Free A Kiss for Midwinter (The Brothers Sinister) by Courtney Milan Page A

She returned her mother’s queries as to Mrs. Hall’s health with a minimum number of words—there were children; Lydia had given them oranges—and tried not to think about all the things that Doctor Grantham had said.
    She was not successful. Men and women couldn’t talk of intercourse like that. If they could, it meant that all the pain she’d suffered out of ignorance had been heartbreakingly preventable. She couldn’t think that.
    And angry at him about what had happened? She wasn’t angry at him. What a ridiculous idea. She didn’t care about him, not one iota.
    She thought that as she sat with her mother after dinner, embroidering. She often sat with her mother of an evening; on nights when he had nothing else to do, her father would join them. Tonight, however, it was just her and her mother, sitting together in companionable silence.
    She didn’t care about Grantham. Maybe, every time she saw him, he made her want to look away. But it had nothing to do with what Tom Paggett had done to her all those years ago. It was simply that she disliked his insincere smile, his knowing eyes. His gaze followed her across the room and she could feel it against her skin. He made her belly feel uncertain and fluttery, and she hated that mix of fear and anticipation, that moment where she couldn’t tell if she wanted him to look at her more or never look again.
    He made her feel naïve—like she had been back in that horrible time when Tom had made a fool of her.
    No, she wasn’t angry at him.
    But you should be.
    No. She couldn’t think of what he’d said next, or she’d think of all the other things he’d told her.
    Prussic acid is also known as hydrogen cyanide, and it is one of the deadliest poisons known to man.
    She refused to accept that. She had to believe that horrible Christmas Eve was happenstance. She stabbed her needle blindly into the tablecloth she was embroidering. The alternative was too awful to contemplate. She’d been so confused, scarcely able to breathe. Halfway through December, the babe had stopped moving. She’d begun to worry. And then those cramps had come.
    She stood and put her hands over her abdomen. “Mother,” she said, “I’m not feeling well. If you’ll let me retire early.”
    “Of course.” Her mother frowned in worry. “Do you want me to send anything up for you?”
    Lydia shook her head and climbed the stairs to her room.
    It couldn’t be true. None of it could be true. This was some sort of scheme on Grantham’s part. She wasn’t angry. She couldn’t be. Why, she didn’t feel a thing. Not one single thing. And what he’d said there at the end—
    Once you speak, you have no equal.
    It had made her breath catch and her pulse race, reminding her of the worst days with Tom. Back then, she’d hung on his every word, pretending to perfect propriety while others were around. She’d been eager to have him alone again so that he would say those things again and again. He’d made her feel as if he put the sun and the moon in the skies for her sake alone.
    Lydia, darling, he’d moaned as he took her, Lydia darling, I can’t wait to make you mine.
    Lies. All lies. Doctor Grantham would know the medical term for the foolishness that made a woman want to believe a man when all evidence pointed to his insincerity, but Lydia knew what it felt like. It felt like stupidity. It felt like cramps. It was the absolute worst feeling in the world, the feeling of absolute betrayal as you sat at table in shocked silence. She knew what it felt like, and it was never, ever going to happen to her again.
    Once you speak, you have no equal. She could hear his words in her head. She must have imagined that look in his eyes, that quiet strength in his voice. There must have been a hint of sarcastic inflection in his voice, a roll of his eyes that she had missed. He meant it sarcastically.
    He had to have meant it that way, or those sparks that built up in her belly would burst into flame,