“An honor?” Dorothy spluttered, jerking her head back to face her brother. “Do you not remember what she said about me the last time we met?”
“Yes.” Allan winced more. “This time, just remember to wear some jewelry. She won’t talk about you then.”
“I do not like jewelry. It’s cold and hard on the skin.” She shuddered at the memory, thinking more of how Lady Webster had told everyone at a ball how scandalous it was that the daughter of the Marquess of Padleigh wasn’t wearing any jewelry at all.
“You cannot stay in this house forever.” Allan abruptly stood. He grew taller in the room, his soft features hardening once more. “Dorothy, you will do as I say.”
“You are ordering me now?” Dorothy spluttered in amazement. “Brother dearest, I am not your pup to command around this house. I am your sister.”
“And I am your guardian!” Allan snapped.
His voice was so loud that Dorothy’s lips parted in wonder. Allan didn’t get this angry. He was a man of laughter and smiles, like their father, but only a handful of occasions this last year had she heard him shout.
“It doesn’t suit you, you know? To shout.”
“Be serious,” Allan hissed, bending forward and resting his hands on the desk. “We all meet people we do not like in this world. We all have to put up with gossip and people talking about us. We have to perform, like circus animals, but it’s the way the world works, and you cannot hide from it any longer.”
“You’re two seconds away from telling me to grow up, Brother.”
“I’m less than that. Grow up!” he snapped at her.
Dorothy felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her. She sat very still, staring back at her bother. She was not a child anymore. She knew perfectly well the way the world worked.
She knew injustice and unfairness. That was what she had been dealt these last two years with the loss of her parents, but they were events she had no control over. Going to stay at the house of a woman she had no respect for, she did have control over. She wanted to refuse it outright.
It seems my brother is taking away that control as well.
“When did I no longer become your sister, Allan, with thoughts and feelings, I wonder?”
Her question seemed to alarm him.
He stood straight again, releasing the desk, staring at her, unblinking.
“The day you read our father’s will, did I become a cumbersome ornament in this house you wanted rid of instead?”
“Dorothy, please. Do not talk like that.” He raised his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. “This discussion is at an end. You shall go to Lady Webster’s retreat. I just need to find someone to go with you.”
“You mean you are not coming?” Dorothy muttered in surprise.
He sat down once more at his desk, not bothering to answer her as he moved to rubbing his temples, evidently suffering from a headache.
“Allan?” She sat forward, waiting for an answer.
* * *
Stephen couldn’t wait any longer. He hesitated outside the door in the darkness, with just one candle in his grasp offering a feeble orange orb around the corridor. As was usual when he arrived at this house, the butler didn’t show him the way, as he knew it so well. For the last ten years, he had been as welcome here as any other in the family.
They are arguing. Again.
The number of times Stephen had walked in on an argument this last year could not be counted. Those arguments seemed to be growing immeasurably, and though the pettiness in Stephen wanted to put it down to Dorothy’s rebellious nature, for he had always put every argument between her and anyone down to that, he knew he could not.
It is the situation as much as everything else. God’s wounds, what will happen next to this family?
He stepped back from the door and knocked on it lightly, announcing his presence as gently as he could.
“Come,” Allan called from inside.
Stephen stepped into the room, the light of his candle now adding to the many others around, illuminating the space with great yellow light. Allan no longer rubbed his temples as he saw Stephen and offered a rather weak smile in greeting.
