Page 82 of Omega's Virtue: Part One (The Hartwell Sisters Saga 2)

She gave a little nod and allowed me to lead her into the drawing room. Viola ordered tea, but immediately poured a glass of brandy, which she forced Hero to drink with the order that it was medicinal. If there was proof of how ill prepared Hero was for the world, the nearness in their ages exposed it. My sister was a mere two years older, but you’d not know that from the way she acted, what she had accomplished. I closed my eyes and drew in a long painful breath. The Goddess did not deal an even hand, and those who were more sheltered were the ones who were all the more likely to be taken advantage of. Pax’s warning that Stimpson wasn’t to be trusted came back to me. Of course it would take an oppressively protective alpha to pick out the villain.

The drawing room soon filled with the strangely burnt scent I did not have a name for but which I’d caught whiffs of on Polly when she’d come home after one of her… exploits.

I looked at Viola, who looked at Mrs Markham, who watched her daughter.

“I… I can’t.” Hero shook her head. “I can’t! It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

I frowned. Something… something didn’t sit right. Hero’s anger had vanished. Evaporated, as if she’d not shed those tears a few moments before. When Jack had left me, I’d been inconsolable for weeks. And then the pregnancy had brought on another wave of emotions. But in that immediate aftermath? Then, I was blind with a raging grief. Hero showed no more emotion than the twins when they were told they couldn’t do something. A few hot tears and heated words until they were distracted and found something new to occupy themselves. Hero’s bearing, the way she glared at the fire made me think of anything but a woman, however young, who’d been accused of fucking two strangers. That the tale was mine hardly mattered. I felt no shame for what had happened, and in comparison to Hero’s predicament, my own concerns seemed trivial.

“Hero?” I pitched my voice low and rested a hand on her shoulder. “My dear? What about a walk? To clear your head of all these scents? It cannot be pleasant.”

“No!” She pulled away, only to look ashamed of her outburst. “Oh! I… I am sorry, Beatrice. But no. I don’t want to go for a walk.”

“Then what would you like to do?”

“Shoot something.” She bit her lip and frowned in consideration of her next words. “I want to break something because I can’t break anymore than I have already, but everything is sunshine and light and nothing seems to be…”

“You aren’t broken,” I said aghast at the sudden, inexplicable turn of her thoughts..

“I feel it. Is it because I’m rich? That you think he only wants my money? The world is broken if that is the case. I don’t care about the money. I don’t want it. I never wanted it. I want him. Wanted him, and he knew it.”

My world turned back ten years. Money. Money had kept me from Jack. Money. Money, money! It shut doors as soon as it opened them.

“You are young… give it a year…”

“You were a year older than I when you mated Jack.” She snapped.

“How do you…” How did she know about Jack? I clenched my teeth together, afraid I’d say something indelicate. “Jack is a very honourable alpha. Stimpson might have the blood of an alpha, but he is nothing more than a scoundrel .”

Dammit. I’d not meant to say the words aloud.

But it had her spinning about. The cornflower blue of her eyes as bright and dangerous as lightning. “How can you say that! You don’t even know him!”

“I shouldn’t have said what I did,” I admitted. I looked at the two other omegas. Mrs Markham clutched a glass of brandy, and Viola frowned, likely seeing, or sensing, the oddness of Hero’s response to what was undoubtedly a traumatising experience. “Please, Hero. Let us go somewhere more private. There are things I wish to… please, sweet child.” I took on the same coaxing tone Pax had used so effectively with me. Goddess, how I wished he was here. He would know what to do with her! I drank my tea in a quick gulp, relishing the sweetness.

“Child! How dare you call me a child?”

“A turn of phrase,” I snapped, suddenly feeling out of my depth. “Enough. You wish to have an alpha? Then I will tell you what an alpha is like!”

I felt almost hysterical with my need to explain the ways of the world to Hero. I’d foolishly run from them because of my innate omega jealousy.

“I want to shoot!” She whined.

“Fine. But not here. The gallery.”

“He knows it is a lie!” She screamed suddenly before we’d had a chance to leave the room. “He knows. Oh, why did he have to do it? Make up those horrible lies. It was so unnecessary! Everything was going—“

“Oh, Hero.”

“No. You don’t understand. He… We thought that if everyone… That they would capitulate if they thought I’d be heartbroken. He was to give me up, say he could not marry me when my guardians were so against it. I was to cry and beg. Go into a decline. Oh, it was such a good scheme. I never imagined he would repudiate me. There is no way to forgive what he said. We cannot be together now… That he would truly… How can he…”

“What is this?” Viola asked. “You… You thought to manipulate your mother? And why must this happen—”

“I love him. I would do anything to be with him. I don’t want to wait!”

“My darling, no one barred the marriage. I cautioned that you might want to wait until you’ve been presented at court. We think you are young. That is all. If you had waited a few years,” her mother said soothingly.

She continued as if she had not heard them. “We were to get a special license. Or go to Wales to see my uncle, if he couldn’t procure one.”

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