The Wicked Heir (Spare Heirs #3)(27)

How could Victoria have betrayed her so?

Victoria observed proceedings in her life like a watchful owl on the topmost branch of a tree, always surveying and looking for her next move. She wouldn’t have allowed this to happen unless she’d wanted it. She’d been in control in that milliner’s shop with Mr. Brice, in control when she’d allowed him to rescue her, and in control when she’d agreed to Father’s bargain that she become his wife.

Victoria only cared for Victoria. Isabelle had overlooked all her sister’s faults, believing the small shreds of good were what truly held her together beneath her jaded exterior. Isabelle had been wrong.

Victoria had done this to her on purpose, and Isabelle would never forgive her for it.

It would seem her sister wasn’t good deep beneath her jaded facade, as Isabelle had always believed—she was actually quite evil. Isabelle shook with the knowledge and pulled her arms tighter around herself.

“Isabelle, your sister has been through quite enough of an ordeal. You will come out from behind this door and give her the comfort she deserves.”

“Comfort her?” Her voice cracked as she spoke. After what Victoria had done? She’d stolen away the only man Isabelle had ever loved. They were to be married, not Victoria and Mr. Brice. It was supposed to be Isabelle. “I’m the one who needs comforting,” she called out louder than before, her voice strengthened by the anger that surged within her.

“Your sister is the one who has survived a fire. Don’t be dramatic, Isabelle.”

“I’m not…” she began, but there was no use arguing with her mother through a closed door.

Her entire life she’d been accused of overdramatizing events. Perhaps in the past it had been true, but it wasn’t true today. Today was all too real. Today she’d lost her hopes and dreams. She should be allowed time to mourn the happiness she could have had in her life. The love she would have experienced. The laughter they would have shared. The flowers he would have brought to her. She scowled at the blossoms that covered her walls, mocking her with what could have been.

Was she to stand by while her twin sister took her future from her?

“And I’ll have to watch,” she whispered. It was like some horrid image in a mirror playing out the wrong future. She squeezed her eyes shut.

Isabelle had to find a way through this, or she would surely perish from a broken heart. That was all very well on some later day, but just now, she refused to give Victoria the satisfaction. If she avoided her sister, if she avoided everyone involved…if she could survive their wedding, then…

She grew weak at the thought. Their wedding. How had this happened to her?

Isabelle sank to the floor and hugged her knees to her chest. She’d wanted a life with Mr. Brice for so long. And now, in an instant, that life was gone. Victoria’s name would be listed on the banns with his, their lives forever linked.

What do you plan to do? a voice whispered through her thoughts.

She didn’t know the answer. But she couldn’t very well sit here and pine over a man betrothed to her twin sister. They would have children and a home together. Isabelle might live through the wedding vows, but their life together beyond that day she could not take. Those were her dreams; she’d written of them in her… She needed her diary. She needed the comfort of the words written there—her words. Everything had become so distracting, now that the season was in full swing, that she hadn’t written in the small book in more than a month, but she needed it now.

Scrambling to her feet, she went to the table beside her bed, but the drawer was empty. She opened the drawer farther and searched the back corners. Empty. When had she last seen it? She knew she had left the book here. Now the one place she could pour out her soul without judgment was gone too? Isabelle sank to the top of her bed. It mattered little anyway. Her thoughts were so scattered just now that they would be no more than scribbles on the page. Everything was lost.

When one dream was stolen away, could another dream take its place? Or was she destined to live the rest of her life in this despair?

“For-ev-er,” Isabelle drew out the word on a whispered breath and fell back on her bed.

Victoria and Mr. Brice would have a family together, and Isabelle would be the spinster aunt who gave the children sweets. She would be alone to ponder what could have been. No, that would not do at all. Seeing them together day after day, year after year, while Isabelle remained unattached sounded dreadful. She would have to find another gentleman to marry, set her sights on someone else, someone just as appealing as Mr. Brice. Perhaps someone even better awaited her.

Kindness had been what drew her attention to Brice in the beginning. Surely he wasn’t the only gentleman with a good heart in the city. Could she replace him? She tried to remember the list of perfect qualities from her missing diary.

“Red phaeton, talented dancer,” she whispered to herself. But dancing abilities and the type of conveyance a man possessed didn’t seem to matter as much now as they once had. The longer she lay there on her bed, the more she wondered if she’d truly known anything of value about the man of her dreams.

Perhaps it was time for a new list, one that looked beyond the color of a man’s hair. She trailed a hand over the locket that still hung around her neck. The right gentleman, a gentleman who would love her, was hiding somewhere in the shadows. Perhaps he was waiting for her, for this moment.