Page 5

Her doubts were welling up. Did she really want to leave all of this behind?

Yes. Yes, she did.

Anything to escape a life under that madman’s thumb. Anything.

She placed a foot in the stirrup and got ready to step up and mount her horse when a figure appeared at the stable doors behind her—one she recognized and one that made her groan.

“Going somewhere, Sister?” It was James, her older brother, standing tall against the frame of the doorway.

He had a sensible smile on him, as he always did, and one that annoyed her. She felt that he could get her to agree to anything, always presenting logical arguments and good points in conversations, until she often wondered why she had been on the opposing side, to begin with.

Not this time.

“I am not marrying him, James,” she said crisply, heaving herself into the saddle.

He moved quickly, coming to stand in front of the horse under the pretense of wanting to stroke its nose. “I’m surprised the poor thing can still stand with those bags as stuffed as they are. You might have made room if you had put one of your gownsonthe horse. A tiara, perhaps. Some bracelets around her shins.” He flashed her a warmer grin. “I think she would look very fetching, don’t you?”

Sophia stared at him, annoyed, refusing to believe she wanted to chuckle at the comment.

“Did Father send you?”

“No. Rest easy. He does not know about this.” James made soothing sounds to the eager mare. “Your maid sent me. She’s worried about you.”

“That little?—”

“She cares about you,” James interrupted in that ‘noble’ voice he used when someone had misbehaved. Usually Samuel. “Do you know what trouble she would be in if the Lady under her care disappeared forever? She’d never find a house to work in again. She’d be lucky to find employment as a… Well, the less said about that, the better.”

Twinges of guilt writhed in Sophia’s heart. Gwen had pretty much grown up with her—her lady’s maid since she was fifteen. They had shared a life together, in essence, and Sophia felt horrible now, realizing how much her maid had been willing to risk to give her mistress what she wanted. How much Sophia had been asking.

It had not sunk in until that moment.

“I don’t want to marry him, James,” she said quietly.

“I know, dear sister. I know.” He smiled warmly. “How good are you with a gun?”

“What?”

“Well, since you don’t want to marry him… there’s always another option. We all grab the biggest gun we can find, and we challenge each other to a duel. The survivors then challenge each other,ad nauseam,” he explained in a self-satisfied tone, shrugging as if it were nothing. “At some point, the problem willsolve itself. The feud between the Kendalls and the Pratts will continue to be one for the history books until there are no more of either left.”

Sophia felt unsteady, her hands clammy as they held the reins. She had always had a colorful imagination, and she did not like the picture he had just conjured in her mind. It was hideous… but was it really so far from reality?

We are just doing it more slowly.

“You can end it, Sister.” James moved to her side, taking one of her hands in his. “It’s not a price you have to pay, for this is not a women’s quarrel, but there is a reason why it is the dove that brings peace. Be our dove, dear sister. Be the gentle heart that brings us all to heel, at last.”

He was not holding the reins, not forcing her to do as she was told, not barring the gates that would lead her to freedom. He was asking, with all his heart, his hope shining in his sad eyes. If she gave Meadowsweet the command and squeezed her thighs, she knew her brother would not stand in her way.

The realization was as unnerving as it was encouraging.

“If I did not think it was a trick, I might have been more amenable,” she said, thinking out loud. “They will laugh themselves into a stupor if I do this, applauding themselves for their ingenuity in devising a new, cruel way to seek vengeance.”

James wrinkled his nose, frowning. “I don’t think that is their intention, Sister. I think the duel scared both sides in a way it has not before.”

“Then you don’t know the Pratts, particularlyHis Grace, as well as you think you do,” she remarked. “You don’t simply get over the disgust he harbors for us because of a duel.”

She had been on the receiving end of that disgust at least a handful of times, at gatherings where they had unfortunately crossed paths. Whenever he saw her, he sneered at her as if he was looking at vermin in his larder. Even at her debut, where she had worn what the scandal sheets calledthe most exquisite gown in Christendom, he had soured it with his nasty scowl and turned-up nose.

She had never forgotten the insult.