Free Society's Most Scandalous Viscount by Anabelle Bryant Page A

He’d already lost one daughter.
    â€œI hold hope for encouraging news. I miss Helen dearly.” She didn’t elaborate, the implications of the conversation heavier than her heart. Her father had all but banished Helen when he’d discovered her indiscretion. Angelica had never felt the absence of a mother figure more keenly. Instead, Helen had turned to Angelica for assistance and she’d given her the only advice she could fathom.
Flee
. Run as far away as possible, although the decision had cost her more than the purse full of coins she’d stolen to abet her sister’s flight. She missed Helen with a bottomless ache she could never express with tears or words. Relationships between sisters, separated by a mere ten months, were profound, intuitive, and theirs was no exception. Helen had won her freedom at a dear price: never returning home to her family. Angelica would lose her freedom and keep the latter. Life proposed a delicate balance, often disrupted by the flow of one’s choices. No matter they were two of a kind; they existed on opposite sides of reality now. The subject remained off limits with Father and Grandmother, so the frank disclosure struck everyone as unexpected.
    â€œFor it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice—”
    Angelica mentally silenced the list of sins, accustomed to her father’s pious lectures.
    â€œâ€”deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance, and folly.”
    He paused in his sermon though she knew better than to interrupt.
    â€œAll these evils come from inside and defile a person.” He eyed her, waiting for a response.
    â€œMark 7:21.” She begrudgingly answered the unspoken question.
    â€œHave you come to accept our discussion of your future or are you too preoccupied enjoying the shameful freedom your grandmother allows whenever you visit?” He swept his eyes across the landscape as if they stood in a disreputable back alley instead of a lovely seaside garden. His eyes settled on her neckline, a conservative scoop on an otherwise plain muslin day gown, yet she felt compelled to raise her hand to her throat, as if the censure of his eyes wrapped around her neck and applied pressure. She would get her words out.
    â€œWe agreed I would have this time to accept your decision, did we not?” She raised her chin a notch in silent challenge and dropped her hand. She would do Helen’s memory proud and summon courage. She would not be so amendable. Had Grandmother not scurried into the house to offer them privacy when Angelica had come outside, perhaps her father might have measured his words more carefully. The notion faded as it was unlikely.
    Since embracing religion and adopting the doctrine of Paley’s Natural Theology, Father believed everyone and everything belonged in an order ordained by God. He no longer regarded people as individuals with choices and thoughts. He insisted there was a predestined intent for anyone’s existence. This utilitarian view discarded love and affection. Helen had dared step beyond those boundaries. Now Helen was gone. Like a splinter in her heart, the sharp pain of her sister’s absence pinched with every breath.
    â€œI agreed, and will not reconsider. But let this conversation serve as a reminder that you have no choices here. You’ll not commit the same foolish mistakes as your sister. You are not in control. The plan has been finalized and only time stands in our way. You’ll go to the convent and live a respectable life, which will serve to erase the shame and humiliation of your sister. I’ve an arrangement with the vicar. He is in want of a compliant wife. The situation will proceed smoothly, that is if the vicar will have you.” He flashed a look of annoyance, straightening his ramrod posture to a pillar of propriety. “I am an earl, a respected member of