Page 12 of In Want of a Wife
His brother responded. It sounded a lot likeso muchandso forthandyou’re an utter disappointment. Rafe didn’t care much. He’d had twenty-nine years of listening to his brother’s criticisms. They all sounded similar by now.
Rafe glanced up after rereading the letter once more to discover the table empty. He perched at the edge of his seat and leaned forward, examining the hall, then glanced out at the terrace overlooking the ocean.
Calm. Dark as midnight. No swells.
Clear of any present danger.
But he had sailed enough to know the horizon kept secrets.
He shouldn’t have tucked the woman’s letter into his jacket, just as he shouldn’t have sent a reply that evening instead of an apology.
But Rafe rarely followed the rules.
“Give it back now, Mary!”
Lily groaned, grabbing a handful of covers, pulling them up to her chin, then rolling over in bed wishing to be anywhere else.
Every morning it was one thing or another. Always an argument over something small that her stepsisters considered a catastrophe. The bickering continued in the hallway, and a bedroom door slammed shut.
“I will not. I had it first!”
Mary, Thea, Amelia, and Jane. She loved them, in spite of them always viewing her as an enemy. If only they would stop their constant arguing when she was trying to sleep.
Then the dogs began yipping, and she heard her stepmother storming down the hallway.
“We do not slam doors like that. It is not ladylike, Thea.”
Amelia sprang into the bedroom Lily shared with her and Jane. “Mary is going to be in trouble,” she sang. “Time to wake up, Lily.”
“I am awake. It is near impossible to sleep in this house.”
“So grumpy.”
“It’s because Felton didn’t marry her,” Jane added, popping up beside Lily’s bed. She bashed her rag doll over Lily’s face, causing Lily to sit up and sputter.
“Jane, I would love to play, but can Baby not be so forceful with me?”
“Impossible.” Jane, tenaciously six years old, frowned. “She is a woman of conviction, and you are sleeping in too late. You are a sloth.”
“I believe you are referring to the deadly sin and not the animal?” She shook her head. “No matter, I don’t see what that has to do with me not getting bashed in the face by a ragdoll,” Lily grumbled, rubbing her forehead.
“You wouldn’t,” Jane said in a singsong voice, twirling away.
Across the hall, Thea and Mary continued arguing.
“Fine, I am up.” Lily grabbed her wrapper from off the back of the chair by her bed. She had been up much too late writing again. Her hands were stained with ink, and her index finger was sore from clutching the quill so tightly.
Amelia sat on her bed, opposite the small room from Lily, and twirled a daisy in her hand. “They are arguing over the kittens again.”
“I see. Perhaps they should…”
“No,” Amealia said, jumping down to the floor. “They don’t wish to hear advice from you. You wouldn’t know what it’s like to have sisters.”
It was always like this. Such careless comments slipped into conversation as if they were shards of glass ripping away at Lily and her love for her family. She bled for them, and still, it wasn’t enough.
“You are my sister, Amelia,” she said earnestly, pushing past the hurt swelling in her chest. “You and Jane, Thea and Mary. And I am glad you have come into my life.”
Jane swung her baby doll violently from side to side, then laughed. “Don’t be daft. We aren’t your sisters.”
