The Lady Tamed Boyd, Heather (reading list .txt) 📖

Fanny moved to stand behind Rebecca as she stood before an arc of mirrors. She put her arm around Rebecca again, the way she had often done when they were younger. “The gown becomes you. Makes you seem a young bride again.”

“I was happy then.”

Fanny gave her a squeeze. “But not as much in love as I suspect you are now. Why, you are positively radiant.”

Rebecca’s eyes flashed to hers through the mirror’s reflection and held for a long minute. “You know, don’t you?”

Fanny winked. “I cannot know anything until I’m told. Officially.”

Rebecca’s hand slipped to her belly where Fanny’s hands still rested over a small bump.

Fanny chuckled softly. “That’s how I know you and Adam will endure. You would never have allowed Warner the same liberties before you married him.”

“No. I wouldn’t have. I wanted to be, tried to be…freer. A little bit more like you.”

“Like me?”

“Freer with my affections. Less concerned with the consequences of a dalliance as you have been.”

“I have no dalliances, Rebecca.”

“We share a bedchamber wall, sister.” Rebecca’s brow lifted. “You can confide in me, you know. I would never tell.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” she promised, drawing away from her sister. Surely a dalliance required a kiss. Jeremy hadn’t even tried. “Are you ready to wed now, Becca dear?”

“We’re talking.” Rebecca shook her head. “Rivers would understand.”

Fanny frowned. She didn’t want to have this conversation, but Rebecca seemed disinclined to let the matter drop. “You know why I will not marry.”

“I’m not speaking of marriage. The idea is ludicrous, unless you want that. But the future is easier to face with someone to hold you when you are lonely. There’s no good reason to deny yourself the warmth of a human connection out of fear they might die one day. Everyone needs hope. Affection. Perhaps a little lovemaking.”

Fanny gaped. “I cannot believe you just said that to me.”

“I can hardly keep to the moral high ground when I’m about to marry a man like Rafferty,” Rebecca complained. “He’s opened my eyes and assaulted my ears with all manner of indelicate conversation. The odd thing is, I don’t even seem to mind anymore. As long as it’s not his exploits with other women I hear about, I am content to let society be as scandalous as it pleases. That includes you and our brothers, too.”

“I think I must already love Rafferty like a brother for bringing about this change in you.” Rafferty wasn’t a prude, and his relaxed morality was already rubbing off on her often-too-serious sister. “He will make an excellent addition to the family.”

“Yes. Oh, and speaking of additions, that reminds me. Rafferty heard that the Thwaite family finances are under additional strain. The son, Wilks, is rumored to have run up gambling debts all over Town. Thwaite is trying to keep it quiet.”

Fanny frowned. “Lord Thwaite is seeking out investors for a new venture.”

“Yes, I thought you said something to that effect a few nights ago. Will it make a difference not to have him involved or his funds in it?”

“Without him… Yes, it definitely could.” It might be nothing but gossip, but Fanny would make sure of Thwaite’s involvement before she made her final decision on the project. “He was very keen to have me agree to invest but I put him off until after the wedding.” Fanny rushed to her sister’s writing desk and scrawled a quick note to remind herself to investigate Thwaite’s financial affairs more thoroughly in the morning.

She already suspected it had been him in her chambers, seeking information about the extent of her business dealings with Maxwell Danvers. And he might now have leverage to use against her in the future with regard to Jeremy Dawes, too. But she could not think of herself until after the wedding. She would never spoil her sister’s happy day.

Rebecca clucked her tongue. “Come on, Fanny. Rafferty will start to think that I’m not coming down to marry him. You’re making me late.”

“I wasn’t the one dragging her feet,” Fanny reminded Rebecca as she slipped the note into her glove for safekeeping until she could return to her room later that day.

“Well, I can’t blame myself,” Rebecca said with a haughty expression. “What would people say if they thought I had any doubts?”

Fanny threw up her hands in resignation and hurried to beat Rebecca out the door, managing to slip into the hall ahead of her to hold out her arm. “Shall we?”

“Indeed, we shall.”

They moved briskly toward the staircase but started down more slowly.

Before too long, they heard the low murmur of dozens of voices from the drawing room. Father was pacing the hall.

“Finally,” he cried when he spotted them descending, but then his face went soft and adoring. “Becca.”

“Hello, Papa. How do I look?”

His eyes filled with emotion. “So much like your mother that for a moment, I thought you were her come back to life.”

Fanny’s own eyes welled with happy tears to hear that, but she quickly dashed them away. Rebecca was the only one who resembled their mother in any fashion.

She even had her volatile temper.

A footman was waiting at the doorway and, at Father’s signal, the man stamped his cane on the floor to announce them. The crowd inside was immediately silenced.

Father bent to murmur in Rebecca’s ear, whispering something meant for her alone. Fanny turned away to give them privacy, experiencing a touch of resentment, too.

Fanny’s wedding day had been darkened because her father had not truly approved her choice the first time. Perhaps that was why from time to time he suggested she reconsider her solitary life but married to someone he approved of. She could be happily married if she wanted to be. If she ever found a good man, someone she could trust, she might consider it one day. But all the gentlemen she had encountered in society since becoming a widow were not remotely interesting and coveted her fortune.

She moved to the doorway and paused, taking stock