron?” Amanda asked as she pulled out a strawberry swirl-stick candy. “Where were you all week? Why did you thay away?”
    â€œAh, fair lady, I was nursing a wound.” The girls gasped. “A broken heart.” More, louder dismayed gasps.
    â€œWho broke your heart? Tell me. Who. Who did it?” Natalie, one of the older, pushier girls, demanded.
    â€œWhy, as much as it pains me to say it, our very own Miss Libby.” He shook his head sadly. “She never stopped by with my gingerbread.”
    Ohh, right—with all the ghost excitement, the sparring with Garrett, and the possibility of escaping Ashling, I’d completely forgotten. Cam’s gingerbread must have still been wrapped in the towel in the warming oven.
    â€œOh, Mith Libby, how could you?” Amanda whispered painfully amid general noises denouncing my villainy.
    â€œYes, Miss Libby, how could you?” Cam echoed, mock-wounded. “Hasn’t she been naughty?”
    Wow, I hoped the kids missed the subtext.
    â€œShe should be punished,” Natalie said grumpily.
    â€œI was thinking the same thing.” Cam looked like he was about to burst, trying not to laugh. “But even though she doesn’t deserve it,” Cam said, composing himself, “I’ve decided to forgive her. And be nice. Because that’s just the kind of guy I am. Miss Libby”—he displayed the flowers with a flourish—“these are for you.”
    The girls paused in unwrapping their candies to sigh, collectively, “Awwww.”
    â€œThey’re beautiful, Cam.” I accepted them, blushing. They really were. A boy had never brought me flowers before. Dev was wrong—chivalry wasn’t dead. Gentlemen
did
exist. And I was face-to-face with living proof. “Thank you.”
    â€œYou should probably put those in water.” Emily shook her candy stick at me.
    â€œHow