Love's First Flames (Banished Saga, 0.5) by Ramona Flightner Page A

aren’t you with that awful man for your apprenticeship? Unless he’s found you to be as useless a dunce as I’ve always known you to be.”
    “Aunt . . .” Richard began.
    “And why are you hungry? I saw the bill for the second-rate bakery you decided to visit today. Did you gorge yourself on sweets while there and think to swindle me? I will not have my charity abused in such a way, Richard McLeod.” She swatted him on the head with a metal spatula, and he yelped in discomfort.
    “Aunt, the other bakery was closed.”
    “A likely story. One you and your horrid brother most likely fabricated in an attempt to humiliate me in front of my esteemed guests. It will not work, I tell you. I have already sent someone else, someone who is not an incompetent McLeod with no sense, to purchase the necessary pastries. I only hope they are not venturing forth too late in the day to obtain the high-quality confections my guests have come to expect when visiting such a fine home as mine.
    “As for the disgusting pastries you brought home, I’ve discarded them. A waste of good money. What could you have been thinking, Richard, to believe I would ever find those acceptable?”
    “Aunt,” Gabriel interrupted.
    “Have I given you leave to speak to me? I have no desire to listen to malicious lies coming forth from your lips. Why your parents ever saw fit to have you is beyond me. Why would anyone want you as their children?” She glared at both Richard and Gabriel. “And I, the greater fool for taking those such as you in. I should have placed you in that orphanage, hoping you’d be sent on one of those trains or to sea to die as your uncle did.” She sniffed as she glowered at her nephews. “Good riddance.”
    “I’m sorry I disappointed you, Aunt,” Richard said in an attempt to appease her.
    “You always disappoint me. You were born a disappointment.”
    “That’s not true, and you know it. Our parents loved us and were proud of us,” Gabriel snapped.
    “Are you calling me a liar, Gabriel McLeod? Your own dear aunt, who took you crying, penniless orphans off the street, saved you from the horrors of an orphanage? A liar? I’d hate to think you were that uncharitable. But then I’d expect nothing less from children spawned from one such as your father.”
    “He was an admirable man, devoted to family,” Gabriel said as he scooted his chair back from the table. “I don’t have to listen to this.”
    “You leave before I’ve excused you, and you won’t be welcomed back into my home and my good graces.” She pinned him with her most severe glare. “You will learn to respect me, Gabriel.”
    “Respect is earned, Aunt, and you’ve done nothing to earn it.” Gabriel clenched his fists at his side as he and his aunt had their daily glaring match.
    “You know nothing about who is deserving of respect, you cretin.” She reached over to hit him on the head with the spatula, but he grabbed it as she lowered it toward him.
    He shook his head side to side once with a forbidding glare before wrenching the spatula from her grasp. “I’m not a child to be treated so, Aunt. I’d learn that lesson if I were you.”
    “And I hope you learn that my patience with your presence in my home is wearing thin.”
    Gabriel glanced for a moment at Richard before tilting his head toward the kitchen door. Richard spoke after a few second’s hesitation. “Aunt, if we may be excused so that our presence does not ruin your exalted event this afternoon?”
    “Of course. Leave this instance. And I do not want you to return until at least six o’clock! I wouldn’t want anyone of importance to see relatives such as you.” She held her hands on her hips as they turned to leave. “Ensure that your horrid brother Jeremy is aware to remain away too. I don’t want any of you here with the possibility of causing me any further disgrace.”
    Richard and Gabriel walked down the darkened hallway and up the back steps into the fresh