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. . . that he gave me.” Her lips trembled. “The quote about me. Maybe you did not think it was significant, because he didn’t write it himself, but I loved it! It was the sweetest thing any man has ever done for me, and I could easily fall in love with him, and you knew that, and you just sat there and—and— flirted with him, in the most obvious and disgusting manner!”
My mouth had dropped open at her first sentence and I stared at her, stunned. “You mean that paper was from the elder Mr. Brandon?”
“Of course it was!” She wiped at her cheeks. “Who else could it have been from?”
“The son, of course!” I was yelling now. I was horrified at what I had done, but I was appalled, too, that Sylvia had not imagined that there could have been some confusion on my part. “The man who is closer to your age! The handsome one!”
Her eyes opened wide with incredulity. “He is a younger son, Kitty.
My children would never have a chance at inheriting anything. The father at least has a title, even if he is only a baron. Besides, I would never be interested in the son. He would drag me all over the countryside, talking about adventures and making me go places that I did not want to go. It would . . . it would be like being married to you! I would hate it!”
I reared back, feeling as if I had been struck. “I . . . I thought it was a compliment to me that you liked the son. I thought we . . .” I took a breath, and let it out with a feeling of great loss. “I thought we were the dearest of friends.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “I think we were good childhood friends, Kitty. But we have been different now for quite some time.”
I sighed and rubbed my forehead, feeling suddenly much too tired for this. “Kate. Please. Please, just once, call me Kate.”
Her expression hardened again, and she looked at me with tightly closed lips.
“You never liked who I grew into, did you?” I asked, suddenly real-izing the truth. “That is why you refuse to call me Kate.”
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She lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. She did not need to confirm it. I knew it was true. And with the knowledge came a heavy sense of loss.
“Never mind,” I said. “It doesn’t matter what you call me. I am so sorry I flirted with your Mr. Brandon. I had no idea. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think there is any chance of my having stolen him away from you. He kept looking your way.”
“Really?” A small smile appeared.
“Yes. Really. Hopefully no permanent harm has been done.”
I pulled out a chair and sat down heavily, feeling defeated. There went two of my prospects. Mr. Pritchard and Mr. Brandon both had to be crossed off my list. That left only the nervous Mr. Dyer, and I had no hope in him. I rested my chin on my hand. Sylvia pulled out the chair next to me and sat down, turning toward me. I could feel her gaze on my face, but I was too embarrassed to meet it.
“I have never seen you behave like that,” she said in a quiet voice. “I have never seen you flirt with any man, much less two in one night. But watching you reminded me very much of someone else.”
I covered my eyes with my hand, dreading her next words. I shook my head. “Don’t say it.”
“You looked very much like Eleanor in there. First, with Mr.
Pritchard. And then with Mr. Brandon.”
I closed my eyes tight and fought back tears.
“I need to know why you acted that way, Kitty. If you want to stay here, I need to understand.”
Her words sounded like a threat. If I wanted to stay here? I dropped my hand and looked at her with disbelief. Would she really make me leave Blackmoore simply because I had flirted with two gentlemen? She met my gaze directly and did not look as if she was teasing.
“Very well. I will tell you why I flirted this evening, even though flirt-ing is no great crime.” I drew in a deep breath. “I made a bargain with 89
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Mama. She will give me my freedom—my independence—to go to India if I receive and reject three marriage proposals.”
Sylvia stared at me, then laughed, one short, mirthless laugh. “So you thought you could flirt with some gentlemen and then they would propose to you?”
My face burned again. “It has happened to other young ladies.”
She was shaking her head, and her disbelief turned to something I hated even more: pity.
“I have to tell you something, Kit—Kate. And I am not telling you this because I’m upset with you. I am telling you this because I am your friend and you deserve to hear the truth.”
Dread pooled within me. My heart picked up speed with nervousness.
I was quite certain I did not want to hear whatever she had to say.
Leaning toward me, she looked into my eyes and said, “No man here will propose to you.”
I flinched. My pride reared up. “You sound so sure of yourself, Sylvia.” My voice sounded bitter. “How can you say that?”
“Because all of the people here are friends of my mother. And all of them know about Eleanor.”
I blanched. “But that is old news. She is married now. She cannot hurt me anymore.”
Sylvia shook her head, and her cool blue eyes were full of pity. “There are new rumors in London. I didn’t want to tell you, but everyone in our set, the entire Ton, is whispering about her.”
“But she is married,” I said again, unable to think past that idea.
“Married women can cause as much scandal as unmarried ones,”
Sylvia said with a jaded look.
I dropped my head into my hands, feeling all hope leaving me.
“In fact, when Mama heard the rumors, she wrote to Henry and told him you could no longer come to Blackmoore. But Henry fought her, and I stood up for you, too, Kitty. I told her that you had never behaved like Eleanor, and you never would. I told her that our guests would have 90
nothing to fear from your company . . . that they would not be tainted by any scandal while you were with us.”
I breathed in and out, trying not to cry. “I only want to go to India.
It’s the only reason I did what I did.”
She was silent for so long that I raised my head and looked at her.
Condemnation was written all over her face—judgment and reproach and dismissal. “Even if there was a chance that you might succeed, I cannot believe you would use some unsuspecting man to get what you want. Did you not think of the moral implications of your plan? To use these men— to toy with their hearts—to lead them to fall in love with you, all the while knowing you would reject them! It’s heartless. Absolutely heartless.
And selfish and . . . and . . .” She sucked in a breath. “It sounds like your mother, to be honest. It sounds exactly like something she would do.”
I flinched at the words she threw at me. “It does not,” I said, my voice sounding savage. I pushed back my chair and stood, hands clenched into fists. “I am not my mother. I am never going to be like her. I can’t believe you would say that. After all these years of knowing how I feel about her and knowing how loath I am to become like her! How could you say such a thing?”
She stared at me, her eyes filled with pain but her lips pressed tight. An apology would not escape, she seemed to say. She was separate from me.
She looked at me as someone she pitied but not someone she cared for.
The truth of her words pounded at my soul, but I would not let them in, just as she would not let an apology out. We were beyond each other’s reach, and after a long stretch of tension and silence and stubbornness from both of us, she looked over her shoulder at the door. At the way back to the world she belonged in.
“I should return to the guests. Mama will be wondering where I am.”
She waited, shifting from one foot to another, and I felt a crack in my defenses—a weak place where truth knifed and twisted and pried for an opening. I could not bear to have her witness my vulnerability. I brushed past her and opened the door myself. I left her with a strong stride and 91