I can’t wait for you to visit at the end of summer.(Too desperate.)
I’m a horrible person. I labelled Revelstoke a bounder when, in fact, I misjudged him badly. On top of that, I wronged Rosie.
A droplet of ink dripped off the nib, bleeding into the parchment.
“Dash it all,” she muttered.
The door whipped open, and Rosie burst into the room. “We must hurry!”
Balling the paper, her heart pounding, Polly said, “Are we, um, late for something?”
“Papa’s home.” Rosie hooked her by the arm, pulling her to her feet. “Mr. Lugo and Mr. McLeod are here as well, and they’re all in the study with Revelstoke.”
At the mention of Ambrose’s business associates, a cool drop of premonition slid down Polly’s spine. “What does that have to do with us?”
“We’re going to eavesdrop, of course,” her sister said, tugging her toward the door. “Don’t you want to know what is going on?”
Polly did… and didn’t. She needed to stay as far away from Revelstoke as possible. He was the ultimate threat to her equilibrium, bringing her to the heights of untold pleasure—she’d never experienced anything like that magical release in the stillroom—before dropping her like a stone into an ocean of guilt and misery. He was too dangerous a temptation, and, moreover, he brought out the worst in her.
You’ve been a judgmental shrew toward me since the moment we met.
She swallowed painfully. He wasn’t wrong. And it shamed her.
While she might not be pretty or popular, she’d always thought of herself as a nice sort of girl. Not one who harbored unfound hostilities—and definitely not one who’d kiss the gentleman her sister fancied.
Guilt spiking inside her, she dragged her heels. “The earl’s affairs are none of my business.”
“Of course they are, silly.” Like a determined tugboat, Rosie towed her along, out of the room and toward the curving staircase. “Anything that involves Revelstoke involves me, and anything that involves me involvesyou.”
Her shame and remorse ballooned. The hours before dawn had indeed been dark as she’d contemplated whether to tell Rosie about her encounter with Revelstoke. Her mind had teeter-tottered between possible courses of action. On the one hand, the wrong she’d done was festering inside her. She hated herself for betraying Rosie and, to make matters worse, concealing the truth.
On the other, the possibility of angering Rosie gnarled her insides with anxiety. She’d never fought with Rosie over anything before. Typically, Polly was the easy-going one, the tag-along who was happy to let the other take the lead; she rarely gainsaid her sister, let alone interfered with the other’s wishes. Bewildered, shestilldidn’t understand how she and Revelstoke had wound up kissing when animosity simmered between them.
Polly dreaded angering Rosie—almost as much as she dreaded triggering the other’s hopelessness. For even now, she could see the feverish desperation in her sister’s aura. Rosie was walking a tightrope between hope and despair, and Polly couldn’t bear to tip the other into the dark abyss.
And who knew what could happen between Rosie and Revelstoke? she acknowledged with an odd little spasm. Now that she knew Revelstoke wasn’t the heartless cad she’d believed him to be, maybe he wouldn’t be such an unsuitable match for her sister after all. In the breakfast room, she’d seen attraction in the earl’s aura—which had to be for Rosie, who looked stunning in her raspberry-striped morning dress, matching ribbons in her hair. At any rate, his desire clearly couldn’t be for Polly, not when he’d told her their kiss was a mistake… twice.
Maybe Rosie was right. Maybe he had come to court her. Maybe her beauty and charm could reform him—and Polly had merely gotten in the way.
Polly’s throat constricted. She’d made such a muddle of things, and after wracking her brain, the best solution she could come up with was to conceal her wrongdoing. To pretend the kiss—meaningless, anyway—never happened. It was the coward’s way out, she knew, but she couldn’t think of a better alternative. She vowed to herself never to repeat the transgression.
Rosie led the way to the main floor. They crossed the marble foyer toward the hallway, following the gilt-framed landscapes until they reached the library. Smelling faintly of leather and firewood, the room boasted stately bow windows that looked onto the street, the other walls covered in bookshelves. As Rosie closed the door silently behind them, Polly heard the murmur of male voices coming from the adjacent room—Ambrose’s study. Although she couldn’t make out the words, the somber undertone sent afrissonthrough her.
“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she whispered.
Rosie was already at the wall shared by the two rooms, busily removing books from a shelf. “Pish posh, give me a hand, will you?”
With a sigh, Polly took the leather-bound volumes from her sister, creating neat stacks on the floor. When enough space was cleared, Rosie leaned in and Polly followed suit, both of them pressing their ears against the smooth wood. She made out Mr. McLeod’s voice, which had the lilt of a Scottish brogue, and Mr. Lugo’s baritone, which bore the rhythm of his native Africa. Revelstoke’s low rasp responded to Ambrose’s measured syllables, yet she could only discern the occasional words—“interview” and “club” amongst them.
“I can’t make out what they’re saying,” Rosie whispered in frustration.
“Perhaps that’s a sign that we ought to—”
The door opened. Heart racing, Polly whirled around.
Edward, Ambrose and Marianne’s lanky fourteen-year-old, stood in the doorway, his dark head tilted. “What are the two of you doing?”
“Nothing.” Straightening hastily, Rosie shot her younger brother an annoyed look. “Don’t you have anything better to do than to skulk around startling people?”
