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“How is little William?”
“Sound asleep—and don’t change the subject. I’ve seen the note. It’s pointless to try and keep it to yourself. Read it.”
Sighing in defeat, Sabrina withdrew the letter. Her eyes rolled heavenward as Eugenia squashed in close beside her to read aloud:
My Dearest Lady Sabrina,
I have thought of little but your lovely face since the moment we met. You are the very sun in my sky, and I should love nothing better than to bask in the light of your grace and beauty for all eternity. Pray, do not make me wait overlong for the next sunrise.
Your Devoted Servant,
Tristan V. Chadwick
“Oh, that is lovely!” laughed Eugenia, plucking the page from her hands and setting it aside. “At least he refrained from trying to pass off Shakespeare’s sonnets as original prose the way my first suitor did.”
“Yes, at least there is that,” Sabrina muttered.
“What, you’re not thrilled about young master Chadwick’s affection for you?” asked Eugenia, feigning shock. “Pity, I thought him rather sweet. He would break his neck to try and please you, you know. Not a bad thing in a husband, if you ask me.”
“I did not ask. It’s too bad you’re not on the market—then you could marry him, since you like him so much.”
Her sister stared at her knowingly.
“Oh, Eugenia, it’s not that he isn’t nice, but he just isn’t—”
“Henry?” supplied Eugenia, her smile widening. “Your attitude toward him today was quite telling, sister dear.”
“What do you mean? I did my best to try and ignore the brute.”
“Precisely. Have I not always said that the best way to attract a man is to ignore him?”
Sabrina’s mouth dropped open. How could she have forgotten the first rule? Blast it all!
“What I would like to know is why you should wish to be rid of him,” prodded Eugenia. “He is perfect for you, and quite obviously interested.”
“Interested? He brought up ancient history and threw it in my face. Then, after you abandoned me”—she glared pointedly—“he told even more embarrassing stories about me, and in front of an outsider!”
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“Any man who calls on a woman ten years after she put a snake in his pocket is definitely interested.”
“He’s too old.” She couldn’t tell her the truth, that any man who could make her feel the way he did would have entirely too much power over her. Such a man would take her heart and soul as well as her body, and that was unacceptable.
Her sister’s brown eyes twinkled. “My husband is thirteen years my senior, and I can assure you that I am quite happily married.”
“He’s insensitive, quarrelsome, and confrontational,” Sabrina argued, refusing to concede.
“What man isn’t? The main point is: Are you attracted to each other? I think you are.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
“I think you blushed every time you looked at him—right to the very tips of your ears,” sang Eugenia.
“And I think you are a busybody!”
“So you are attracted to him, then. I thought as much.”
“I didn’t say—”
