Free The Rebel Bride by Catherine Coulter

four months away, Harry. Four months with just Sir Oliver. It’s an eternity.”
    Harry searched his mind for sage words, reassuring words, for he was, after all, her elder brother. He could think of nothing except the warning that he had given her many times before. “Don’t forget to take care that father does not find out about your escapades during the day. You know as well as I what he would do.”
    It gave Harry a start to see her woebegone expression vanish and a curiously cold and hard look take its place. “Do you take me for a simpleton, Harry? Of course I know what he would do. He would beat me within an inch of my life. We both know it is quite a habit with him.”
    Harry was appalled that she could speak with such hardness. The picture of Kate as a child rose in his mind; her laughter, her openness, Kate tugging on his coattails, begging to be included in his games.
    “Lord, Kate, why does he hate you so?”
    His voice shook with impotent fury. He had argued with his father on several occasions, in an attempt to draw Sir Oliver’s anger onto himself. He felt a miserable coward, for he seldom succeeded, and when he did succeed, it never lasted long. Just until Sir Oliver again recalled the existence of his daughter.
    “When Mother was alive, he was not so cruel,” he said, to himself more than to his sister.
    Kate cut him short, her voice grim. “No, Harry. He became so toward me before mother died. Of that I am certain. But why does he hate me? I don’t know. Nor do I believe I really care now, not anymore.”
    Harry grasped her shoulders and in a sudden protective gesture pulled her against him. She was alarmingly stiff. He thought back to his mother’s funeral and felt a stab of pain. He had been at Eton that year and had been home rarely, savoring his freedom and his image of himself as being quite grown-up. It was after the funeral that he had sensed a change in his father.
    Kate relaxed against him but didn’t speak. It had been many years since Harry had held her, and he became aware that he was holding not just his little sister, but a woman. Maybe that is the reason, he thought. Maybe Sir Oliver finds it painful to be with Kate because she so closely resembles our mother.
    Kate drew back from the circle of Harry’s arms and looked out over the poorly kept lawn. She despised herself for her weakness, such damnable weakness. If she lost her pride, she would have nothing else.
    “It’s that damned religion of his,” Harry said between clenched teeth. “I wish I could burn all those ridiculous musty books. They’ve rotted his brain and turned him into a monster, at least where you’re concerned.”
    To his surprise, Kate turned back to him and gave a mirthless laugh. “Do not curse his religion, Harry, for I, in truth, find it many times my salvation. You know, he is scarce aware of my existence, at least during the day. Even Filber dares not disturb him in his theological studies.”
    Harry’s lips tightened in disdain as the memory of the stern lecture he had received from Sir Oliver only an hour earlier came back to him.
    “Damnation, the only thing he can think about is his infernal wages of sin. And adjuring me to be a son worthy of his father’s honor, whatever the devil that means. What claim does he have to any honor?”
    Kate’s eyes brightened for a moment in tenderamusement. “What, dear brother, do you mean that you don’t intend to become a Methodist?”
    Kate was rewarded, for Harry gave her a twisted grin, the frown fading from his forehead.
    “Hold a moment, Marcham,” he called out, seeing his valet emerge from the stable with their horses.
    At that moment Kate felt immeasurably older than Harry. She looked at his blond curls, brushed and pomaded into what he had stiffly informed her was the latest style. His breeches and waistcoat were of severe, somber color, but she knew that before he arrived at Oxford he would change into the florid yellow patterned waistcoat