Anna fussed and clucked, pulling loose one last curling paper from Clio’s hair. “Miss Whitmore, if you want my opinion, I think you shouldn’t fret over it. Whichever one you choose, she’s certain to find fault.”
Clio sighed. It was true. If there was a door to shut and a candle to read by, Phoebe was content. But Daphne took after their mother—impossible to impress.
“Let’s put them in this one,” she said, crossing into the first bedchamber. “It truly is the best.”
The Blue Room boasted four soaring windows and an expansive view of Twill’s lovely gardens. Plump hedges like sugarplums. Rosebushes in endless varieties. Arbors lush with flowering vines. And beyond it all, the rolling expanse of Kent in late summertime. The fields were the same brilliant jade as her new frock, and the air smelled of blossoms and crushed grass—as though the sun were a magnet hung in the sky, extracting life from the earth. Drawing out everything green and fresh.
If anything could impress her sister, surely it would be this room. This view.
This marvelous castle. Which was, thanks to some whim of her uncle’s, now Clio’s.
Twill Castle was her chance at . . . well, at everything. Independence. Freedom. Security. A future that would have been hers already if only Rafe had cooperated.
She should have known better than to ask. Rafe Brandon simply didn’t cooperate, in the same way lions didn’t cuddle with zebras. It wasn’t in his nature. Every explosive, muscled inch of him was formed for rebellion and defiance . . . interspersed with heavy lifting.
A thin plume of white in the distance caught her eye. Two coaches, approaching on the gravel drive.
“They’re here!” she called out. “Oh, dear. They’re here.”
She rushed down the corridor toward the front stairs, pausing to peer into each room on her way.
Good. Good. Perfect.
Not perfect.
Reeling to a stop on her way down the grand staircase, Clio paused to nudge a hanging portrait square. Then she took the remaining steps at the fastest clip she dared, hurrying across the entrance hall to the open front door.
Two carriages rolled to a halt in the drive.
Servants began piling out of the second coach, unloading valises and trunks. A footman hastened to open the door of the family carriage.
Daphne emerged first, dressed in a lavender traveling habit and a spencer with matching piping—both the height of this summer’s fashion.
Clio moved forward, arms outstretched. “Daphne, dear. How was your journ—”
Daphne shot a meaningful look at the servants. “Really, Clio. Don’t be common. I have a title now.”
After nearly a year of marriage, Daphne was still . . . Daphne.
Thanks to all the effort their mother had invested in Clio’s education and breeding, Mama had been too distracted to mold her second daughter into anything but a fashion-mad, rake-chasing chit. It had been a sort of relief when Daphne eloped with Sir Teddy Cambourne last year, only two months after her debut. He was a shallow, preening sort of gentleman, but at least he had an income and a baronetcy. Her sister could have done much worse.
“Lady Cambourne.” Clio made a formal curtsy. “Welcome to Twill Castle. I’m so delighted you and Sir Teddy have come.”
“Hullo, dumpling.” Her brother-in-law gave her a familiar nudge on the arm.
“But of course we would come,” Daphne said. “We couldn’t let you stay here all alone while you wait for Lord Granville’s return. And once he does return, we’ll have a wedding to plan.”
Fortunately, their youngest sister emerged from the carriage at that moment—saving Clio from inventing a reply.
“Phoebe, darling. It’s so good to see you.”
Clio wanted to catch the girl in a hug, but Phoebe didn’t like hugs. Already, she had a thick book positioned as a shield.
“You’ve grown so tall this summer,” she said instead. “And so pretty.”
At sixteen, Phoebe was willowy and dark-haired, with soft features and bold blue eyes. Well on her way to becoming a beauty. Based on looks alone, she would be a grand success in her first season. But there was something . . . different . . . about Phoebe. There always had been. It seemed as though there was so much happening within her own remarkable mind, she struggled to connect with the people around her.
“We would have been here hours ago if not for the dreadful crush at Charing Cross,” Teddy said. “And then two hours to cross the dashed bridge. Two hours.”
“I thought the smell would make me sick,” Daphne said.
Phoebe consulted her pocket watch. “We misjudged the time of departure. If we’d left twenty minutes earlier, we would have arrived fifty minutes ago.”