LITMIR.BIZ

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a beloved sister to attempt a proper discourse.”

      Ariella groused, “You have become so conservative. Fine. I won’t discuss any subject without your approval. I will look at you and wait for a wink. No, wait. Tug your left earlobe and I will know I am allowed to speak.”

      “Are you making a mockery of my sincere attempts to see you successfully wed?”

      Ariella sat down, hard. Her little sister wished to see her wed so badly? It was simply stunning.

      Dianna smiled coaxingly. “I also think you should not mention that Papa allows you to live alone in London.”

      “I’m rarely alone. There is a house full of servants, the earl and Aunt Lizzie are often in town, and Uncle Rex and Blanche are just a half hour away at Harrington Hall.”

      “No matter who comes and goes at Harmon House, you live like an independent woman. Our guests would be shocked—Lord Montgomery would be shocked!” She was firm. “Father really needs to come to his senses where you are concerned.”

      “I am not entirely independent. I receive moneys from my estates, but Father is the trustee.” Ariella bit her lip. When had Dianna become so proper? When had she become exactly like everyone else her age and gender? Why couldn’t she see that free thinking and independence were states to be coveted, not condemned?

      Dianna smoothed the gown on the bed. “Father is so smitten with you, he can’t see straight. There is some gossip, you know, about your residing in London without family.” She looked up. “I love you. You are twenty-four. Father isn’t inclined to rush a match, but you are of age. It is time, Ariella. I am looking out for your best interests.”

      Ariella was dismayed. It was time to set her sister straight about Lord Montgomery. “Dianna, please don’t think to match me with Montgomery. I don’t mind being unwed.”

      “If you don’t marry, what will you do? What about children? If Father gives you your inheritance, will you travel the world? For how long? Will you travel at forty? At eighty?”

      “I hope so,” Ariella cried, excited by the notion.

      Dianna shook her head. “That’s madness!”

      They were as different as night and day. “I don’t want to get married,” Ariella said firmly. “I will only marry if it is a true meeting of the minds. But I will be polite to Lord Montgomery. I promised you I won’t speak of the matters I care about, and I won’t—but dear God, cease and desist. I can think of nothing worse than a life of submission to some closed-minded, proper gentleman. I like my life just as it is.”

      Dianna was incredulous. “You’re a woman, Ariella, and God intended for you to take a husband and bear his children—and yes, be submissive to him. What do you mean by a meeting of the minds? Who marries for such a union?”

      Ariella was shocked that her sister would espouse such traditional views—even if almost all of society held them. “I do not know what God decreed for women—or for me,” she managed. “Men have decreed that women must marry and bear children! Dianna, please try to understand. Most men would not let me roam Oxford, in the guise of a man, eavesdropping on the lectures of my favorite professors.” Dianna gasped. “Most men would not allow me to spend entire days in the archives of the British Museum,” Ariella continued firmly. “I refuse to succumb to a traditional marriage—if I ever succumb at all.”

      Dianna moaned. “I can see the future now—you will marry some radical socialist lawyer!”

      “Perhaps I will. Can you truly see me as some proper gent’s wife, staying at home, changing gowns throughout the day, a pretty, useless ornament? Except, of course, for the five, six or seven children I will have to bear, like a broodmare!”

      “That is a terrible way to look at marriage and family,” Dianna said, appearing stunned. “Is that what you think of me? Am I a pretty, useless ornament? Is my mother, is Aunt Lizzie, is our cousin Margery? And bearing children is a wonderful thing. You like children!”

      How had this happened? Ariella wondered. “No, Dianna, I beg your pardon. I do not think of you in such terms. I adore you—you are my sister, and I am so proud of you. None of the women in our family are pretty, useless ornaments.”

      “I am not stupid,” Dianna finally said. “I know you are brilliant. Everyone in this family says so. I know you are better read than just about every gentleman of our acquaintance. I know you think me foolish. But it isn’t foolish to want a good marriage and children. To the contrary, it is admirable to want a home, a husband and children.”

      Ariella backed off. “Of course it is—because you genuinely want those things.”

      “And you don’t. You want to be left alone to read book after book about strange people like the Mongols. It is very foolish to think of spending an entire lifetime consumed with the lives of foreigners and the dead! Unless, of course, you marry a gentleman for his mind! Has it ever occurred to you that one day you might regret such a choice?”

      Ariella was surprised. “No, it hasn’t.” She realized her little sister had grown up. She sighed. “I am not ruling out marriage, Dianna. But I am not in a rush, and I cannot ever marry if it will compromise my happiness.” She added, mostly to please her sister, “Perhaps one day I will find that once-in-a-lifetime love our family is so notorious for.”

      Dianna grumbled, “Well, if so, I hope you are the single de Warenne who will escape the scandal so often associated with our family.”

      Ariella smiled. “Please try to understand. I am very satisfied with my unfashionable status as an aging spinster.”

      Dianna stared grimly. “No one is calling you an old spinster yet. Thank God you have a fortune, and the prospects that come with it. I am afraid you will have a great many regrets if you continue on this way.”

      Ariella hugged her. “I won’t. I swear it.” She laughed a little. “You feel like the older sister now!”

      “I am sending Roselyn to help you dress. We are having an early supper—I cannot recall why. I will lend you my aquamarines. And I know you will be more than pleasant with Montgomery.” Her parting smile was firm, indicating that she had not changed her matrimonial schemes.

      Ariella smiled back, her face plastered into a pleasant expression. She intended it to be the look she would wear for the entire evening, just to make Dianna happy.

      EMILIAN ST XAVIER sat at his father’s large, gilded desk in the library, unable to focus on the ledgers at hand. It was a rare moment, as his life was the estate. But an odd gnawing had begun earlier that day, a familiar restlessness. He hated such feelings, and was always determined to ignore them. But on days like this one, the house felt larger than ever, and even empty, although he kept a full staff.

      He leaned back in his chair, objectively looking around the luxurious, high-ceilinged library. The room bore almost no resemblance to the room in which he had so often been chastised as a sullen boy, when he had been determined to cling to his differences with his father, pretending absolute indifference to Edmund’s wishes and Woodland’s affairs. But even when he had first arrived at the estate, his curiosity had been as strong as his wariness. He had never been inside an Englishman’s home before, and Woodland had seemed palatial. Raiza had insisted he learn to read English, and he had stared at the books in the bookcase behind his father’s head, wondering if he dared steal one so he could read it. Soon he had stolen book after book. In retrospect, he knew Edmund had known he was secretly reading philosophy, poetry and love stories in his bedroom.

      Even though his mother had wanted him to leave the kumpa’nia and go to live with his father, he would never forget her tears and her grief. Edmund had broken her heart by taking him away from her, and he had hated Edmund for hurting Raiza. He had known that he would not be at Woodland if Edmund’s firstborn, pure-blooded son had lived. His Rom pride, which was considerable, had demanded that he remain detached and indifferent to the life his father offered him.

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