“Good morning, Herald. You look fine, too. It is good to see you. Is everyone home?”
“They are—”
Before he could finish, she heard Gwendolyn’s voice coming down the hall.“Dara.”Her sister gave her a welcoming hug.
Tweedie followed. Her eyes were crinkled half-moons of delight. She kissed Dara’s cheek. “Was it agoodnight?”
“It was,” Dara confided happily.
“Come in,” Gwendolyn said, urging her toward the sitting room. “How do you like married life?”
“It is wonderful,” Dara confessed. “He’s been thoughtful and caring, everything I could have imagined and more.”
“Well, that is a lovely thing to hear,” Elise’s voice said.
Dara gave a start. She looked over Tweedie’s head, and there was her loveliest sister. Elise stood down the hall, almost ten feet from them. Her back was straight, her chin lifted. There was no happiness in her eyes.
“Of course,” Elise continued with the tone of an inquisitor, “Iknew he was all those things. I knew it back when you were telling me to leave him be. You know, back when you were ordering us to speak only to dukes. Pot-bellied, sour-breathed, almost ancient dukes.”
“Shush now, Elise,” Tweedie said. She was using her walking stick today. She didn’t like using it, but here she was, leaning on it. “This is no way to treat your sister.”
“I’m all right,” Dara demurred before forcing a smile and saying, “It is good to see you, Elise. Are you home again?”
Elise gave a cold, hard stare, and Gwendolyn stepped between them. “Let us all move to the sitting room instead of filling the hallway. Shall we?”
“Weshall not,” Elise answered. She shot Dara a bitter look. “Do you have something you should say to me?”
Dara studied her sister. The late-morning sun streaming in the hall window made her hair shine like the gold coins Michael had given Mrs. Ferrell.
“I know what you want me to say,” she told Elise. “There was once a time—not that long ago—when, without prodding, I would have been offering apologies. I always wished peace between the two of us. I often gave in because then you were happy.” Dara drew a deep breath, weighing what she was about to say. “But I can’t do that now. Not over Michael. I’ve done nothing wrong.”
Elise stiffened. “I claimed him.”
“Michael is not a yard of ribbon we can argue over,” Dara protested. “He has the right to decide his own mind.”
That brought Elise charging forward. “And he was paying attention to me,” she said. “Then you had to make a fool of yourself—”
“Elise,” Gwendolyn warned. “We are done with this conversation.”
“Sheis the one with all the rules,” Elise argued. “She probably broke a half dozen of them stealing him from me. Certainly,she broke my heart.”
Her argument was old; however, her last few words gutted Dara. She leaned back, thankful to have a wall behind her or else she might have fallen to the floor—
Tweedie pounded her walking stick on the floor several times. “Elise, your heart hurts, but it will heal. He was not the man for you. If he was, he wouldnothave married Dara. You saw him yesterday. He did not appear as if he was being coerced. But don’t you worry, lass. There will be a man for you. And when he finds you, nothing will deter him from claiming your love. Do you hear me? He’ll want only you. I, for one, praise the Almighty that you haven’t thrown yourself at one of those—” She paused, looked to Elise. “How did you say it? Pot-bellied, sour-breathed dukes. Each of you is finer than that.”
“Dara is the one who wanted a duke,” Elise muttered. She crossed her arms, almost as if she was trying to hold herself together.
“Life rarely gives us what we want, or expect,” Tweedie said, quite pleased with herself. “Pleasecome into the sitting room, Dara.” Tweedie led the way in.
Instead of following, Elise stood her ground in the hall.
Gwendolyn touched Dara’s back, a silent urge to ignore Elise’s poor manners.
In the sitting room, Dara said to Gwendolyn, “May I borrow your mourning gown?”
“Of course. Do you wish the veil as well?”
Considering the funeral was this day and many in Mrs. Ferrell’s house had been dressed for mourning yesterday, Dara nodded. “That would be nice. And may I borrow a needle and thread?” She didn’t know if Michael had sewing things and she would need to tack up the hem.
