Free The Perfect Fiancé (Matchmaking for Wallflowers Book 0) by Bianca Blythe

closed and jostling coach, striving for an excuse to skip the woman’s ball.
    “Now do tell me,” Madeline said, “Whatever were you doing standing in a pit in the earth?”
    “I—”
    “It’s the sort of thing that gives Yorkshire women a bad reputation,” Madeline said. “You really must reconsider your habits. It will be trying enough for you to find a husband without acting like the local madwoman.”
    Fiona squared her shoulders. “How kind of you to worry. Really, it’s wholly unnecessary. And I’m not in the least need of a husband.”
    If only Grandmother would believe that.
    Madeline smiled. “You’re always in the habit of saying the most curious things. Most fascinating.”
    Fiona gave her a wobbly smile and considered divulging her secret. She pondered the pottery, the Roman coins and helmets, the vases and mosaics she’d found on the border of the apple orchard.
    She longed to share everything. There were so many brilliant objects. It couldn’t be sheer coincidence. There had to be a Roman palace buried there.
    Cloudbridge Castle lay on the route toward Hadrian’s Wall, and it was not entirely absurd to think that the Romans may have built a palace on the way. Perhaps the Romans had had a tendency to wander around in togas, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t enjoyed fine homes as well. The materials she had found were too ornate for a simple station for soldiers of insignificant rank.
    But her cousin wouldn’t understand. The last person Fiona had told had been Uncle Seymour. She’d wanted his permission to excavate the apple orchard, and he’d exploded at the prospect of cutting any of the trees down on the off chance that some broken cups and plates might be underneath. Though Uncle Seymour visited infrequently, the estate belonged to him, and once Grandmother died, he would move in.
    Fiona drew in a breath. Some things were better not dwelled on. And perhaps Madeline was right. Perhaps she should attend the ball.
    “Will the baron be there?” Fiona tilted her head, thinking of the materials she’d found underneath the apple orchard.
    Madeline’s husband’s advice in assessing the objects’ value would be invaluable. The baron was a renowned art critic, and his work on the Elysian Marbles was genius. She was sure his favorable assessment had spurred the new British Museum to acquire them. Unfortunately, he seemed to favor London far more than Yorkshire.
    “My husband?” Madeline’s voice faltered.
    “I would like to speak to him about some findings…”
    “Oh.” Madeline’s long black eyelashes swooped down over her eyes.  “Perhaps I might be of some use—”
    Fiona shook her head. The less people she told about the apple orchard the better. The ones she had told already thought her mad for believing there was a Roman palace buried underneath there. Her cousin was not the type to lend herself to confidences; she was far too fond of gossip.
    Right now it was more important that Madeline did not learn of Fiona’s supposed engagement; her cousin was the largest gossip in Yorkshire. Fiona had no inclination to be a laughingstock, and any hope of the credulity and support the baron might give her theory on the Roman palace would be destroyed if he were to discover she’d invented a fiancé.
    Though she’d long abandoned any aspirations to marry, she couldn’t stand the thought that all her work, all the carefully collected and recorded artefacts, would lose all significance because their finder was deemed a foolish girl. No one would donate funds so that the rest of the palace might be dug from the ground, and any mosaics, any sculptures, any pottery would remain firmly in the earth to be forgotten.
    Fiona’s conviction that a Roman palace lay under the apple orchard would be deemed ridiculous, and anyone she told would be reminded in giggling tones that Fiona also had insisted she was betrothed to a wonderful man, when the man had turned out to be entirely