Page 3 of Love Wasn’t Built in a Day

Cilly gave a dramatic groan and flopped back onto the blanket, covering her face with her book. “Will you give me some peace if I do?”

“Oh, of course I will, best of sisters.”

“Only sister,” Cilly pointed out, pedantic as ever. “And I shall hold you to that. Very well, you wretched creature. Though getting changed is such a bother.”

With an exclamation of relief, Hetty got to her feet and pulled her sister up, practically towing her into the house.

Her maid, Jenkins, looked up from her position in a chair by the window as Hetty hurried into her bedroom. Jenkins was perhaps six years Hetty’s senior, and a sensible, no-nonsense woman who had been with Hetty since she was little more than a girl herself.

“Where’s the fire, my lady?” Jenkins asked, setting down the mending she’d been working on as Hetty appeared with her usual burst of energy.

“In my head,” Hetty said, laughing. “We’re going for a walk into town, and then down to the shore to see if I can put it out.”

“Not likely,” Jenkins replied dryly. “If his grace ain’t smothered that spark by now, there’s no snuffing it out at this late stage.”

Hetty returned a mock severe expression, hands on hips. “Very droll, Jenkins, you ought to be on the stage. Now, if you’ve stopped laughing at my expense, would you like to come with us?” she asked, for though she was at liberty to walk out with her sister unescorted, she knew Jenkins was fascinated by the sea, which she had never seen before coming to Little Valentine.

“Well, I’ve not yet finished adjusting that hem on the primrose silk yet,” Jenkins said, clearly warring between what she wished to do and knowing her duty.

“Oh, bother the hem. There’s no rush, is there? I shan’t need it for a few days yet. Come on, we might even have a paddle if there’s no one about.”

Hetty grinned as she saw the moment temptation won out and Jenkins gave in. “Oh, in that case. Yes, please.”

Jenkins did her usual sterling work in readying her mistress and herself in under half an hour, and still they found Cilly waiting for them in the grand hallway. Her elder sister was ever the more efficient and sensible of the two of them and never dithered over what gown or what bonnet or anything, really.

“How pretty you look,” Cilly remarked upon seeing Hetty in the new blue muslin gown she’d donned for their expedition. She had pared it with a short spencer in pale yellow and had been rather pleased with the outfit herself.

“Thank you, as do you,” Hetty replied, admiring Cilly’s trim figure in pale green cambric as she took her sister’s arm.

“Thank you, Howard,” Cilly said politely as the butler, who was a dear fellow, opened the door and wished them a pleasant walk.

They strode out in silence for a while, each enjoying the breeze that ruffled their hair and the chance to stretch their legs. It truly was a lovely place, and the knot of tension that habitually kept Hetty’s shoulders tight seemed to unravel a degree.

Cilly must have felt the same way, for she turned to Hetty with a smile.

“Isn’t it beautiful? I’m so glad we are staying for the summer,” Cilly remarked as they made their way towards the town. She stopped to admire the wildflowers that adorned the roadsides: oxeye daisies that swayed in the breeze, bright clusters of red campions, and the pretty mauve of field scabious. “I shall pick some of these glorious wildflowers on the way home and we shall each have a little bit of countryside for our dressing tables. How I love it here. I never want to return to town.”

“Surely nowhere in the world is better than Ealdor Palace,” Hetty suggested, attempting to look affronted as she echoed a sentiment her father would have wholeheartedly endorsed.

“I shall not dignify that comment with an answer.” There was a slightly cynical twist to Cilly’s lips that Hetty did not like to see. She feared that her lovely sister was far more unhappy that she let on—than either of them let on.

They were both adept at showing the world the sunny, untroubled faces of young women without a care in the world. They had learned at a young age how to pretend, to play make believe, to show people what they wished to see rather than the disagreeable truth. Perhaps they had learned it too well, Hetty mused, for she found her sister increasingly hard to read.

Cilly had every right to be angry at the future laid out before her. If Hetty had been in her position, she would have raged and thrown things at their father and pitched an almighty fit, which is why the duke had never attempted to marry her off to a man of his choosing. Even he had not the fortitude to deal with his youngest daughter’s reprisals if he was foolish enough to force her into a marriage she did not want.

Cilly was another matter.

Her older sister was far more biddable, too aware of what she saw as her duty, and would go to the altar like a good sacrificial lamb. Hetty knew that, at the ripe old age of six and twenty, Cilly was perilously close to being on the shelf. Despite receiving many offers for her hand, Cilly had never found the man she truly wished to marry. Inevitably, their father had lost patience and taken the choice away from her. He would not be swayed, despite them both pleading for him to reconsider.

Cilly had finally capitulated in the spring. Hetty had been appalled.

It was the only thing she and Hetty had ever truly argued over, so furiously that it had taken some time to mend the breach between them. Now they both tiptoed around the subject as if it might rear up and savage them if they did not tread with care.

“At least being married will free me from father’s influence.”

Hetty looked around in surprise at her having broached the subject, her expression one of such shock that Cilly returned a sad smile.

“We shan’t row about it, Hetty, please, but I cannot pretend it will not happen. I can pretend many things, but not that. By Christmas, I shall be the Countess of Crenshaw.” There was resignation in her tone, apprehension too, which Hetty quite understood.