Free Quick, Amanda by Reckless

activities.
    Clarington would have been shocked to know of his wife's predilection for games of chance.
    Phoebe, the youngest in the family, was the only one who had not shown any ability in the fields of
    mathematics or investments. Early on it had become obvious to everyone including Phoebe that she had
    not inherited the family talents.
    The others loved her dearly, but they did not know quite what to make of her. She was different, and
    that difference frequently baffled everyone except her mother, who generally seemed unfazed by
    Phoebe's ways.
    Phoebe was the changeling in the family. The others reached conclusions based on logic. Phoebe used
    intuition. She read novels while the others studied the stock exchange summaries in The Gentleman's
    Magazine. She was reckless where the others were cautious. She was enthusiastic where the others were
    wary. She was eager where the others tended to be disinterested or disapproving. And she was, of
    course, the youngest.
    The result had been an overprotective attitude toward Phoebe from everyone else in the family except
    her mother. They all spent a great deal of time fretting about her impulsive ways. That attitude had
    intensified after the carriage accident that had left her with a badly injured leg.
    The accident had occurred because of Phoebe's reckless attempt to save a puppy from being crushed
    by the vehicle. It was Phoebe, not the pup, who had ended up beneath the carriage wheels.
    The doctors had gravely informed Clarington that his youngest child would never walk again. The family
    had been devastated. Everyone had hovered. Everyone had worried. Everyone had tried to keep
    eight-year-old Phoebe confined to a sickroom.
    Phoebe, being Phoebe, had resisted the efforts to turn her into an invalid. She had defied the doctors by
    secretly teaching herself to walk again. To this day she still remembered the pain of those first tottering
    steps. Only her determination not to be bedridden for the rest of her life had made the effort possible.
    Her family, unfortunately, had never quite recovered from the shock of the accident. For them it was only
    one incident, albeit the most memorable, in a series of incidents that proved Phoebe needed to be
    protected from her reckless ways.
    "I do not want Kilbourne to buffer for me," Phoebe said. She propped her slippered feet on a small
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    footstool and absently massaged her left leg, which was a bit sore from riding that morning.
    "Nonsense. Of course you want him to offer for you." Meredith set another stitch. She was two years
    older than Phoebe and the two were as opposite in both appearance and temperament as night and day.
    Blond, blue-eyed, and as dainty as a piece of fine porcelain, Meredith had once been a shy, timid
    creature who had quaked at the thought of the intimate embrace she would encounter in the marriage
    bed.
    Years ago when she had been on the brink of her debut into Society, Meredith had confided quite
    seriously to Phoebe that she wished to take religious vows in order to escape the demands of a husband.
    Phoebe had agreed that joining a holy order might be quite interesting, provided one got to live in an
    ancient, haunted abbey. The notion of encountering a few genuine ghosts had a certain appeal.
    It was just as well Meredith had not followed her religious inclinations, Phoebe decided. Marriage had
    been good for her. Today Meredith was a cheerful, contented woman who reveled in the adoration of
    her indulgent husband, the Marquess of Trowbridge, and the love of her three healthy children.
    "I'm serious, Meredith. I do not wish to marry Kilbourne."
    Meredith looked up, her crystal-clear blue eyes wide in surprise. "Good heavens. What on earth are you
    saying? He's the fourth in the direct line. And the Kilbourne fortune is at least as large as Trowbridge's.
    Certainly it is equal to Papa's. Mama is so thrilled at the