A Day Until Forever

A DAY UNTIL FOREVER ERIN LANGSTON Copyright © 2023 by Erin Langston All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover Design by Erin Dameron-Hill Edited by Rachel Shipp Created with Vellum To my very own sweetheart. I never needed to divine the future, because you were luckily always in my present, but I know the apple peel would have been a P. CONTENTS 31 October, 1798 One Year Later 1. Nigh on Ten o’clock in the Morning 2. Noon 3. Half past one o’clock in the afternoon 4. Three o’clock in the afternoon 5. Ten minutes past four o’clock in the afternoon 6. Half past five o’clock in the evening 7. Eventide 8. Sometime after eight o’clock in the evening 9. Nightfall 31 October, 1800 Author’s Note About the Author 31 OCTOBER, 1798 NIGHTFALL It all started with an apple…though the fruit, of course, was none the wiser. There was nothing at all remarkable about it; nothing to set it apart from the other pippins of the orchard’s last harvest. The apple was perfectly ordinary—golden-red, firm of flesh, waxy, and cool to the touch. And yet, this humble fruit had been commissioned for a most noble purpose. Rosalie Holland held the apple in her left hand and peeked surreptitiously over her shoulder. The faint ruckus of the town bonfire carried from the other side of Turner’s dilapidated barn, a cacophony of music and shouts on a curl of wood smoke. Rosalie raised her eyebrows at Amelia and Nanette as she crouched, lifted her skirt, and slid a paring knife from where she had earlier strapped it to her half-boot. “Are you ready?” Nanette’s wild curls bobbed in the shadows. “Wait!” Amelia, keeping watch around the side of the barn, stuck out her arm to give pause. There was a burst of laughter. Amelia shrank back as two farmers wobbled past, clinking tankards of ale. “And…they’re gone. You first, Rosie.” Rosalie hefted the apple, grinning as her friends bubbled in anticipation. She squinted in the muted moonlight and carefully pressed the blade of the paring knife to the thin red skin of the apple. “Wait!” Amelia whisper-shouted for the second time. Rosalie strained her ears. There was no sound of passersby. “What now?” Amelia bit her lip. “Are you certain you want to do this? Divine your sweetheart?” Nanette heaved an exasperated moan. “How else are we to learn who we’re meant to marry?” Rosalie rolled her eyes. “Just wait? For the future? Don’t be so uninspired, Amelia.” “But—” Nanette shushed her. “Hurry up, Rosie!” “It’s dark,” Rosalie muttered, working the knife into the skin of the apple. “Bring that candle closer. And besides, I need to go slowly. She said it won’t work if I break the peel.” In the temperamental flare of the candle, Rosalie turned the apple around and around, the peel lengthening in a sweet, sticky ribbon. When nothing remained in her hand but a pale, fragrant globe, Rosalie exhaled, looking at her friends. “Right then.” She stepped forward, turning in three slow circles. Nanette and Amelia clasped arms, their wide eyes flickering in the light of their stubbed candle. Rosalie closed her eyes and hoarsely recited. “I pare this pippin, round and round again, My sweetheart’s name to flourish on the plain; I fling the unbroken paring o’er my head, My sweetheart’s letter on the ground to read.” She lifted her face to the swirling, shadowy clouds, then tossed the peel behind her. The young women ran to where the apple peel had disappeared in the dark, their breath frosting in the chill air. Nanette raised the candle, and three pairs of eager eyes scanned the cold, stiff grass. “What letter is it?” Amelia called. Rosalie spotted the curled peel first. She stood over it, tilting her head one way, then the other, searching the scrap for the letter of her future sweetheart. Please, please, please… “It looks like...” Nanette squatted, staring hard. She glanced up at Rosalie. “R.” “Renwood,” Amelia murmured, beaming at Rosalie. “It’s R for Ian Renwood.” Rosalie covered her mouth, lest her stampeding heart escape her body. She, too, thought it resembled an R, vaguely. “Do you think so?” she managed, her dark green eyes darting between her friends. “Is it truly an R?” “It must be.” Nanette nodded. “It’s not a natural way for the peel to fall. The charm revealed the truth, Rosie. You’re destined for Mr. Renwood.” Rosalie sighed with jubilant relief. Ian Renwood. It had been three years since Rosalie’s sixteenth summer when charming Mr. Ian Renwood had first asked her to dance a reel at the Balfour residence. Rosalie, with the bullish naivete of youth, had assumed that dance was it. Within the year, Renwood would finish at Oxford, she would make her debut, and he would court her in earnest. They would be betrothed before her eighteenth birthday, and Rosalie’s life would begin. But to her infinite chagrin, none of those girlish fantasies had come to fruition. Rosalie, as it transpired, did not debut her seventeenth spring, nor the year after. Her maiden Aunt Celia had fallen ill and offered a healthy addition to Rosalie’s future dowry if she stayed with her in Gloucestershire during her extraordinarily long convalescence. Rosalie’s father had taken a calculated risk that it would be more advantageous for his daughter to debut later but wealthier, and no amount of foot stamping or tears would change his mind. But now she was home, and this coming spring, nineteen-year-old Rosalie Holland would make her long overdue debut into society, bringing three years