“Mother—” Sophie spoke. “Sera shouldn’t have to marry for us.”
The only one who remained silent was Seleste. Seleste, who was being courted by an impoverished earl. The best title the Talbot sisters could hope for. Far below that of a rich, perfect duke.
A rich duke who had never said a word about marriage.
Her mother spoke again, cold and serious, for Sera alone. “You will stop this embarrassing chase. You will find a man who will marry you. And you will marry to secure your sisters’ futures and your own. This season, before the gossip mill ruins you forever. Because marriage is how women win.” She turned to the rest of her daughters. “It’s time you girls see that. Your father’s title will never garner you the respect you deserve. And you haven’t a brother to protect you. Someday, Papa shall be gone, and you shall have to fend for yourselves and to do that, you shall have to marry. And the only way you’ll do that well is for your sister to tidy up the mess she’s made.”
Had she made a mess? Was it true?
She looked from one sister to the next, each wide-eyed with sorrow and something else. Something startlingly like fear.
How she loathed this world and the way it preyed upon women.
Tears came, hot and angry, and she loathed them as well, for their weakness. Why was it that men’s rage came in a flurry of fists, while women’s came on a flood of tears?
The countess watched her for a long moment, not looking to her other daughters when she said, “Now out, all of you. Leave us.”
Her sisters hesitated, bless them, each one looking to her, waiting for her to agree to their departure. She nodded, loving them, knowing what she would do. Prepared to walk away from the man she loved for them. Prepared to, as her mother had said, clean up her mess.
Sophie pulled the door closed behind her, leaving Sera and the countess together. After a long stretch of silence, Sera dashed away her tears and set a hand on the pianoforte, as though she could draw strength from the instrument. She took a deep breath. “Who is the man you wish me to marry?”
Silence stretched between them before her mother approached, reaching for her daughter and placing a hand to her cheek, the soft kidskin like a firm promise. “I wish you to marry the man you wish, Sera. But a duke—”
Tears came again, and Sera could not hold them back. “I don’t care that he’s a duke. That was never of interest.”
“I know.”
“He is Malcolm. I wish for Malcolm.”
The countess shook her head. “But Malcolm is Haven before all, my dear.”
Sera closed her eyes, everything suddenly, startlingly, painfully clear. “He won’t marry me, will he?”
“No,” said her mother, and Sera opened her eyes at that, meeting her mother’s dark brown gaze. “No, he won’t.”
The longer she resisted the truth, the longer she put her sisters in danger. Without marriage, they were all lost. It was her duty as eldest daughter to ensure that never happen.
And then her mother said, quietly, “Unless . . .”
Sera’s heart leapt. She’d do it. Whatever it was.
If it ended with her sisters safe and Malcolm hers, she’d do anything.
Chapter 9
Soiled Sisters’ Summer Siege!
“Thank goodness. She’s brought food.”
Seraphina turned away from the window of the coach when her youngest sister, Sophie, Marchioness of Eversley, announced their arrival at their childhood home. She smiled at the pronouncement—Sophie had always been fond of food—and it was nice to know that some things did not change.
“It’s only two hours to Highley, Sophie.”
“One cannot be too careful,” her sister replied as the door opened, revealing their middle sister, Sesily, armed with a wicker basket. “Do you have pasties?”
“I don’t, as a matter of fact,” Sesily said, setting the basket on the floor and pushing it into the carriage before she lifted her skirts and set foot to the step. “Move in, girlies.”
Sera pressed closer to the far side of Caleb’s largest carriage, which he’d happily relinquished to ferry her and her sisters to the country. To Haven.
She’d put off the travel for several days, imagining, she supposed, that he might forget their agreement. She would have put it off longer if she could have, but Haven had sent word to The Singing Sparrow that if she did not arrive today—ten days since her parliamentary performance, as he referred to it—then he was going to return and fetch her himself.
There were many things Seraphina Bevingstoke had vowed never to do again, but certainly being publicly called to heel by a man was chief among them. And so she’d gone to Caleb and made arrangements to be absent from the Sparrow for several weeks. And then she’d packed her bags. But not before summoning reinforcements.
“Ow!” Her middle sister, Seleste, threw an elbow. “There’s no room, Sesily!”
It seemed that even the largest carriage they could find no longer made for comfortable passage. Even with the windows cracked open to relieve the heat.
Sera sighed. “We’re going to have to make room. Sesily has to fit.”
“Make her sit on the floor,” Seline, the fourth of the fivesome, suggested from the opposite bench of the carriage, waving a fan wildly. “Late to coach, snug as a roach, no?”
Sera laughed at the echo of their father’s rule for their childhood travel. It was improbable that five children and two parents ever made for comfortable passage, but they’d done it. “There are two problems with that line of thinking. First, we are considerably larger than we once were when someone could reasonably fit on the floor. And—”
“And Sesily’s bottom is considerably larger than it once was?” Seleste chimed in.
Everyone laughed as Sesily winked and said, “I rarely hear complaints about the size of my bottom.”
That much, Sera believed. Sesily was far and away the most voluptuous of the five Talbot sisters, and far and away the most coveted. But Sesily embraced scandal even more than the rest of the sisters, did and said whatever she liked and remained unmatched because of it—despite routinely having men slavering after her.
“No doubt the male half of London is afraid of being sat upon. Sit over there,” Seleste replied, pointing to Sophie and Seline.
“No. Sophie needs space. She’s increasing.”
“I knew I chose well,” Seline bragged from her seat.
“She’s not increasing in the next two hours!” Seleste protested, even as she pushed in, pressing Sera closer to the door.
“We don’t know that!”
Sera inhaled deeply, attempting to make herself smaller, but even as she did, she could not find discomfort in the moment. If there were anything in the wide world that could keep her from thinking of the next six weeks of her life, it was the whirling dervish of her four slightly mad, entirely maddening, utterly wonderful sisters.
With a final push, eliciting a frustrated groan from Seleste, “Close the door, William!” Sesily called out to the footman beyond. “Quickly, before we explode from here and cause a scene!”