Free The Infamous Bride by Kelly McClymer

only fate itself."
    Helena persisted. "What fate?"
    Rosaline said dryly, "Better to ask whose fate, Hellie."
    Juliet made a face to quiet her sister's laughter. "Do we not perform a play every year at this house party?"
    "We do."
    "And do we players not practice for hours and hours to get everything right?"
    "Yes."
    "Then don't you imagine, with so much chance to get to know me, that Mr. Hopkins will see that he has completely misjudged my good sense and judgment?"
    "Or he shall learn that all his suspicions were correct," Rosaline teased her mercilessly.
    Juliet shook her head. "Master Shakespeare's play is just the thing to bring him around."
    The girls leaned forward eagerly. "What play?"
    "Romeo and Juliet, of course." Juliet was proud of her scheme, certain of success.
    Helena frowned. "Will the men participate in such a play? Or will we end with all women doing the manly parts?"
    "Whyever would we?" Juliet could not imagine the men refusing to participate in her play. They had never done so in previous years.
    "No man enjoys the swooning, lovesick Romeo." Rosaline shook her head as she lowered her face mask again and raised her sword to Helena. "You forget, sister, there are battles aplenty to be fought." She added with another laugh, "In addition to the one Juliet will fight for Mr. Hopkins's heart."
    Helena nodded, dropping her face mask into place. "True enough."
    She raised her sword to engage with Rosaline again but then hesitated and turned back to ask, "I suppose we needn't ask who you will choose to play Juliet."
    Juliet smiled, pleased that Helena had seen her cleverness. Surely if her sister could see that no one else could play the role, so would those she must entice to act in her play. "It was fate, my sisters. Fate that made Father give me the name Juliet."
    "What part will you give Mr. Hopkins, then? Romeo?"
    Juliet shuddered at the thought. "I want to make a friend of him, not a lover. He shall be Tybalt."
    Rosaline saluted with her sword. "I suppose poor Lord Pendrake will have only you to thank, then, for being cast as Romeo."
    "I did promise him a lead role in our next production last year." Uncertain of whether he would still wish the role or, indeed, if he and his fiancee would attend at all, Juliet was determined to believe that all would be well. She did have a solution if things did not go the right way at first, however. Mr. Hopkins would no doubt dislike acting. If she persuaded him to take the part, he would fail miserably at portraying a passionate, lovestruck young man. Then she would be free to prevail upon Pendrake to take the role over with no one gossiping about her choice.
    Rosaline and Helena looked at each other, then at her. Rosaline's tart answer was obviously meant to be from both of them. "I know that you have not always paid close attention to your lessons. You are aware that Juliet ended up dead at the end of the play?"
    Helena added, "And Romeo as well."
    Rosaline said softly, "Hellie, I don't think our present-day Juliet cares much about the fate of Romeo so long as he died loving his Juliet."
    "My thoughts exactly, my wise young sister."
    "Not so much younger-twenty minutes."
    With muffled giggles, they engaged in their mock sword fight, giving Juliet no further notice.
    Juliet dismissed them — and their comments — as childish. Ancient tragedies indeed. The play was just the thing to bring Mr. Hopkins around to become her friend and to help her straighten out the muddle with Pendrake. The American might seem unmovable, but she would find a way into whatever softness his heart held. She knew that she could convince his sister to help her cause. She had to.
    For a moment she was troubled thinking of Helena's worry that the man might actually fall in love with her, and then she shrugged the thought off. She would never let it go further, even if the foolish man turned out to be capable of more than the brotherly affection he had shown his sister — which she very much