“Give them back,” she commanded, cold and malicious. She dared him to deny her. There was a screaming part of her conscience telling her not to go down this road. All of her work, all of her machinations, all of her humiliation would be for nothing… But this time, her emotions raged louder than her rationale.
“Are you Animos material?”
“Give. Them. Back.”
“I knew you’d fold.” Captain snickered and tossed the pictures at her feet, nodding his head at whoever was holding her. The arms released her. She dropped like a sack of potatoes, her knees colliding painfully with the hardwood floor. “I knew you didn’t have the stuff to make it.”
His declaration wormed under her skin and bit hard, living there even when she left them all behind.
Ten minutes later, Sam was sitting on the cold tile of the kitchen, clutching her pictures to her chest. She didn’t have the strength to look at them, but she couldn’t bring herself to watch the regents collect their things and pack, taking her hopes and dreams with them. Hiding was a better solution.
“Shit,” she breathed.
“What’s going on here?”
Another surprise. On her feet in a second, Sam stood face to face with her father, Lord Dubarry. It might have been three thirty in the morning, but he looked like he always did. In his early fifties, tall and severe, he was exactly the sort of man someone might cast as a grown-up Mr. Darcy, if Mr. Darcy insisted on wearing 1960s spectacles and glowering at everyone all the time. Thomas always told her, “Dad doesn’tnothave feelings. It’s that he doesn’t want to and therefore chooses not to show them off.” He was what Sam called “old school British.” Austere and stuffy. Dedicated to his family name and their respectability. A slave to appearances and tradition. And though Thomas didn’t agree, she knew one day she would dig beneath his crusty exterior and find the warm, loving dad she always dreamed she would have.
She tucked the photographs in her arms tighter to her chest, not wanting him to spot them. Her father was also a bloodhound for weakness.
“Dad!” Her heart pulsed. “Hey, I thought you were going to be in the city—”
“Haven’t left yet. Been in the office all day dealing with damned paperwork.” He moved through the kitchen without looking at her. It was a bad habit of his. “Your brother and I were going to leave this morning, but Mrs. Long hired a new member of staff. Curator for the car collection.”
“Oh.”
Was there anything more pretentious than someone hiring acuratorfor theircar collection? Sometimes, she found herself deeply resenting the two Dubarry men with whom she lived. Growing up, Thomas had gone to Eton and driven Aston Martins. Sam had made do with her public-school education and the cross-town bus. The greenest space she ever saw was the tiny park near her foster home, which was usually covered with McDonald’s bags and used needles; they sat on over a hundred acres of pristine emerald farmland. While they had been living it up in British paradise, going to afternoon tea with the Queen, Sam had been bouncing around the system. Hearing her father talk about his private collection of antique cars still stung, even though he’d arranged for her to take ownership of one of his Audis. Young Sam would have been so conflicted, but grown-up Sam would take anything her father gave her if it meant they would have a conversation for more than five minutes.
After a lifetime on her own, she should have been used to isolation. She shouldn’t care if her father gave a damn about her. But she did care. Deeply. She didn’t realize how lonely she’d been until she was so close to her father’s love and approval she could almost feel it. She suddenly saw a lifetime of lost opportunities, a million missed chances to feel the warm embrace of family. Now that it was just out of her grasp, it tore at her heart not to have it.
“What areyoudoing?” He flicked the teakettle on and looked at her in the chrome reflection of the kitchen appliances, not turning to fully face her. Sam shoved the pictures into her back pocket. Lord Dubarry never talked about her mother; she had no idea what their relationship was like outside of the one picture she had of the two kissing and the few mumblings she’d managed to coax out of her mother. What would he say if he knew she’d given up Animos just to hold onto these scraps of paper? She decided she didn’t want to find out. She could live in the fantasy for a little while longer. Straightening, she locked eyes with his reflection, trying to hold his oblivious attention.
“It’s my Rage Weekend. For the Animos Society.”
“Animos?”
Was it her imagination, or did he perk up? Thomas had told him about her joining Animos—hoping he would talk her out of it, no doubt—but it seemed he hadn’t been listening. Nodding, she tried not to look too excited that he was listening now.
“Mm-hmm.”
“They’ve started letting girls in now, have they?”
“I’m the first. Hopefully. If all goes—” From the floor above them, a loudcrashsounded. So, they had abandoned her chances of joining the club but hadn’t passed up a chance to destroy her room. Great. “According to plan.”
“You know, I was in Animos.”
“So was Thomas. I’m a legacy, I guess.”
“Well done. Let me know how it turns out,” he said as he poured his tea. “We’ll celebrate.”
If she hadn’t been paying such rapt attention, she might have missed the quiet musing on his breath as he departed. “My daughter, in Animos. Hmm.”
My daughter.
Hope blossomed in her chest. He’d never called her that before. Never given her such affirmation. She’d been right. Joining the Societywouldwin his affection. He would finally see her. They could be like a real family. It would prove her to him. The pictures in Sam’s back pocket tugged on her like a bag of bricks.
You know what you have to do, a little voice whispered.
Before she knew it, she was in her bedroom again, breaking up a mild fistfight that had apparently started over a copy of her high school yearbook. She wanted to throw up. She wanted to run to her father’s office and cling to him. She wanted Thomas here.
