Ducking her head, Penelope picked at the sheets, “Lord Brampton, he’s nice.”
“That he is,” Alice sighed.
“I—I wish Rutledge was like that,” Penelope murmured. “But he’s not. I now realize the qualities of a man I should desire. He’s kind and protective.”
“He’s handsome too,” Alice smiled, teasing her sister, knowing it would make her blush.
“He is. I hope—” Penelope scrambled up and clapping a hand over her mouth, darted out of the room with Alice following her in a panic.
She got to the washing room as Penelope emptied her stomach in a pail, the bilious a pale yellow but pungent.
Alarmed, Alice held her sister’s hair back while she kept throwing a look over her shoulder, afraid that her uncle would be alerted to the sound and would come to investigate.
Hands shaking, she lurched again, nausea clearly rolling over Penelope in waves, sweat beading on her skin. Finally, she stepped away from the bowl and rested her head on her arm.
A flood of sympathy washed through Alice’s heart at seeing her sister’s suffering. She filled a glass of water and held it out to Penelope while a flicker of something at the edge of her vision had her turning.
Eliza wrinkled her nose, “Is she contagious?”
“No, Eliza,” Alice said flatly. “You will not contract what she has.”
Her cousin’s narrow gaze flickered from her to Penelope. “What does she have? I heard her losing her accounts last night too.”
“An upset stomach,” Alice lied.
“The lamb pie I had last night for supper did not sit well with me,” Penelope croaked. “And I didn’t have anything this morning yet.”
“Well,” Eliza pattered her bonnet and swanned off. “Just keep her away from me. I cannot afford to get ill.”
Dismissing her cousin with a roll of her eyes, Alice turned to Penelope, only for Eliza to pivot on her feet, “And I heard what you told Father. Don’t think I didn’t.”
Notching her head up, Alice dared her cousin to rebut her words. “Was anything I said out of place or incorrect?”
“It was all rude,” Eliza said stiffly. “So yes, it was all out of place. Years ago, when Mother generously agreed to take you into our home, I thought it would be wonderful to have another girl my age with us so I could finally have some company. Now I know you only came here to stab me in the back.”
Holding her gaze, Alice replied, “I know it is hard for you to hear the truth, Eliza, but nothing I said was a lie and you know it. You have been picking lords and throwing them away as if they were scraps of paper, and none of them are ever good enough for you.”
Blistering anger twisted Eliza’s face into a mask of hatred before it vanished in a moment, and she looked as expressionless as a porcelain doll.
She sniffed. “Well, I guess you have no standards then. Good luck with that Marquess of yours. Something tells me he will go the same way Lord Rutledge did. Do not disturb me, I am busy.” Pivoting on her heels, she strode away.
Turning to a quiet Penelope, Alice rubbed her forehead. “I think you might need some weak tea. Come on.”
“You still haven’t told me where you were,” Penelope whispered.
“That—” Alice looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was in earshot, “—is for another time.”
CHAPTER 19
“Edward?” Benedict strolled into his study, bearing a tray with two cups of coffee. “Do you have a moment?”
Heaving his hands from his pockets, Edward spun away from the large bow window and the lush sight of his mother’s old garden. His eyes flickered to the ormolu clock on the mantle behind him—over three-quarters of an hour.
Typically, the sight of the flowering bushes and trimmed hedges calmed him and reminded him of a time when he had blithely played on that square of green with no matters to bother him… but today, it had not worked. Peace still eluded him.
“Yes, of course.” He nodded to Benedict. “What is on your mind, brother? If it is that damned economics paper again—”
“No, it’s not that,” Benedict cut in while placing the tray at the center of the grand desk. “And that was anethics paperwhich I turned in two weeks ago.”
