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But Sian didn’t stop. Her stride remained sure and steady as she made her way down the driveway. She had no idea where she was going but she didn’t stop. If she returned to the house, she was apt to do something rash like pack her belongings and take the first carriage out of town to get away from Wilhelmina, her father, the family squabbles, and yes, Ryan.
“Will you stop and listen to me?” Arthur snarled.
Sian gasped when her father caught her elbow in a fierce grip and yanked her around. Unlike the last time a man had manhandled her, her father’s hold was unpleasant and painful. Ryan had been gentle, tender, and gentlemanly. The stark contrast reminded her just how much of a bully her father could be when he had a mind to. A bully who didn’t care how much misery he put his family through.
“Get your hands off me,” she hissed furiously. Sian watched her father blink and slowly release her. “Don’t you dare manhandle me again.”
“Get back into the house,” Arthur growled.
“No. You might wish to listen to that harridan you call a sister, but I refuse to.”
“You will do as you are told if you wish to remain under my roof,” Arthur shouted. “Get back in there.”
Arthur’s face was florid. When he lifted his hand back as if to strike her, Mabel, who had charged after him, emitted a cry of protest. She clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide with horror.
Everyone froze.
Martha chose that moment to emerge out of the trees. She too stopped to stare.
Arthur looked at each person in turn and found nothing but cold condemnation, fear, and loathing staring coldly back at him. The silence that settled over everyone warned him just how fractured his family had become. Slowly, he lowered his arm and stared in horror at his eldest daughter. For the first time ever, he finally began to see her for the woman she was.
Gone was the girl he had raised from a babe in arms. In her place was a strong, determined young woman who gazed back at him with maturity that was startling. He didn’t recognise her and wondered when she had left youth behind and embraced adulthood. Even Martha, who stood with her head tilted proudly from her safe distance at the edge of the drive, had blossomed into womanhood. Both of his daughters had grown up, and he hadn’t even noticed.
Sucking in a breath, Arthur made a decision. Looking coldly at each of his daughters, he then threw a dark look at Mabel before he squared his shoulders and turned to Sian once more.
“You are to be wed to Cedrick, and that is the end of it. I have already posed an announcement in the newspaper. It will be released in the morning.”
Arthur expected some sort of reaction. The silence that greeted him was cold, and isolated him even more, but now that he had spoken the words he couldn’t take them back. They hovered over everyone and seemed to fracture the assembled group of people to the point that it was difficult to remember a time when they had been considered a family. Well aware that he had now earnt everyone’s contempt, Arthur silently made his way back to the house. His gaze flickered to Cedrick, who beamed his delight and bowed politely at his soon-to-be father-in-law as Arthur swept into the house. Wilhelmina elbowed him sharply when Cedrick opened his mouth to call out something to Sian. She followed it with a warning glare and remained uncharacteristically quiet as Mabel and her daughters gathered together in the driveway and returned to the house. Without even acknowledging Wilhelmina or Cedrick, they filed into the house and preceded up the stairs to their bed chamber, or Sian and Martha’s in any case.
Once there, Mabel closed the door.
“I won’t do it, mama,” Sian bit out. Tears gathered on her lashes because she knew just how hopeless her situation was and how little her father valued her opinion. She suspected she could scream her rejection from the highest rooftop and he would blithely ignore her. “I will not marry that oaf.”
“I know you are not.”
“If you don’t, father will try to force me to,” Martha cried. “And I am not going to marry him either.”
“Well, you can thwart him by marrying Isambard, with or without his agreement. I don’t have anybody to marry me,” Sian moaned.
“Ryan would,” Martha offered helpfully.
“He hates me,” Sian cried. “Ryan Terrell doesn’t even see me as a woman, much less a future wife. He wouldn’t ruin his family name by being saddled with the likes of me.”
“Don’t put yourself down, Sian,” Mabel ordered.
She sucked in an indignant breath and straightened the skirt on her dress as she prepared to battle, only what she was going to use as a weapon to fight this particular war she had no idea yet.
“We will all thwart him. Oh, I know I should have listened to my father. He warned me that Arthur was a cold fish. He told me, but I just wouldn’t listen,” Mabel bit out. “Now am I going to live the rest of my life regretting it.”
“But father never used to be like this. There was a time when he used to laugh and play with us. Now, it is as if he just doesn’t like us anymore,” Martha moaned.
“I did put his surly behaviour down to his worry over this financial crisis your father has gotten us into, but I suspect it is more than that,” Mabel murmured somewhat absently. “Right, well, we aren’t going to get anything done standing around here talking about it. We have to do something.”
“What?” Sian held her hands out in a beseeching gesture, but her mother couldn’t come up with any solutions either.
“Can’t we ask Ryan to help us?” Lucinda asked.
“No. He would just tell your father. From what I have heard this morning, Ryan is just as annoyed with him as we are,” Mabel sighed. “Besides, this is a family matter. We have to deal with t
