Royally Matched (Royally #2)(13)

Well . . . if the wilderness were Castlebrook, anyway.

The thing is, when you’re dependent on others, they hold a part of your happiness in their hands. They can nurture it or crush it at any moment. Your fate doesn’t belong to you. I’ve seen how that works—it’s not pretty. My life may be small and simple, but it’s all mine.

In the kitchen, I fill the pot for tea. Normally, I’d start dinner now, but it’s Wednesday—

Wednesdays and Sundays are dinner days with Mother and Penelope.

I have an hour before I need to leave, so it’ll be tea and . . . Sense and Sensibility for a bit. It’s the perfect read. Just enough drama and angst to be interesting, but mostly light and entertaining, with the happiest ending. Colonel Brandon is my favorite—the ultimate book husband. He made good and upstanding look sexy as all get-out. Someday, I’ll meet a man just like him—romantic, steady, and reliable—and I don’t give a damn how silly that sounds. How immature or fanciful.

Because I have a theory.

If nightmares can come true, and sometimes they do . . . then so can our happiest dreams.

Once my peppermint tea is ready, I sink into the chaise lounge in my bedroom, throw a soft, velour blanket over my legs, open my book—and block out the world.





Some people look at their family and wonder if they’re adopted. Others hope they are.

I never wonder. Because my mother is so clearly the combination of my and my sister’s personalities. Or maybe we’re each half of hers. She’s reclusive—she hates cities, shuns parties, rarely leaves the estate, and doesn’t entertain friends—at least not human ones. She’s most content in the greenhouse tending and talking to her flowers. But here, within the confines of her own personal fiefdom, she runs the show. She’s colorful and exuberant—just like Penelope. In the last few years she’s taken to wearing bright, paisley silk housedresses handmade in China and dyeing her hair a sunrise red—melding into a crossbreed of Sense and Sensibility’s Mrs. Dashwood and Shirley MacLaine in her prime.

Some in our social circle call her eccentric. Others call her the Crazy Countess. Penny likes “off her rocker.” But I don’t think Mother’s nutty at all. It’s just that she tried living life by other people’s rules and it didn’t work out. So now, she lives as she likes . . . and everyone else can go to hell.

“Hello, my darling,” she greets me in a quiet voice.

My mother’s always been soft-spoken, genteel. It’s how she was raised. But quiet shouldn’t be mistaken for weak. Sometimes the most steely resolve is asserted silently.

Stanhope, our butler, takes my coat, shaking off the raindrops that had started to pour down. Mother guides me toward the dining room with her arm around my lower back, the familiar scent of lilies surrounding her. “Tell me, how are things at the library?”

“Awful.”

“Awful? That doesn’t sound right. What happened?”

We join Penny at the table, where she taps at her mobile, texting, and over the first course, I recount my tale of woe. Though our weekly dinners are informal, Penelope is dressed to the nines in a royal-blue cocktail dress that flatters her fair skin and light blond hair, swept back in a gentle knot. She always did like to play dress-up and at twenty-three, she’ll still take any excuse to glam out.

Unlike other mothers in our station, mine has never pushed me to marry well or date—Penelope dates enough for both of us.

When I finish explaining about the presentation, Mother says, “My poor girl. What are you going to do?”

“I don’t really have a choice. I’m going to have to present at the symposium and pray I don’t vomit on the audience or pass out.”

Penny grins, still gazing at her mobile. “Maybe you should cordon off the first few rows, just in case. You can call them the splash-zone seats.”

“That’s helpful, Pen, thank you.”

She looks up. “This could be good for you, you know. Force you out of your comfort zone.”

“The same could be said about your upcoming military service, Penelope,” Mother comments.

In Wessco, every citizen, male or female, is required to serve two years in the military.

Penny dramatically slouches back in her chair, throwing her arms wide like Christ on the cross. “It’s not the same at all! I’ll be a terrible soldier—I’m not cut out for all that marching and climbing and sweating.”

She checks her glittery manicure to make sure she hasn’t chipped a nail from just talking about it. “I tried convincing them to let me serve my time in the WSO.”

The WSO is the Wessco Service Organization—they put on shows and entertain the servicemen. And Penelope has always dreamed of stardom—she’s too short to be a model, but certainly melodramatic enough to be an actress.

“That’s much more my bag. Sparkly outfits and dancing. But, it’s against orders, they said.”

“Yes,” I smirk. “The military likes to have their orders followed. They’re funny like that.”

She sticks her tongue out at me.

Before I can decide which obscene gesture to respond with, thunder claps so loudly outside, the china and crystal rattles on the table.

Rain batters the windows and, seconds later, another boom bursts over the house—this one shaking the walls. A shelf gives way, sending decorative plates and figurines falling to the floor, exploding into shards, like tiny glass grenades.