Free Treasured Vows by Cathy Maxwell Page A

her problems. She had to think, to use her wits.
    “Here, miss, let me brush out your hair. You’ve lost a few pins. You have to be careful when you remove your bonnet.”
    Phadra sat down at the chair in front of her mirror and for five wonderful minutes Annie brushed her hair out. Then she started to pin it back up again.
    Phadra raised her hands to stop her. “Do we have to?”
    The maid’s gaze met hers in the mirror. “It’s Lady Evans’s orders, miss.”
    Lowering her arms, Phadra frowned in the mirror. She hated wearing her hair pinned up. However, the hairstyle was so ugly that maybe it would scare Jules Woodlac and Squire Blaney away. All she had to dowas thwart Lord and Lady Evans until she’d thought of a plan to either extricate herself from debt or find her father.
    Her gaze moved from her own image to her bedside table, searching for the wooden horse, which she had left there.
    The horse wasn’t there.
    Phadra rose to her feet, heedless of Annie, who was just about to stick another pin in her hair, and walked over to the bedside table.
    She found the horse, but its front legs no longer pawed the air. They’d been snapped off. The head had been hit against the night table until it had splintered into pieces.
    There was only one person Phadra could think of who could have done something this petty, this spiteful, this vicious. She picked up the pieces in her hand and stormed out of her room.
    A footman opened the doors to the yellow parlor, so Phadra didn’t have to stop until she stood in front of Miranda, who made a charming picture in blue silk, sitting in a chair opposite Mrs. Woodlac. Phadra dumped the pieces of the horse in her lap.
    “What is this?” Miranda asked, her eyes wide, as if seeing the horse for the first time.
    For a second Phadra’s conviction wavered, but then she saw the laughter lurking deep in Miranda’s eyes. “You tell me,” Phadra said, her voice low and taut with the force of her anger.
    “Was this your little horse?” Miranda tilted her head and slid a sly gaze up at Phadra before asking innocently, “However did it end up in so many pieces? Or was it that cheaply made?”
    Phadra wanted to punch her. She forced herself tokeep her arms at her side, her fists clenching handfuls of her skirt in an effort to exert control over her emotions. She’d never hated anyone the way she hated Miranda Evans at that moment.
    But she also knew there wasn’t anything she could do to Miranda.
    What was worse, Miranda knew it, too. Her eyes glowed with challenge. With slow, deliberate movements, she brushed her hand against her skirt, sweeping the pieces of wood onto the floor. “I don’t like things that are broken,” she said. “Do you?”
    Phadra stared at the pieces lying on the India carpet. “It was my only link with my father,” she said, as if she could make Miranda understand the magnitude of her hateful act.
    Miranda shrugged and looked away. Phadra fought the urge to shake her, to make her understand. She knew it would be no use. People like Miranda, who had everything they wanted, didn’t understand what it meant to have little.
    Slowly, almost as if in a dream, Phadra looked around the room at the people who had witnessed this scene. She saw Lord and Lady Evans, the footman and butler, Jules and his gluttonous mother, and Squire Blaney, who’d cupped a hand to his ear as if to pick up every sound he could. Finally she forced herself to look up at Mr. Morgan. He had come over to pick up the pieces of the horse, and now held them out in his hand. She hated the expression on his face—one of pity for her.
    Phadra drew in a deep breath and held her head as high as any duchess. “Throw it away. I don’t want it.” She walked out of the room, refusing to look back.
    But her composure didn’t last past the door of her bedroom. Once inside, she collapsed like a wet sugar cake and stayed there until all of her tears were spent. She cried for her mother, for the