CHAPTER 1
“The timing could not be worse, Helena. Although I am beginning to suspect that is the entire point.”
“Were it not for the fact that you are expected tomorrow evening, your father and I would have forbidden you from attending.”
“Which we would do, if it would not make things infinitely more complex. As if they are not that already.”
“This is a warning, Helena.”
“Your final warning.”
“We do not want it to be so—you know that we do not. If only you would listen to us.”
“Is it so much to ask that you behave? Why can’t you be more like your sister?”
“I feel as if we are being punished! After everything your father and I have done for you, this is how you pay us back.”
“Helena! Look at us when we speak to you.”
Lady Helena Monstrose was sitting on the edge of her bed, hands folded in her lap, doing her best to feign remorse because she knew from experience that it was the only way her parents would stop their nagging.
She did not feel any remorse, however, which made the charade infinitely more challenging to pull off.
As was so often the case, when her parents scolded her, and when she became distracted or bored, her mind began to wander. She had been watching her parents with a look in her eyes that she hoped conveyed apology, but once she stopped paying attention…
Soon, her thoughts were elsewhere. Stories she had yet to write. Scenarios she was still puzzling through. Fantastical settings in which her mind lived as if they were reality, far removed from this world and her angry parents.
“Helena!” her father, the Earl of Montrose, snapped.
His voice snapped her back into the room. A shake of the head, and her eyes focused on her parents, who stood before her.
Her father was not an unkind man by any measure, but as an earl, he was not accustomed to not being listened to or obeyed. Hands on his hips, he fixed her with a glare. While Helena’s mother’s arms were folded across her chest, she looked more worried than upset.
“Oh… sorry…” Helena tried for an apologetic smile. “I… What were you saying?”
Her father groaned. “This is the problem! How can you be expected to behave, Helena, if you can’t focus for more than thirty seconds without getting lost in your head?”
“Perhaps it will be better if she does not attend tomorrow evening?” her mother suggested. “We might say that she has been taken ill.”
“That will not do,” her father sighed and rubbed his eyes as if in pain. “The lie will be too obvious—seen through like a glass window. She has no choice but to attend. Just as…” He raised both eyebrows at Helena in warning. “… she has no choice but to behave herself. Although I might have better luck asking a rabid dog not to bark.”
“Please, Helena…” Her mother, the Countess of Montrose, stepped around her father and sat beside her. Then, she took her hands and squeezed them gently. “Tomorrow evening is most important, and you know why. All we ask is that you behave yourself. That you…” She pursed her lips. “That you do what is expected of you.”
“And what exactly is expected of me?” Helena asked, even though she knew the answer.
Her father groaned. “Not this again.”
“You know well enough,” her mother said softly, squeezing her hands again. “When in doubt, just think about what your sister might do. She was always rather adept when it came to societal etiquette.”
Helena snorted. “I think you mean boring.”
“She did as she was told,” her father snapped. “Which is the same I expect from you.” He glared at her in warning. “This is your final chance, Helena. Do not make me regret it.”
If Helena were anybody else, she might have accepted the warning, agreed with the assessment, and made promises that she had no intention of keeping, if for no other reason than to see an end to this conversation because the whole thing was as ridiculous as it was insulting.
A shame that I am not somebody else. Better that than being who they wish I was. My sister, for example. I would rather be yelled at every night for the rest of my life than succumb to a fate such as that.
But she also was not stupid, and that needed to be said.
