Cinderella Sister by Dilly Court Read Free Book Online Page B

for Lily the river and its wharves held an endless fascination.
    She curled her legs up beneath her, studying the faces of her brothers and sisters with the eye of an artist. Nell, with her dark hair, sleek as a raven’s wing, confined in a severe chignon at the back of her neck, was fully occupied turning the collar on one of Luke’s shirts. There was something serene and beautiful about Nell and Lily was secretly in awe of her. Then there was Luke who had his head in a book as usual, seemingly oblivious to the rest of the world. His red-gold hair flopped over his forehead and his thick eyelashes formed corn-coloured crescents on his tanned cheeks. His generous lips moved silently as he read, and Lily could relate to his ability to vanish into a world created by words.
    Seated on the far side of the fireplace, Matt smoked his pipe, staring into the fire with a faraway expression on his handsome features, and not for the first time Lily wondered why he had not married. He was twenty-eight and she knew several girls who worshipped him from afar, but none of them seemed to catch his eye. He had stepped out with a few of them, but it had come to nothing. She wondered sometimes if he was afraid to give his heart to a woman in case she broke it, as their mother had done to Pa. It was a question that she could not answer, and she looked round for Mark who patently adored girls and had courted quite a few. As if sensingLily’s unspoken question, Nell looked up from her sewing. ‘Where did Mark go, Matt? He really should have stayed at home on a night like this.’
    ‘Where do you think?’ Matt said with his lazy smile. ‘It would take more than a pea-souper to keep him away from Flossie Cobbold.’
    Nell sighed. ‘It must be love.’
    ‘He asked me to write a poem for her,’ Luke said, brushing the lock of hair back from his eyes for the umpteenth time. ‘I couldn’t think of anything that rhymed with Flossie.’
    Molly was sitting on the rag rug by the hearth, with the tip of her pink tongue held between her teeth as she attempted to renovate a battered straw bonnet with flowers fashioned from scraps of silk. ‘What about bossy?’ she said, giggling. ‘That rhymes.’
    ‘But it’s not exactly romantic,’ Luke countered. ‘And I don’t think young Flossie is the type to be wooed by words alone.’
    ‘If it’s expensive gifts she’s after, she’ll be sadly disappointed,’ Molly said, stabbing her needle into the plaited straw.
    ‘That’s not very fair,’ Nell said gently. ‘Flossie is a nice girl, even if she is a bit flighty.’
    ‘Flighty! I’ve heard she’ll be very generous to a bloke who treats her to a night out and she’ll do anything for a box of chocolates.’ Molly glanced round to see what impact her words had, but her grin was wiped off her face and she let out a yelp as she pricked her finger on the needle.
    ‘That serves you right, young lady,’ Matt said sternly,although Lily could see the corners of his mouth twitch as though he was trying not to laugh.
    ‘Yes, that’s what you get for being crude,’ Nell added, patently unamused.
    Lily had to suppress a giggle, but no one noticed her as all eyes were on Molly who had leapt to her feet and gone very red in the face. ‘I think you’re all horrible. I was just stating the truth.’
    Matt burst out laughing. ‘Sit down, you silly girl, and get on with turning a hideous bonnet into something even worse.’
    Molly retaliated by throwing the offending article at him. ‘I hate you, Matt,’ she stormed angrily. ‘If Pa was still here he wouldn’t let you talk to me like that, and I wouldn’t have to make do with a bonnet I’ve had for two years or more. Pa would have bought me a new one long ago.’
    ‘Learn to take a joke,’ Matt said easily. ‘You’ll have to deal with worse than that in life. Just be thankful that you’ve got a roof over your head and food in your belly. As to Pa having money to throw around, just remember