The room was dark, only the light from the dining room left a narrow lit path through the open door. It was a perfect room to eavesdrop from. There was even a potted tree near the door that she could stand behind.
She saw Charley first, her eyes caught by all the glitter. He certainly wasn’t wearing the hand-me-downs anymore, was back in his full regalia. A concession on Monty’s part, now that they were safely ensconced in their hiding place? Monty was even in the middle of that explanation she’d overheard him making up about Charley’s neglectful parents to account for his extravagant clothes. She hoped her sisters didn’t think all those gems were real! Monty was more formally dressed tonight, too, wearing a very fancy cravat. His hair was queued back, and he looked so damn handsome, she had to force herself to move around the tree until she could get a full view of her sisters.
And then she just stood there transfixed, staring at her beloved sisters, happy tears already in her eyes. They’d grown so much! She’d left behind two girls with chubby cheeks and returned to two exquisitely beautiful young women she almost didn’t recognize. But they were still identical. While growing up they’d always differentiated themselves with colors, white for Layla, pink for Emily, wearing ribbons around their necks or in their hair and white or pink nightgowns at night. Apparently, they still wore the ribbons in their hair.
“So this will be your first Season in London?” Monty was saying. “I almost pity the young lords. Once they clap eyes on you two, not just identical, but stunning, they will be bowled over.”
That was quite a compliment. Emily giggled. “It feels like we’ve waited forever.”
“It’s going to be so exciting,” Layla added.
“How many sisters do you have?” Emily queried.
Kathleen, sitting at the head of the table with her back to the conservatory, scolded mildly, “Now, now, you promised no questions.”
Both girls blushed as if they’d made the worst sort of blunder, but Vanessa was sure it was simply because they’d just displeased their mother and they abhorred doing that. And Monty didn’t make it any easier for them by not answering the innocent question. She would have kicked him under the table if she were sitting there.
And then Charley remarked, “Where is the third daughter in that portrait?”
Vanessa couldn’t see the wall he was staring at, but she knew which portrait he was referring to. It had been painted the year before she left. It depicted her seated on a chair with a twin on either side of her, sitting on an arm of the chair. They had laughed so much that week while they’d had to sit for it because none of them could stay still for very long and the artist got so annoyed with them.
But then Charley added, “She looks familiar somehow, but how can that be?”
“Because aside from the hair, she closely resembled her sisters when she was young,” Kathleen replied.
“We expect she will be home from the West Indies soon, because her trunks have already arrived,” Layla said excitedly.
Vanessa panicked at the mention of the West Indies. Monty would realize she’d been keeping secrets from her own family! She held her breath, praying he wouldn’t mention something about Scotland. But he looked only a little confused, might even be thinking that she’d lied to him about living in Scotland these last years.
And Kathleen was explaining, “She traveled with her father and has been gone for several years.”
“Six years is more than several, Mother,” Emily said almost angrily.
“Emily!”
For once, Emily didn’t back down from one of Kathleen’s rebukes. “She never even said goodbye to us! And not one letter from her in all that time!”
“She added notes to Papa’s letters,” Layla reminded her.
“Did she really? When those notes were penned in his handwriting?”
In that particular quiet tone that all her daughters recognized as the one that masked her fury, Kathleen said, “Perhaps you are not ready for London, after all. Apologize, darling.”
“That isn’t necessary,” Monty said, trying to intervene.
Vanessa was crying by then and slipped out of the room to run back upstairs. She had wanted to write! But every time she started to she ended up crying because she missed her sisters so much. And what could she really say about life on a Caribbean island, where her sisters thought she’d been living, when she’d never been to one?
But while she ate her own solitary dinner, which a servant had left outside her door, she was determined to come up with a good explanation for Emily—if she could without telling her the truth. She was going to sneak into her sisters’ room that very night. She just had to wait until everyone was asleep.
Chapter Sixteen
VANESSA LEANED AGAINST THEwall by the parlor doors, her head bent very low to make sure her hood was hiding her face. She imagined the servants who passed her were giving her odd looks, but she didn’t budge, because in that spot she could hear her sisters’ voices in the parlor. But, annoyingly, they were speaking softly, so she couldn’t make out most of what they were saying. She was also straining to hear if Kathleen was in there with them.
She was so angry at herself for falling asleep last night before the house had gone quiet. She planned to take a long nap today so that wouldn’t happen again, and a long ride first to tire herself out. She remained in the hall in case the girls were alone in the parlor. If they were, she could grab them as they walked out, run them up to their old playroom, and have her reunion right now.
Listening to her sisters, she couldn’t help thinking they giggled too much, then she cringed, remembering she used to giggle as well. When had that stopped? Of course she knew—the very day she’d run away with her father and embraced a different style of life that had been exciting and wonderfully unrestrictive. What if her sisters would be appalled by the life she had been living away from here? It looked as if Kathleen had turned them into perfect young debutantes. She might not have anything in common with them anymore!
“Is there something wrong with your face, Nestor, that requires you to wear a hood in the house?”
