Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 95222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95222 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 476(@200wpm)___ 381(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
‘You must marry her,’ Mama declares, finding it in herself to face us.
‘What?’
‘You heard me, Frank Melrose.’
I laugh, and it is quite hysterical. ‘Let us not be hasty, Mama.’ Married?
Mama’s face suddenly blanches. ‘Clara,’ she whispers, her original distress coming back to her as she looks past me to Taya, shaking her head to herself as she does. ‘I will wait outside for you, if you would care to dress and meet me there.’ She leaves, and I face Taya.
‘Well, this is all rather unfortunate, isn’t it?’
‘Terribly unfortunate,’ she says with a tight jaw, standing abruptly from the bed and practically ripping off my shirt, leaving her naked as the day she was born. She is shaking like a jelly, her entire body vibrating. ‘You are an ass, Frank Melrose.’ She swipes up her clothes and pulls them on with heavy hands, her face tight, while I stand like a fool in the middle of my room watching her dress, confused by the animosity pouring from her.
‘You think I’m an ass?’ I ask.
‘Yes, I do.’
I recoil. Well, her opinion certainly did change quickly. I was a God last night. ‘I suppose that is your privilege.’
‘You are right. Now, if you don’t mind, I will be leaving.’ She breezes past me, her chin high, and I reach to stop her but get smacked away.
‘Taya, be reasonable, this situation needs some careful consideration. You can’t very well go storming out in your clothes from yesterday evening in broad daylight. The whole square will be talking.’ She surely isn’t that bold and uncaring of society’s opinion.
‘Fear not, I am quite capable of getting myself out of this little scrape that I have come to find myself in.’
Or walk into willingly, I think to myself. Scrape? She makes it sound like an unfortunate happening. Regardless, I am sure she is right, for if Taya Winters is anything, she is resourceful. ‘Then at least leave by the servants’ entrance at the back.’
She huffs and pulls the door open, and Mama stops in her pacing outside. ‘Mrs Melrose,’ Taya says, nodding her respect, as does Mother.
‘My lady.’
‘Where might I find the back exit?’
‘The kitchens,’ Mama says following Taya with her eyes as she walks on and takes the stairs.
‘Thank you.’
I frown as I watch her lifting her dress and taking the stairs, wondering what has got into her, but I do not get long to ponder that. Mama is soon shrieking her distress again. ‘One missing daughter and a philandering son,’ she says. ‘My God, we will be ruined.’
I am exasperated. Truly. ‘Mama, please,’ I beg. ‘I thought you had passed the point of caring.’ I turn and collect my breeches from the rug and wave them at Mama, prompting her to turn and give me some privacy to dress.
‘It is a matter of decency, Frank. One must refrain from having dalliances with the sister of your sister’s husband.’
‘So it is all right for me to having dalliances with other females?’
‘You were twirling Esther Hamsley around the floor last night!’
I sigh, pulling on my breeches and shirt, and I get a waft of honeysuckle as I do. Lord above, I can smell her all over my clothes. All over me. ‘Esther Hamsley and I are––’
‘Oh Frank,’ she cries. ‘I am but a sniff away from being elected a patroness, and I need not any of my children’s shenanigans hampering that.’
And there we have the truth of it. I am disappointed. ‘I don’t know why you are so invested.’ I drop to the end of the bed and pull my boots on. ‘Almack’s is little more than a meat market where snobbish mamas of the ton go to procure suitors for their offspring. Why would you want a part of that, Mama? It is beneath you.’
Outraged, she swings round. ‘I have considered this greatly, if you must know. Has it escaped your notice that your sister is now a duchess, and a pregnant one at that, and you and your father are running the family business?’
‘That has not escaped my notice.’
‘And what of me?’ she asks, and I am taken aback by it, I must admit. ‘What am I to do while you are all being busy? Clara will soon come of age, marry a man who I’m sure will thrill her, and then what will become of me? I have raised my children and I have done a fine job, if I do say so myself, albeit they are somewhat insolate and disobedient from time to time.’
I pout to myself, thinking perhaps now isn’t the right time to tell her that Clara may have already found a stable boy that thrills her. I doubt Mama’s tolerance falls to such a level. Or that Papa is hardly running the business with me at the moment. What a mess.