But he wasn’t a suitor. He’d never be a suitor.
“There was a gentleman who was supposed to be speaking with me,” she said instead, “but spent most of the time gazing at another young lady.”
“How vile!” Daphne cried, scandalized.
Elizabeth gave a small nod. “Indeed. But I’m no longer so bothered as I was last night.”
Their talk turned, as it often did, to the twins’ latest distractions: Victoria’s growing obsession with the foreign playing cards, and Daphne’s newest novel borrowed from the circulating library. The drawing room settled into its gentle peace again.
But Elizabeth’s thoughts wandered.
She kept thinking of that painting in the hidden gallery: the woman at the window, bare and unashamed, with a letter clutched to her heart. A woman who longed for something with her whole self. A woman who dared to feel.
And Elizabeth wondered, not for the first time, if she had been living too small, if the rules that had shaped her thus far had also quietly stifled her. And if that was why the Scotsman’s voice still echoed in her head.
It was such an intense craving that she?—
Her thoughts were interrupted by the butler. She did not even know he was already standing by her side, delivering what looked like a letter.
“Lady Elizabeth, a letter.”
“Oh, thank you,” she said, her eyes lighting up when she saw it was from their only brother, Daniel.
Daniel wrote to them from the Continent. Only nineteen years old, he seemed to have more life experience than all his sisters put together, but she never held it against him. If she had a chance to flee her father and now their stepmother, without dragging her sisters’ reputation down with hers, she would.
“Who is it from?” Daphne asked, her eyes widening. She rose from her seat and sat next to Elizabeth on the couch.
“From Daniel!”
Even Victoria rose from the floor to join Elizabeth on the other side.
“What does it say?” she asked, trying to reach for the letter.
“I’ll tell you what is in it. There is no need to pull it away from me. Also, you should have at least asked, “May I?” Elizabeth scolded.
“May I read the letter?” Victoria asked, batting her lashes at her older sister, who could not help but laugh.
“Patience is a virtue, my dear. Stay put and I will tell you what is on it,” she promised.
The girls reluctantly obeyed. Elizabeth knew they simply wanted to know what their brother was up to. It had been so long, and everyone missed him.
“He’s been to Paris and Rome,” Elizabeth said, marveling at their brother's adventures and the places he had been to.
“Oh, that’s marvelous! I hope I’ll visit them one day, too!” Daphne exclaimed. “But that might mean marrying someone wealthy who wants my best interests.”
Victoria pretended to choke.
“He misses us all. He said he was glad he could come over for Christmas and meet Marianne’s husband,” Elizabeth continued. “But his adventure is in Europe at the moment. Now that he knows Father will be away for quite some time, he is considering another visit.”
“Oh, he should come,” Victoria commented, although she seemed to have sobered a little, possibly due to the mention of their father.
“He sends his love.”
“I wonder if he knows Mother is here. She can be stifling,” Victoria muttered.
Marianne, Elizabeth, and Daniel shared the same mother. Daniel had been the long-awaited heir, the answer to their father’s hopes. But their mother died giving birth to him, and with her death, everything changed.
Instead of being celebrated, Daniel’s birth marked the beginning of their father’s unraveling. The Marquess of Grisham, once a proud and composed man, grew bitter and cruel. The child who should have been his pride became, instead, a constant reminder of his loss.