Good girls don't go snooping where they don't belong.
But Lady Delia Scarborough never claimed to be a good girl.
Lady Delia Scarborough wants her sister back from the grave.
Since that can't happen, she'll settle for the next best thing...
Making...
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Delia thought that she would be torn in two. She had wondered if things would get better when Kieran returned from his trip, if seeing him after her discovery would change everything and make her realize that beneath his handsome face and heart-stopping smile that he was truly some kind of serpent in human form.
Before he had returned, she had all but stopped sleeping. After retrieving the enameled snuffbox full of her sister's effects, she made a small slit in her pillow and pushed the box in, sewing the slit up again neatly. It seemed to have bled into her dreams, and when she could sleep at all, her dreams pursued her with a kind of relentless fury.
In her dreams, her sister came to her, as sweet and lovely as she had been in life, and in the middle of some mundane errand, would ask with sorrow in her voice why Delia did not miss her.
"Why are you spending all your time mooning over him? Don't you remember what happened to me? I thought you were meant to be the smart one."
No matter how Delia protested, Lissa's recriminations became louder and more furious, and slowly, Delia would remember that Lissa was dead.
She woke up in a cold sweat, and sometimes, the only thing that would calm her was going to Alice's room and matching her breath to Alice's.
She had expected to see a monster when Kieran returned to Brixby Hall, but instead, for a single moment when he entered the nursery, she forgot all about her sister and only saw the man who made her heart beat faster. His smile made her insides melt, and when he came to speak with her, she almost swayed toward him before she remembered herself.
I have enough information. I could go with it to the constables. I could go right into London and demand satisfaction in front of the entire world. I can tell them where I have been, and I can show them the handkerchief I have found. It could ruin him.
And it would ruin Alice as well.
The thought sent such a pain through her heart that she thought she might fall down to her knees. The little girl had never figured into her plans for vengeance, and now she could see what a fool she had been.
It took everything she had to behave normally throughout the rest of that day and the next, and then, shortly after she had put Alice to bed, a soft knock sounded on the nursery door. When she answered it, she was not sure if she was surprised or not to see Kieran there, his jacket and waistcoat removed, his cravat discarded somewhere and his shirt open at his throat. For a moment, she could not tear her eyes away from the V of bronzed skin there.
"Kieran. What are you doing here?"
She wondered briefly how after everything that had happened that she could still call him Kieran.
"I was hoping to speak with you."
"Here?"
"Well, Alice might wake up if we're speaking in the nursery, and your room is hardly appropriate. Would you walk with me back to the study?"
