Seven Wicked Nights (Turner #1.5)

She only ventured out of her room late at night, when the house was quiet at last. She couldn’t sleep and thought a turn in the garden might soothe her spirits. It must be beautiful in the moonlight. But a muffled sound caught her ear as she passed her sister’s room, and before she could reconsider, she tapped gently on the door. “Helen!” she whispered into the jamb. “Let me in!”


The door jerked open and Helen stared at her with wide, wet eyes. She turned her face away, swiping her handkerchief over her face. “Cleo. You’re still awake.”

She felt a chill of guilt. The duke had hinted that he didn’t want to go through with the wedding, and now Helen was crying. She stepped into the room and closed the door. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” Her sister folded the handkerchief into her pocket and went to sit on the sofa. She looked up, a wobbly smile on her face. “Nothing at all.”

“I can see very well that something is wrong.” She sat next to her sister. “Why are you crying?” A sudden fear gripped her. “His Grace didn’t make you cry, did he?”

“I haven’t seen him all day,” said Helen, wringing her handkerchief and missing Cleo’s breath of relief. “How could I, when Mama kept me in this room all day with the dressmaker fussing over my gown, and had Rivers put up my hair three different ways to see which was most flattering, and wouldn’t even let me go down to dinner because she thought I looked pale? She told me I must keep up my strength because I’m to be mistress of a castle.” Her face began to crumple.

“Oh my dear.” Cleo bit her lip. “What brought all this on?”

Helen gripped her hands together in her lap. “The wedding, of course. She’s determined that everything must be perfect, because otherwise His Grace will be disappointed or ashamed of me. I don’t think I can be perfect anymore. I don’t know if I can do … this.” She waved one hand around the beautiful room, but obviously including everything about Kingstag.

In spite of herself, a poisonous weed of hope sprouted in Cleo’s heart. “What do you mean, you don’t know if you can do … this?” She waved one hand around as Helen had done.

Her sister sighed. “Being a duchess sounded so delightful: beautiful clothes and jewels, the highest society, never worrying about money or being received or given the cut direct. And it made Mama and Papa so happy—I cannot tell you how it eased their minds about everything when I accepted Wessex. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them happier.”

Cleo pressed her lips together. She was growing thoroughly tired of her parents’ feelings. What sort of people grew happier at the cost of their children’s joy? Because it was clear to see that Helen, whatever her original feelings about her marriage, was decidedly not happy now. And if Helen wasn’t happy, perhaps she oughtn’t to marry Wessex. She couldn’t bring herself to say such a thing, afraid of persuading her sister to do something she’d regret just because it suited Cleo’s own wishes. But neither could she advise her sister to forge ahead regardless of her feelings. “But you are not happy.”

Helen jumped up and paced away. “I know I should be. Most of the time, I’ve wanted to run into the woods and hide, even as everyone tells me how fortunate I am.”

“Many brides have nerves,” murmured Cleo.

Her sister nodded, nibbling her bottom lip. “Were you nervous, when you married? Are all brides?”

“All brides should be happy,” said Cleo diplomatically. She hadn’t been nervous, she’d been eager. Why, if she were in Helen’s shoes, about to marry Wessex….

But she wasn’t.

“Do you think I will be?”

She blinked at the question. “What?”

“Do you think I will be happy?” repeated her sister. “Married to the duke. Mama sees no other possibility—who could be unhappy, married to one of the richest dukes in England?—but you’ve always been honest with me. What do you think of him, Cleo?”

She sat like a woman turned to stone. How could she possibly answer that, after the traitorous longing that still stained her soul? Wessex was everything she thought a man ought to be, and more. He was the friend she longed for, the companion she had been without for so long, the lover she dreamt of at night. But he would never be hers. “He’s very kind,” she managed to say. “Handsome. Charming, in a wry sort of way. I think he’ll be a good husband.”

“But do you think I can be happy with him?” Helen seized her arm, her fingernails digging into Cleo’s flesh. “Do you?”

Her heart broke at her sister’s expression, anxious and yet hopeful. She swallowed hard. “It doesn’t matter what I think,” she said quietly. “Only you can know what your heart compels you to do. Your happiness is in your hands.”

Helen’s gaze bored into her. “Yes,” she murmured. Her grip loosened on Cleo’s arm as she turned away, her eyes growing distant. “Yes, it is. If I tell him—if I make him understand how I feel—he will have to listen. He did ask me to marry him, and a man doesn’t do that lightly, does he? If I persuade him that all this is too much. Yes, I think he will understand. It’s not too late, is it?”