of work. We won’t be staying long, and there’s no telling whether we’ll have reason to return.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” Freddie’s jaw set. “I know exactly what the odds are.”
* * *
Cassandra had another attack in the wee hours of the morning. Lina sent Eli, their young manservant, for Dr. Strickland.
Waiting for the doctor to arrive, Lina tried not to think about his fee. Cassie’s lungs had been worse than ever since their move to the dower house and Lina already owed him for six calls, though her jointure income wasn’t due for almost two months.
Now she would owe the doctor still more, but she couldn’t think of the cost when her sister’s health was at stake. Cassie lay propped up against a small mountain of pillows, wheezing and gasping for air, wide-eyed with alarm.
Dressed in her wrapper and nightgown, Lina pulled a wooden chair up to Cassie’s bedside. “Take deep, slow breaths.” She spoke with a calm she didn’t feel. “You mustn’t panic.”
Cassie pressed a splayed hand to the neck of her flannel nightgown in a gesture Lina knew all too well, a speechless sign that she couldn’t draw the breath she needed into her lungs.
Lina dreaded these attacks nearly as much as Cassie must. They not only terrified her, but had been the one bone of contention between her and Edward. He’d never understood why she felt it necessary to sit with Cassie through every episode, while Lina had found it inconceivable that she could do otherwise. But then, Edward had never had to be strong and reliable for another person, not with trustees and a guardian to manage his minority.
At the thought of Edward’s guardian, a little of the old, slow-burning resentment stirred inside her. Lina latched on to it like a lifeline. Agonizing over Cassie’s every breath made her feel weak and helpless, but a sense of ill usage was the antidote to such cowardly emotions. It stiffened her spine and gave her a purpose.
And she had good reason to feel ill used by Edward’s guardian. For three years Edward had wished to marry her, while prim, judgmental Sir John Blessingame had stubbornly withheld his consent. She’d spent every day of those three years taking pains not to put a foot wrong, in constant dread that Edward would give up or fall out of love with her and take a bride of Sir John’s choosing. And all the while she’d endured the sneers and disdainful glances of their neighbors, people who speculated she was already Edward’s mistress, people who knew that Sir John Blessingame had looked her over and deemed her not good enough.
It was so unfair, that after all that waiting and striving and praying to be secure and respectable, she was back to having nothing. No, less than nothing. She was back to owing the doctor for six calls, back to worrying about Cassie, back to being poor and alone again.
She had to have a boy. She wasn’t going to live all her life in this decaying dower house, with its smoking chimneys and smell of damp, and she wasn’t going to force Cassie to live this way either. Colonel Vaughan couldn’t just waltz in, as high-handed as he was handsome, and take over everything she’d looked forward to with Edward. Giving birth to a girl would mean raising her own child in relative poverty, knowing that only a stone’s throw away the colonel’s little girl was living a life of luxury at the abbey. Having a boy would mean she and the sister she loved would be back on top at last.
By the time Dr. Strickland arrived, it was nearly dawn. Cassie looked pale and frantic, her golden hair damp with sweat. Lina relinquished the chair by the bed to the doctor, though she stayed to act as chaperone throughout his examination. There was a time when she would have been mortified to have Dr. Strickland see her in her nightclothes, but years of late-night emergencies had chipped away at her modesty, leaving little but practicality in its place. She wondered if modesty even mattered when most of
“Oh, don’t worry.” Freddie’s jaw set. “I know exactly what the odds are.”
* * *
Cassandra had another attack in the wee hours of the morning. Lina sent Eli, their young manservant, for Dr. Strickland.
Waiting for the doctor to arrive, Lina tried not to think about his fee. Cassie’s lungs had been worse than ever since their move to the dower house and Lina already owed him for six calls, though her jointure income wasn’t due for almost two months.
Now she would owe the doctor still more, but she couldn’t think of the cost when her sister’s health was at stake. Cassie lay propped up against a small mountain of pillows, wheezing and gasping for air, wide-eyed with alarm.
Dressed in her wrapper and nightgown, Lina pulled a wooden chair up to Cassie’s bedside. “Take deep, slow breaths.” She spoke with a calm she didn’t feel. “You mustn’t panic.”
Cassie pressed a splayed hand to the neck of her flannel nightgown in a gesture Lina knew all too well, a speechless sign that she couldn’t draw the breath she needed into her lungs.
Lina dreaded these attacks nearly as much as Cassie must. They not only terrified her, but had been the one bone of contention between her and Edward. He’d never understood why she felt it necessary to sit with Cassie through every episode, while Lina had found it inconceivable that she could do otherwise. But then, Edward had never had to be strong and reliable for another person, not with trustees and a guardian to manage his minority.
At the thought of Edward’s guardian, a little of the old, slow-burning resentment stirred inside her. Lina latched on to it like a lifeline. Agonizing over Cassie’s every breath made her feel weak and helpless, but a sense of ill usage was the antidote to such cowardly emotions. It stiffened her spine and gave her a purpose.
And she had good reason to feel ill used by Edward’s guardian. For three years Edward had wished to marry her, while prim, judgmental Sir John Blessingame had stubbornly withheld his consent. She’d spent every day of those three years taking pains not to put a foot wrong, in constant dread that Edward would give up or fall out of love with her and take a bride of Sir John’s choosing. And all the while she’d endured the sneers and disdainful glances of their neighbors, people who speculated she was already Edward’s mistress, people who knew that Sir John Blessingame had looked her over and deemed her not good enough.
It was so unfair, that after all that waiting and striving and praying to be secure and respectable, she was back to having nothing. No, less than nothing. She was back to owing the doctor for six calls, back to worrying about Cassie, back to being poor and alone again.
She had to have a boy. She wasn’t going to live all her life in this decaying dower house, with its smoking chimneys and smell of damp, and she wasn’t going to force Cassie to live this way either. Colonel Vaughan couldn’t just waltz in, as high-handed as he was handsome, and take over everything she’d looked forward to with Edward. Giving birth to a girl would mean raising her own child in relative poverty, knowing that only a stone’s throw away the colonel’s little girl was living a life of luxury at the abbey. Having a boy would mean she and the sister she loved would be back on top at last.
By the time Dr. Strickland arrived, it was nearly dawn. Cassie looked pale and frantic, her golden hair damp with sweat. Lina relinquished the chair by the bed to the doctor, though she stayed to act as chaperone throughout his examination. There was a time when she would have been mortified to have Dr. Strickland see her in her nightclothes, but years of late-night emergencies had chipped away at her modesty, leaving little but practicality in its place. She wondered if modesty even mattered when most of
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