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Martha gasped and looked alarmed. “You don’t think Ryan would offer for me, do you? He is more your age than mine. I like my Isambard, though. Now he is nice and has a good position now he has become a trainee at Mr Richardson’s accountancy firm. Of course, that house of his needs a few feminine touches here and there but it is large enough, don’t you think?”
“Isambard?” Sian knew her father would have a conniption if he could hear her, not least because the Rodgers’ family had no connections whatsoever.
“He is coming into some money soon as well,” Martha added, as if Sian needed persuading.
“No, he won a bet on the horses. Well, that is what I heard in any case. Father hates the Rodgers family. There is no possibility he would ever agree to you marrying Isambard.” Sian winced when she saw Martha’s devastated look. “Believe me, I know what it feels like to have your dreams crushed. Take it from me, it is best if you stop all thoughts of matrimony to a man you love. Marriage is a business contract, really. It rarely has anything to do with love.”
“Now you sound like father, Sian.” Martha stared at her sister as if she had never met her before.
Sian sighed. “Well, if you cannot marry the man you love you will have to marry for financial reasons. We cannot stay here forever, can we? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be the one to have to look after mother and father in their dotage, do you? Don’t you want a house of your own and a little bit of freedom?”
“But you won’t have freedom being married. Your husband will tell you what to do. Oh, you do get some wayward notions into your head, Sian.” Martha, still stinging from the cautionary words about her beloved Isambard, flopped back down onto the bed and draped the blankets over her.
Sian eased out of bed and settled her shawl over her shoulders as she moved closer to the window. Once there, she hugged her shawl and stared blindly outside. She wished she knew what she had done to Ryan to make him dislike her so. She felt sure that if she knew what he found so irritating about her she might know what to do to correct it. As it was, she couldn’t even hazard a guess. Everything she seemed to do was wrong and she couldn’t think of something intelligent to say that would engage him in conversation.
That’s because every time you see him you behave like some tongue-tied adolescent who cannot string two words together.
It was galling, but true.
“If only he wasn’t so handsome, I should know what to do to make him like me. But then, why should I change for a man?” Sian whispered.
“You are going to have to change if you marry. I mean, life can’t ever stand still, or we couldn’t live.” Martha’s voice turned drowsy and she yawned widely.
Hoping her sister would fall asleep sooner rather than later, Sian remained quiet. She perched on the window seat and tucked her knees up so she could wrap her shawl around her frozen toes. Once again, her thoughts turned to Ryan, and the adoration she felt for him. It hurt to think that he might eventually marry. The thought of him having a wife was just something she couldn’t even bear to contemplate. It was devastating, but she suspected she was going to have to live through the ordeal of knowing he loved another anyway. It was only a matter of time. At four and thirty, he was indeed a prize catch. His family had a sterling reputation and was one of the oldest families in the area. Together with his brothers, Gregory and Stuart, the Terrell brothers were recognised by practically every female with a heartbeat in the surrounding counties.
Strangely, though, none of them had ever married. Was Ryan to be the first?
A wave of misery settled over Sian’s shoulders and made her want to cry. She was cold, tired, and knew she should at least try to get some sleep, but her mind wouldn’t settle no matter how much she tried. Instead, she began to pray for a miracle.
At some point, she must have dozed because she was awoken by the sound of dull thudding coming from somewhere deep in the bowels of the house. At first, she blinked sleepily and tried to remember why she wasn’t tucked up in bed. When her gaze landed on the hunched form of Martha still huddled beneath the sheets, Sian remembered exactly what she had been doing – thinking of Ryan again.
“Now who in the world could this be calling upon
us at this unearthly time of the night?” Sian whispered when she realised the sound was someone knocking on the door.
She tried to look at the clock on the mantle. Now that the thunderstorm had passed, the room was bathed in an eerie blackness that made it too dark to see the clock’s handles. It also made crossing the room a hazard. Still, Sian fumbled her way over to the table and clumsily lit a candle.
“What’s going on?” Martha whispered when the sound of heavier knocks was interspersed with a loud commotion outside their bed chamber door.
Sian shrugged and hurried out of her room.
“Who is it?”
“How in the Devil’s name should I know?” Arthur snapped at his wife.
Mabel glared at his back and sighed. “Whoever it is send them on their way. This is not the time of night for a calling on decent folk unannounced.”
Sian rolled her eyes. Her thoughts immediately sprang to Ryan, but she discounted any notion that it might be him on the doorstep. Regardless of how he felt about her, she knew he was too well-bred to ever have a need to call upon them in the middle of the night. Tugging her dressing gown tighter around her, Sian huddled closer to her mother and Martha and waited to see who was trying to beat the front door down.
“What in all that’s holy is wrong?” Arthur thundered.
He slammed the bolt back on the door and yanked it open with a heavy scowl only to be unceremoniously shoved out of the way the second there was enough space. He stumbled back and watched in amazement was a large woman stalked into the hallway with a flurry of feathers and a disgruntled snort.
“It took you long enough, Arthur,” Aunt Wilhelmina growled. “Don’t you know it is raining outside?”
Arthur blinked at her before slowly turning to look at the large carriage parked as close to the door as it was possible to get. The driver was busy untying ropes from the roof of the conveyance while another man was dragging bags out of the interior of the carriage.
“Oh God, no,” Mabel moaned when she saw who it was.
