Free Woo'd in Haste by Sabrina Darby Page B

house, leaving her father in her wake, and headed inside. There it was clear what had changed. Henrietta and Kate emerged from the sitting room, all smiles even as footmen carried trunks into the house. But the joy Bianca had felt at seeing Luc faded as her gaze fell on Kate, whose expression darkened and then fixed in a smile again, this one obviously false. The precursor most likely to some new cruelty she’d devised.
    “Bea!”
    Bianca didn’t have to glance toward her brother as he ran down the stairs calling her name to know that where Thomas was, Luc followed.
    She could feel his presence the way a summer storm lay on one’s skin. Wild and thrilling and full of expectation.
    Luc .
    Whom she couldn’t acknowledge the way she wished to with the whole household looking on. With Kate there. Kate, who would find a way to torment her if she knew.
    Why did Kate have to come home now? Why couldn’t she just stay away, marry, and never come home? Everyone would be far happier.
    The anticipation of Kate returning always caused anxiety in Bianca’s stomach, but then there was her actual arrival. As usual, a wrenching duality of emotions seized her: an almost joyful longing, as if they were both still children, their mother alive, life good, and also that fear of what this adult Kate would do next. How she would torment her sister. Both feelings were equally unwelcome, and Bianca pushed them away until she was numb and uncaring. Until she could be as politely disinterested in the elegant young woman in front of her as she would with any stranger.
    Bianca deliberately turned to Thomas first, hugged him, and spent an inordinately long time tickling him and generally ignoring Kate. Then, she planned to turn to her stepmother, but Henrietta was greeting Bianca’s father with a display of affection that never failed to irritate and embarrass Bianca. After all, if Henrietta truly loved him, she’d hardly gallivant about most of the year without him.
    “How was Featherley?” Kate asked. Bianca reluctantly turned to her.
    “It was fine.” She didn’t want to admit she’d had fun, to give her sister any room to ruin the experience, even in memory.
    “We should tal—”
    Before she could finish her sentence, Bianca cut her off, risking the wrath of Kate . “I’m very tired, though, from the journey.”
    Then, rather rudely, she did exactly as she wished and left the hall. Her only regret was Luc, whom she didn’t dare look at for fear her expression would reveal everything to everyone.
    Follow me , she thought, willing him to hear the words, to understand what she could not speak out loud.
    Aside from the trunk the footmen had already deposited in her room, it was as she had left it. Yet it was different. She was different. Both more confident and more confused.
    She answered the knock on her door with alacrity, but when the oak had swung out, there was Kate, bearing a brown paper–wrapped package.
    “This is for you,” she said and Bianca eyed the bundle suspiciously. A bribe? A portent of misery to come? “Go on, take it,” she urged when Bianca didn’t reach for it.
    After a long moment, Bianca did and, carrying the package, stepped back into her room.
    Kate followed her.
    Bianca deposited the package on the bed and then tore into it, all too aware that Kate was there, little but large, taking up space, endlessly irritating.
    Beneath the carefully folded paper was a carefully folded cloth—a shimmery blue silk edged with lace. As she shook it out, the dress revealed itself, beautiful and delicate, unlike anything Bianca had ever owned. Far finer than even the new gowns she had purchased in the last few days.
    It was exquisite.
    “It reminded me of you. Of your eyes.”
    “Thank you,” Bianca said slowly, uncomfortable with the seeming kindness. What lay behind this? What threat was still to come?
    “I thought it would also be nice for the party. I didn’t realize you’d be going shopping in