Angelina was right my legs were now throbbing and so were my feet from all the walking. I had managed to dig the back of my shoes into my heels. So I waited for it to heal so I could start all over again. I did not want to postpone what I had come to do.

Two days after breakfast I left in the carriage alone to make it easier on my feet. My cousin refused to go anywhere with me claiming she needed to rest though I suspected by now she found me a bore who was neither interested in suitors nor in buying fanciful things. Either way I took the carriage and told it to stop near stores who sold books since my newspapers search had proved fruitless. If he was not a writer for a newspaper then he must have been some other kind of writer. A novelist perhaps? A poet? A playwright? A playwright would be harder to find.

"Thank you," I said to my aunt's coachman as he left me there.

I opened the door to the small bookstore.

"Good morning," I said to the clerk up front.

"Morning miss," he said waiting for me to grab a book.

Searching through the myriad of last names with B, Belmont was quite easy to miss so I looked again and again through the entire section. None of them turned up his name.

"Excuse me," I said to the clerk. "I'm looking for a specific writer, could you help me find him please?"

"Of course you've come to the right place. I have the memory of a lion. I never forget a name when I see one. It's a gift. The government ought to have used it in this war but here I am taking care of a bookstore."

"It's a respectable job sir."

"Maybe so 'tis what name?"

"Frances Belmont?"

"Frances Belmont, Belmont?"

"Yes."

"Lemme think on it for a bit..." He asked and before I could respond he was talking already. "Oh ye' an obscure little author. I believe his book is in that ol' pile right here."

The clerk went through the books and asked me to hold some of them until he got to the one he needed to and once he put in my hand I was very unenthused by the smallness in size of it.

"'Tis the one miss" he said.

"Thank you sir, and anything else by this author?"

"No only book with his name is the one ye' holding. And you should be glad I have the memory of a lion. I never forget an author after reading the first ten pages of their book. It's a gift ya' see."

"It is indeed. So this one never wrote another?"

"Why should he? This book is a pile of non-sense ye'? Such frantic notions look like it came from the devil himself."

"I beg your pardon?" I was shocked by the less than warm words about the book.

"I read it once about ten years ago, and it's still one of the worst books I ever read in me life. He mocks everything I believe in, ain't make no sense of this blasphemous man."

"And what became of him?"

"I dunno, and dunno care. Maybe he went back to where he's from." He pointed down and I assumed hell was the place he mentioned.

But really was such a small book so bad? What kind of things could I expect to read in here to conjure so much despising?

After he received my money, I went back in to the carriage suspicious of Frances Belmont.

"The Ideals and Dilemmas of Religion"
By: Frances Belmont

I stared into the book's cover as the carriage took me home and waited until I was safely in my room to begin to read the thoughts of the man that seduced my mother or as the clerk called him, the devil himself. Maybe he was not too far off from what it was.

If music be the food of love, play on,Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,The appetite may sicken, and so die. Shakespeare could have been talking of religion when he said this for the excess of it has the same consequences.

The first lines from Belmont's book quickly cleared the image as to why he'd fallen into oblivion in a country who was as proud of their Queen as they were of their Lord.

Surely a God with such faithful servants must endure without the business of ever being happy, or having their heart's desires for the heart is not where love resides but a deceitful thing which must be given up altogether in hymns of worship to a God who is no more vain than lacking in love for the very people who call themselves his people.

"Oh dear God." I could not believe he would dare write such lies in the pages of a book who could not have done anyone any good, not even himself.

In the end I knew one thing was true, I was denied goodness, mercy, forgiveness and love by the very ones who claimed their God was everything they were not and it was then I saw the light on all forms of deceit, even the deceit that came forth from my own love.

"He cannot be serious about this!"

I shook my head biting my thumb in agony that he was not in front of me for us to argue about his completely insane way of talking about something that my own mother has taught me to treasure so dearly, our faith.

"Dear are you alone?" My aunt asked me.

"Oh yes I'm alone," I sat on top of the book.

"We have been invited to a Ball, and Angelina insists on getting a new dress, shall we take your measurements too?"

"Oh no I don't think that will be necessary."

"Why not?"

"I'm sure something I have will do since I haven't been to a Ball in a year."

"Oh come my dear, this Ball will be in London's society not Whitby, we must adorn you, you will be a fresh face after all."

"Aunt Flora I really do not think that barely two months into mourning..."

"Come my dear you will not even have to dance as it is the custom, just accompany us is all."

"Cousin please do not embarrass us by wearing something old. I will be mortified! You may have an impending engagement but I do not. Help me please!" Angelina complained.

"Fine! A new dress it is."

"Oh thank you cousin! You are not too country after all!" She chuckled in all the joy getting a new frock brought such a young high society girl.

I met my aunt at the door as we headed out for a new gown but my mind was still looking for signs of Frances Belmont everywhere I went, debating his rude words if only in my mind.

At first I did not think much of the ball, reading his book once more so that I may be prepared to engage Mr. Belmont in an argument once we did meet. But how was I to find him by myself with only this book? This one ignorant blasphemous book?! How could he bring such shame upon himself willingly? Well he might not have had any to begin with.

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No part, character, names, plot, setting, conflict or resolution, point of view, theme or symbolism of this story may be replicated.

Copyright: All Rights Reserved to A. Sena Gomes.