Free Miss Goldsleigh's Secret by Amylynn Bright

memory of going to the famous horse auctions. “The horses were beautiful. And Dalton and the duke taught me all about them. I had the best day.”
    “It sounds like you did.” She laughed, forced into a lighter mood by virtue of his excitement.
    “What about you?” he inquired. “Didn’t you have any fun today?”
    “Yes. It was a bit much is all. I don’t want to complain. We’ve been so very fortunate.”
    “Are you afraid it’s going to end?”
    Olivia sighed. “Well, it will have to at some point. We can’t stay here forever.”
    “Dalton told me this could be my room as long as I want.”
    “I don’t mean we’ll have to leave straightaway.” She didn’t want to leave any more than her brother did. There was a lot to be said for clean sheets and a dearth of pimps stalking her in the hallway. “I’ll come up with a plan. For now, Lady Evelyn wishes to sponsor me for the season. She seems to think she can find me a husband.”
    Warren’s pensive reaction to
the plan
wasn’t what she expected. “You’ll need to be careful, Livvy. Make sure you don’t pick someone like Reginald.”
    “I should hope not.”
    “Pick someone like Lord Dalton,” Warren suggested.
    “I’ll do my best. But I’ll be happy to find a nice quiet gentleman who also loves my younger brother.”
    She didn’t think it was possible, but her brother’s expression grew even more thoughtful. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
    “What do you mean, ‘I’ll be fine?’ You don’t honestly think I would marry a man who wouldn’t have you with us?” All this grown-up behavior was more than a little disconcerting. “We haven’t been through all this together for me to run off and leave you now.” Olivia was heartened to see him grin with relief. “Besides, I don’t really expect things will work out in the miraculous way Lady Evelyn seems to think they will. Hopefully I’ll be able to think of a plan in the meantime.”
    A plan.
    The requirements for the plan were getting more complicated by the minute. There was the huge tally of clothes in her room to reimburse the marquess for. She would have to remember when she searched for the bills from the modistes and such that she would also have to find the ones from the tailor. She’d failed to consider all the clothes and other necessary items purchased for Warren as well. The hole she was standing in was now at least chest-high. If she wasn’t very, very careful, she was going to be buried alive in Mayfair. At least she’d be well dressed in her coffin.
    Her brother, so small in the giant guest bed, sobered her up.
    “Does it still hurt?” Olivia asked her brother while they scraped the pudding bowls with silver spoons. The tray with their dinner plates sat discarded on the ottoman. Warren half-reclined, propped up in bed, pillows behind him and underneath his arm to support it.
    “Umhmmmmmm,” Warren hummed out his answer, his mouth full of banana pudding.
    Olivia unfolded her legs from underneath her and rose from the chair next to his bed. “More or less than earlier?” She took his empty bowl and placed it with the rest of the dishes on the tray. It pained her to see her young brother wince. She helped him to lie comfortably on the mattress, removing the pillows from behind him and arranging them around his bandaged and splinted arm. Still the boy winced and inhaled sharply at the slight jostling her arrangement caused him. “You need not be so brave, Warren. I’m certain it pains you terribly.”
    “I’m a man now.” The set of his jaw showed determination that at once made her proud and saddened her immensely. “If I’m to be a man, then I can’t cry at every little thing.”
    “This is hardly any
little thing
.” Olivia gingerly sat next to him. far enough away to not cause him any more pain. “You fell from a very tall height and broke your arm – quite severely Lord Dalton’s physician tells me.”
    “I didn’t fall!” Warren