My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel(74)

“Henrietta,” you say as you approach her. “Your fate has just taken a wild turn for the better, yet you weep as one does for the dead. Forgive me my impudence, but these tears do not look to be shed in joy.”

“Nargh.” Henrietta shakes her head, gurgling most unbecomingly. “I’m so very happy, miss. Honestly, truly. I’m so very glad.”

You feel the heat of a gaze upon you and, sure enough, glance up to find Benedict attempting to incinerate either you or his own eyebrows with a look that could sear meat. You can’t help but arch a defiant brow his way as you lead Henrietta by her elbow into a private alcove off the main ballroom.

“If there is something you are frightened to say, child, say it to me. I matter not a whit to your family, and you may consider me an ally. I am no stranger to sadness myself.” Your voice positively sparkles with authority, and, child that she is, Henrietta cannot resist you.

“It’s just that I don’t want to be a lady, miss,” Henrietta says, wracked with sobs. “Ladies can’t marry farmers, and all I want is my farmer. My sweet, kind, gentle love from Kent. My lovely, true Farmer Sam.”

You suppress a sigh and search the recesses of your memory for some trace of connection between Henrietta and Kent. Lady Evangeline said the girl was sent away for a time to be fostered, and it was perhaps in Kent that Henrietta learned of love as a pure and true thing, unfettered by society gatherings and the lashing tongue of the ton. An illegitimate daughter may well find happiness with a sweet farmer, but a lady? And heir to Manberley? Out of the question.

“Tell me, Henrietta,” your voice works quickly. “Your brother, Rafe Caddington. Cad. He presses his evidence with more flash than forethought. It makes the whole affair smell of a rat. Do you wonder if perhaps it is a…mistake on Cad’s part, made in haste? Earnest? Or—”

“Or revenge?” Henrietta’s voice is dry as a bone. It is the voice of a woman weary of the world, a survivor, not a child of one and twenty. Your eyes widen just long enough for Henrietta to realize her mistake. Her candidness is swept swiftly away, hidden under a curtain of shaking curls. “Forget I said that, miss. My brother Cad is very honorable. Both of my brothers are very…honorable.”

“Henrietta, I—” You cast a glance around you. You have never been so casting with glances as you have been this evening. You pull the girl close and search her wide eyes for evidence. Of what, you do not know. “Does Cad…has he…,” you whisper.

“Has he what, sweeting?” a voice like poisoned honey drips down the back of your neck. You startle. Henrietta flees. Cad.





Egads! Turn to this page.





“No, Evangeline!” you scream across the desert sands. “Do not throw away your life by ending hers!”

“Your little plaything thinks she knows that love is living. But living without your love is a living death.” Delphine sneers not at you, but at Evangeline.

“This isn’t love! This is madness! Pure, jealous madness!” you cry. “She has done all of this just to see you again.”

“Shut your plaything’s mouth!” Delphine cries, tears carving desperate tracks down her face. “Shut it or I will—forever!”

“You will do no such thing, Delphine,” Evangeline spits. “She is not my plaything. She is the love of my life. The real oasis. You are now, and have always been, merely a mirage. You took English secrets and sold them to the French. To Napoleon’s people. You made me forsake my husband, forsake my country and king, and now you look at me with your moon-cat eyes and expect what from me? Impunity? Trust? Love?” Evangeline laughs joylessly and spits again in the sand.

Now it is Delphine’s turn to spit. “Yours was a marriage of convenience. He had no interest in you! He had interest in other men!”

“So?” Evangeline laughs. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to heal the rift your betrayal created between us? We were friends, Delphine.”

“So?” Bitter tears glitter in Delphine’s eyes, like jeweled scarabs in the sand. “We were lovers. I loved you. I love you. Love forgives.”

“Love, to you, is a plaything. And I no longer have interest in your make of toy.” Evangeline raises her golden pistol. “You have to the count of ten to mount your camel, take this man, and leave.”

“Love is—” Delphine trembles.

“Something you know nothing about. One. Two. Three. Four.” Evangeline holds her line. Fabien nods a pained farewell to you, mounts his camel, and is gone.

“Love—”

“Five. Six. Seven. Eight.”

Whatever Delphine was about to say is lost on the wind as she beats a hasty retreat to her camel. Soon she is gone, and you can no longer care a fig about her because your mouth is lost in a rush of Evangeline’s silken kisses.

“My goodness,” Evangeline says when she finally pulls away. “I thought she would never leave!”

With that, you and your lady love ravish each other senseless as desert winds whip torrents of sand around you like so much confetti. You would be concerned about it getting in places it shouldn’t, but you’re too busy being overcome with a feeling of divine blessedness and ecstasy to care. You are wetter than the Nile for this woman, and she navigates your depths with the skill and magic of a sailor who knows her way to and from worlds beyond the earthly plane.