The Langley Sisters Trilogy Boxed Set (9 page)

“I’m sorry we argued, too.”

“The thing is, Livvy, I spoke without thinking and hurt you and that was not fair of me. Bella and I are very aware that you are sacrificing your happiness to ensure we one day find ours.”

When she let her guard down and showed the real person beneath, Phoebe was actually very sweet.
 

“Having both of you settled will be enough happiness for me, Phoebe. Don’t you realize that?”

“But what of your happiness? Don’t you want a family and husband of your own?”

The pale blue velvet bonnet framed Phoebe’s pretty face and Livvy hoped that one day a man would love her for what lay beneath the beauty.
 

“I don’t want that for me. I’m going to be a wonderfully indulgent aunt to the nieces and nephews my sisters give me. Besides, loving someone is painful and hurts when you lose them.”

Phoebe frowned. “Why would you lose them?”
 

Livvy looked away in case Phoebe saw what she was not saying.

“We lost grandfather and then father and mother. I don’t cope with grieving very well.”

“That is utter rot, Livvy! You are not a coward. How dare you give up your hopes and dreams just because you have lost loved ones? Many people lose family, husbands and wives, and go on to love again. If you won’t be honest, then I will. You don’t want to risk loving again because Lord Ryder hurt you.”

Ferocious Phoebe was back and she was right. The pain Livvy felt when Will left had been unbearable, and she had no wish to ever experience that again.

“I do not want to discuss him, Phoebe. Furthermore, how do you know what it’s like to love someone that way?”

“I don’t,” Phoebe said, flashing a wide smile. “But I have spoken to many people about this, Livvy, and all say that love is something you do not plan for and cannot halt once two people meet who are fated for each other.”
 

Livvy swung her sister’s hand for several steps, mulling over the words as they walked down the narrow, windy lane.
 

“Perhaps you are right, but the pain is something I have no wish to ever experience again, Phoebe. Therefore, I have a feeling no man will meet my exacting standards and fall at my feet declaring his undying adoration and love. No, I shall pin all my hopes on you and Bella receiving just such a declaration.”

Thankfully, Phoebe didn’t say anything further as they had reached the village. She just harrumphed as the sisters walked over the bridge and down the main street.

Twoaks was a lively village, not too big yet not too small either, with neat stone cottages and shops that were usually bustling with activity even on a brisk winter’s morning.
 

“Step to the side, sisters,” Livvy directed as two carts being pushed by men involved in a heated debate rumbled by.
 

“Don’t step in that!”

“I see it, Livvy,” Bella said, limping around a large pile of horse manure.

“Good day, Mrs. Casey!” Phoebe called to the elderly lady who was sitting on her porch, as she had every day for as long as Livvy could remember.

Being born and raised close to a village was both a gift and a curse as far as Livvy was concerned. She loved being part of the community and sharing the highs and lows of those she knew. However, it had been hard, since their father’s death, to hide their situation from people who knew them so well. Livvy hated lying, yet she had become skilled at it and that saddened her.

“I think we could make that with a bit more ribbon. Red, I think,” Phoebe said, dragging Livvy to look in a shop window. Pressing her face to the glass, she studied the bonnet on display. “You have that bonnet with the hideous gray ribbon that makes you look insipid, Livvy. It will do perfectly for what I have in mind.”

Livvy thought of the coins they had stolen and the few she had in her reticule. “I think we can manage a piece of ribbon,” she said, ushering her sisters through the door. “However, I protest to looking insipid in that bonnet. In fact, I will go so far as saying I look fetching.

Phoebe snorted. “Fetching? You look bilious, and that is on a good day.”

As they were now inside the shop, Livvy could not answer so she hissed instead.

“It seems something is hissing inside your shop, Mr. Todd,” Phoebe said loudly to the proprietor as he came forward to greet them.

“Hissing, Miss Langley?” he said, looking alarmed and quickly glancing around his shop for anything that could make such a noise. “I cannot think what it would be.”

“Good morning, Mr. Todd. Don’t worry, I believe the noise was outside,” Livvy reassured the proprietor while sending her sister a dark look.
 

“I’m sure you’re right, Miss Olivia.” He gave the door a final look. “Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“Red ribbon,” Phoebe said promptly.

The shop was a riot of color. Braids, buttons and ribbons covered every inch. There were trimmings in every shade and size.
 

“I will show you all we have,” Mr. Todd said, beginning to lay ribbons before them on the counter.

“I think this is too thin.” Bella pushed one aside.

“Too red,” Phoebe said, pushing another aside.

“How can something be too red?” Livvy looked at the offending piece of silk.

“Blood red, military red, and rose red—there are many shades, Livvy, and that is not the one we want,” Phoebe said, discarding another.
 

“I had not realized that selecting ribbon was an art form, sister.”

Phoebe merely flashed a blinding smile at her that encompassed Mr. Todd, who instantly flushed and stuttered that all the red ribbon in the shop was on sale today.
Of course it was,
Livvy thought as her sister continued to flirt with the man.
 

“I do believe you could murder someone and never face the consequences with that smile, Phoebe,” Livvy stated as they left the shop minutes later with more red ribbon than they needed, and a length of blue because Mr. Todd had insisted the blue was beginning to fray and he could no longer sell it.

“Let us hope we never have to test that theory, Livvy. And now I’m hungry and because I saved you money on the ribbon, I think you should buy me a cinnamon bun.”

“I concede the blue ribbon will look nice on your dress for the Assembly,” Livvy stated, following her sisters down the street once more. “And I imagine all that manipulating would make a person hungry.”

“It was not manipulation. It was coercion, sister, there is a subtle difference,” Phoebe said, laughing. “I have been running through our dresses for the Christmas season, sisters, and I believe with a bit of trim here and seam letting there we will once again set everyone back on their heels.”

“You are a miracle worker, Phoebe!” Bella cried.

And she was, Livvy thought. Their dresses were designed by Phoebe and Jenny, who had found all their mother’s old gowns and spent hours transforming them into the current styles.
 

“That she is,” Livvy said quietly, as she followed her sisters down the street. She felt a small measure of calm steal over her as she watched them laughing and chatting together. For today, she would push their worries aside and enjoy spending time with Phoebe and Bella. The precious coins she used to pay for ribbons and buns were a small price to pay for a few snatched moment of happiness.
 

“If a man smelled like that,” Livvy loudly sniffed the cinnamon-scented air as they drew near the bakers. “Then I would have no trouble finding love.”

“I would gladly wear cinnamon cologne, Miss Langley, if the result was you declaring your undying love to me.”

And suddenly, with those drawled words, Livvy’s small measure of calm fled. Of all the men in Twoaks, why did Lord Ryder have to be the one to hear her say that?
 

CHAPTER FIVE

Will had accompanied Freddy into the village after his man of affairs declared his intentions this morning of purchasing some gloves and a warmer hat. They had taken the carriage because Freddy couldn’t sit a horse and he was not going to walk anywhere in this ‘
bleedin’ weather’
. Directing him to the appropriate shop, Will had then visited Luke and his family. Mrs. Fletcher had at first scowled at him for several seconds before unbending enough at her son’s urging to greet him politely and thank him for returning her boy to her safely.

“I see where you get your pleasant demeanor from, Luke,” Will said as they left the Fletcher house to stroll down the street so he could reacquaint himself with the village.

Luke snorted. “Ma’s always been hard on everyone, it’s just her way. She cuffed my ears when I first walked through the door, as if I were still a boy, and then hugged me for a good five minutes all the while sniffling into my collar.”

“I can understand your mother’s motives. There have been plenty of times I’ve wanted to cuff you but—” The words died in Will’s throat as Olivia and her sisters walked out of a shop ahead of him. Today she was dressed in an elegant, long, dark blue coat that fell to her ankles and there was not a patch in sight. Maybe things were not going badly for the Langleys after all.

“It’s Bella!”

Will looked at his friend and saw the stunned expression on his face as he spoke. “Is there a problem, Luke?”

“My mother told me of her accident and I had thought—”

“Yes?” Will prodded his friend.

“I’d thought she would not be quite so beautiful now,” Luke said softly, his eyes still fixed on the youngest Langely.

“You thought she would be ugly because she has a damaged leg?” Will pressed.

Luke visibly shook his head, as if to clear it. He turned, and his blue eyes held anger. “Bella could never be ugly, but I thought she would look pale and sickly, yet she looks”—he stopped again before adding—“wonderful.”

There was a note in Luke’s voice that Will had never heard before, almost as though he was awed by seeing Bella again.

“I didn’t know you and Bella were friends. She would have only been eleven, like Thea, when we left surely?”

Luke’s eyes were fastened on the youngest Langley, as if he could memorize every detail of her.
 

“She used to follow me around as a child and I looked out for her because she had no brothers and was always hurting herself or falling into some kind of trouble. And then she grew up—”

“Eleven is hardly grown up, surely?” Will protested.

“She was becoming a lady.” Will had seen the closed expression his friend now wore many times before, and it usually heralded an argument between them.

“So you turned your back on her because she was a peer’s daughter, and therefore above you, even though you were friends?” Will questioned.

Luke Fletcher had grown into a man since leaving England. He stood tall with broad shoulders forged from years of hard work. He had thick brown curls and pale blue eyes that drew women to his side with ease. His loyalty was unquestionable and he was possibly the most honorable person Will had ever known. They were friends that had shared much, but as far as Luke was concerned, there still lay one thing between them that could never make them equals, and that one thing was the source of all their arguments.
 

“Leave it, Will. She was eleven and turning into a young lady. It was just better that way.”

“Better for whom?”

The blue eyes glared at him. “I said leave it, Will.”

“And do you still believe you’re beneath her, even though your wealth now outstrips most of the noblemen in England?” Will said with a calm he was far from feeling.

“Don’t you ever stop?” Luke snarled.
 

But Will would not stop; he would speak his mind on this matter until it got into Luke’s thick head.

“Just because you are not of noble birth does not mean you cannot have Bella as a friend, nor must you live life as a servant, Luke. There are plenty of wealthy untitled men in this country making their mark.

“Being a servant was what I was raised to do,” Luke said stubbornly.

“You can call me Will, yet you still drive my bloody carriage. You lived as my equal for years, yet now we are back in England you cannot make the acquaintance of a young lady who was once your friend? You, Luke Fletcher, are one of the best men I know, but you’re a bloody coward.” Will fought to hold his anger at bay. The main street of Twoaks was not the place to lose it.

“I have no wish to live a different life,” Luke said, his anger now boiling below the surface, as Will’s was.

“And I say that’s horseshit!”

“Of course that’s your right, my lord.” Luke’s tone was lofty as he used Will’s title to taunt him.
 

“And what of your money? Will you not use it for your family or yourself?”

“My family don’t want it, and it’s of no use to me so you use it,” Luke snapped.

“And what of Bella? Will you run and hide before she sees you?” This time it was Will doing the taunting.

Luke glared at him, but Will stood his ground.
 

“Excuse me, I shall retrieve the carriage and collect Freddy.”