He huffed.
“… but I can behave if you wish me to.”
“I doubt that.”
Octavia took a sip and placed the cup back onto the table. “You must take pity on me, Roswell. I’m terribly bored.”
“What of Mrs. Harper?”
She lowered her voice. “Mrs. Harper is a bore. She insists on spending all of our time working on our needlework.”
“That is important.”
“It isn’t like I can go into the gardens either,” she said. “Freddy is out there and he frightens me.”
Roswell grinned, feeling no sympathy for his sister’s plight. “It was your idea to get a peacock,” he reminded her.
“I just didn’t realize that they were such ornery little things.” Octavia picked up her fork and held it up to him. “I will stab you if you do not do my bidding, Brother.”
“You are resorting to violence now?”
“I have no choice. You can’t expect me to remain indoors all day and not go mad.”
Roswell knew his sister meant him no harm, and he sympathized with her plight. He put his hand up. “All right, you win. I will escort you to the opera tonight.”
“Thank you,” she sighed, lowering the fork.
“Was it really necessary to threaten me with a fork?” he teased.
She shrugged one shoulder. “It worked, did it not?”
“Just so you know, the fork did not convince me to take you to the opera,” he confessed. “I would have done so if you had just asked nicely.”
“Then how would you have known that I was serious?” she asked with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
“Would you really have stabbed me if I turned you down?”
She smirked. “I guess we will never know, now will we?”
“You can’t go around threatening people with cutlery,” Roswell advised.
“I do not recall that being covered at my boarding school.”
Roswell couldn't help but feel better when his sister was around. She had an uncanny perspective on life and a knack for making him smile. “Why were you not at the ball last night?” he asked before taking a bite of his food.
“I have no desire to take on any suitors this Season.”
“Why is that?”
She looked up at the ceiling and blinked fiercely, as if fighting back tears. “I would rather focus on Mother during this time and not on myself.”
“You deserve to have fun.”
“It just doesn’t feel right, given the circumstances,” Octavia said.
There it was. A crack in her emotional facade. Though she smiled, he knew that Mother’s state was taking its toll on her, more than she wanted to reveal.
He reached for his sister’s hand. “It is all right to be upset.”
