She didn’t respond.
“You’re going to want that, too.” He released her arm with a squeeze, then chucked her under the chin. “Mark my words. I’ll see you married to my brother within the month—even if I have to plan the damn wedding myself.”
“What?” She shook herself. “You, plan the wedding?”
A little smile played about her lips as she looked to the exposed ceiling rafters, the barren brick walls, the rough-hewn furniture . . . then back to him. The most crude, inelegant thing in the room.
“Now I’m almost sorry it’s not going to happen,” she said, pulling away. “Because that would be amusing.”
Chapter Two
Which room do you think Daphne and Sir Teddy will prefer?”
Clio stood in the corridor, at the center point between two doorways. She smoothed fretful hands over her new emerald green silk.
“Should we put them in the Blue Room, with the windows looking over the park? Or should I give them the larger chamber, even if it faces the shaded side of the property?”
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.”