Distracted by the interruption, and losing her concentration, Madeline stared blankly at her sister.
Diana continued. “The truth is, I need your help. I don’t know what to do.”
“What kind of help?”
Diana clasped both Madeline’s hands in hers. “Oh, my dearest sister. I am suffering.”
“Why? What’s—”
“Madeline, I can’t marry Adam! And I don’t know how to tell him.”
Madeline slowly swallowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“I can’t marry him!” She glanced over her shoulder and lowered her voice to a whisper. “I thought I wanted to when I arrived, but life here is just not what I thought it would be.Adamis not what I thought he would be. He always…oh, heavens Madeline, he smells like theoutdoors.”
“He’s a farmer,” Madeline said dryly.
“I know! That’s exactly it!”
Madeline tried to keep herself from physically shaking her sister.
“All that aside, the real problem now is that I’m afraid I’ve fallen in love with someone else.”
Trying to focus on Diana’s lips moving, Madeline shook her head. “Who? You mean…”
“Yes, the viscount. He adores me, Madeline, but he respects Adam and does not wish to do anything dishonorable.”
“Are you sure? Has he confessed his feelings to you?”
She whispered even more quietly. “Yes. He told me tonight, while you were outside with Mr. Metcalf. Incidentally, what happened out there?”
Madeline’s reply came out light and airy, as if her words were floating languidly on her disbelief. “He proposed to me.”
“Heavens. What did you say?”
“I said no.”
“But why?”
“Because I don’t love him.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Well, you could do better anyway.” Then she shifted the topic back to herself faster than Madeline could saypox on you.
“As I was saying, Adam left us alone for a few minutes, and Lord Blackthorne told me how he felt. He said I was the most beautiful creature in the world, and that he wished I were free, and that if I were, he would take me to Government House and make me his viscountess. Imagine—a viscountess!”
Madeline felt the color drain from her cheeks. “But you barely know each other.”
Diana sighed dreamily. “Sometimes, youjust know.”
Madeline stood up and paced the room. “I don’t know what to say, Diana.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just help me.”
“You want me tohelpyou? After the way you’ve treated me? After the way you treated Adam fifteen years ago, leading him on only to cast him aside?”
“Please, that is precisely why I need you—to lessen the blow. You must try to convince Adam that I am all wrong for him. Perhaps you can prepare him. I feel beastly about it, Madeline, honestly I do, for I remember how I shattered his heart all those years ago and ruined his life, and here I am, about to do it again. I am such a cruel, cruel person! Why do marriage proposals keep coming at me like this? From all directions so that I am forced to break hearts?”
Clearing her throat, Madeline continued to pace. Her anger at her self-centered sister was rising up in her again, and she was beginning to form words and sentences in her mind—nasty, insulting, biting ways to tell Diana the truth: that Adam didn’t want to marry her in the first place! The only reason he hadn’t broken it off with her before was because Madeline had begged him not to!
