Free Mariah's Prize by MIRANDA JARRETT

the color would suit her. But if she accepted it. “No,” she said with’a firmness that surprised herself.
    “I told him before I couldn’t dine with him at his house, and I can’t keep the gown. You must take it away, madame.”
    The older woman shook her head so sharply that a fine dusting of white powder fell from her hair to the dark lute string shoulders of her pelisse. “No, Miss West, the gown is yours, and I cannot take it back without risking Captain
    Sparhawk’s anger,” she said firmly. She motioned for Amity to lay the muslin wrapper on the kitchen table and then very carefully spread the gown on top of it.
    “Good day, ladies.”
    Mariah stared at the gown on the table.
    “I can’t keep it, and I can’t go to his house for supper,” she said wretchedly.
    “I told him when he’d asked me before that I couldn’t. To do so would be madness.”
    “To do so would be heaven, ” Riah! ” declared Jenny.
    “All along you’ve sworn there’s nothing between you and Captain Sparhawk save boring counting house matters. If that’s true, then why are you so frightened of him?”
    “I’m not frightened of him!”
    “Then you’re frightened of yourself, and that’s worse.” She smiled indulgently, delighted for once to know more than Mariah. “What harm could come of it? All you do is work, ” Riah. Even when you were with Daniel O’Bieme, the pair of you were as serious as old sticks. “
    “That’s not fair. Jenny,” said Mariah resentfully.
    “Well, it’s true enough, and I’ll wager that Captain Sparhawk wouldn’t be an old stick with any lady. If you don’t wish to go to his house—and even I’ll grant that that might be seen as passing bold—then meet him elsewhere for supper, the way you said. He is sailing our ship, ” Riah. He wouldn’t dare dishonor you. Though he might call you a blind ninny for walking into walls. I vow you look like you’ve been brawling in a tavern. “
    Self-consciously Mariah touched the bright, swollen bruise on the side of her face. She hadn’t told her mother or sister the real cause, not wanting them to worry, and though it did look like she’d been brawling in some rum shop, Gabriel would understand.
    Gabriel. Since when had she come to think first of Gabriel instead of Daniel?
    Watching Mariah waver. Jenny continued, clapping her hands before her for emphasis.
    “You might as well keep the gown, too. Likely Madame Lambert’s already told everyone who’s passed through her shop this week about it and you and Captain Sparhawk. Go ahead and enjoy the gown since you’ll suffer her gossip regardless.”
    Mariah looked from her sister’s dimpled face to the gown and back again, surprised to find Jenny’s logic worth considering. She’d always been so busy watching over Jenny that she hadn’t realized her younger sister might have an opinion or two herself.
    “Can you imagine what Father would say?” said Mariah, trying to smile.
    “He’d double damn me for a brazen hussy.”
    “Oh, no, he wouldn’t, ” Riah, any more than Mama would, if you asked her. ” Jenny’s smile shrank, her pretty face taking on a bitterness that Mariah would never have expected.
    “Captain Sparhawk is rich, and we are—well, we are something quite other than rich, aren’t we?”
    “Oh, Jenny,” murmured Mariah, resting a hand on Jenny’s shoulder. She couldn’t argue with her sister, not about this. Too well she remembered the awful conversation she’d had with her mother the night the Thomases had come to, dine.
    “I suppose they just want us to be happy and not to want.”
    “I won’t credit the happiness part, not from Mama,” said Jenny vehemently.
    “She doesn’t like my Elisha any more than she liked your Daniel. If we let her, she’ll marry us off to whichever shriveled old men offer her the most. Don’t try to say otherwise, ” Riah, you know it’s true! “
    She sighed with frustration, and reached out to trace one of the