Fortune Favors the Wicked by Theresa Romain Read Free Book Online Page B

delicate work throughout which Charlotte had hated every tidy stitch. She was glad for them now, though.
    Her feet touched the floor beside Maggie. If she dared reach out, she could lace her fingers through the girl’s hair. She could pet her, comfort her, maybe, as Maggie petted Captain.
    Or maybe the one she’d be comforting was herself.
    â€œYou heard what Mr. Potter said, didn’t you, dearest?” she asked.
    A mute, miserable nod.
    Charlotte sighed and ventured a pat on Maggie’s shoulder. A half-grown girl seemed so fragile, her bones slight. But ten years was much too old to allow oneself to be cradled, or to be wrapped in a doting embrace.
    So Charlotte only patted her again, feeling far away.
    â€œWill Nance be all right?” A small voice issued from behind the wall of curly hair. “I thought she was nice.”
    Charlotte could well imagine what Maggie thought of Nance. She remembered being ten years old, stick-thin and awkward with promise. At that age, a blowsy, vibrant young woman such as Nance seemed the loveliest creature in the world.
    â€œShe was nice, wasn’t she? Is nice,” Charlotte corrected herself. “Mr. Potter said someone hurt her badly. But he has called a doctor, and Papa—Grandpapa—will help her to be at peace.”
    Maggie’s only response was to pet the dark velvet of Captain’s ears. The aged hound thumped her tail and settled her long head in Maggie’s lap.
    Though Charlotte had named Captain at the age of thirteen when her father brought home the puppy, the skittish hound had always been Margaret’s dog. The elder Perry sister had named the second puppy, an Irish Water spaniel with a curly liver-brown coat and a tail that whipped like that of a donkey. Frippery was calm and loyal, with a menacing bark and no bite whatsoever.
    He became Charlotte’s chum for loping around Strawfield and slipping onto the Selwyn lands to explore the caves there. Margaret was happier at home, where Captain was often to be found curled at her feet alongside her work basket of quilt pieces.
    Frippery had been gone for years. Charlotte had been long away. Margaret had sickened within a year of her marriage, following her young husband to the grave.
    All that was left was this girl with her name and the hound that linked them. And the same vicarage, where her parents grew grayer and more absent each year.
    The walls were still papered in the tiny flowered print from Charlotte’s own youth, but a new shelf hung above the bed. Books were stacked upon it, and a small tin horse. Time marched on. Maggie was changing. It seemed unbearable that Charlotte should not know Maggie’s favorite book, or that she had not shared the girl’s joy over acquiring the toy horse.
    Charlotte blinked her eyes dry, then swallowed hard. She must sound calm and pleasant. “You know I’m to stay with you in your room, don’t you?”
    Another quick nod. “Why are you here?”
    For you. For us. “I had—been away too long.” This was not quite an answer, but it was close enough for the present. “Do you remember the last time I visited?”
    â€œI think so. I was only six then.” Childish fingers combed through the coarse fur of the hound’s back. “You plaited my hair with silk ribbons?”
    â€œI did. With green, to match your eyes.” Charlotte closed her lips on further words. How many nights had she climbed into bed in the four years since, praying to dream about that brief visit? Lord, please, let me see her again, if only in sleep. Let me remember the feel of her hair, the softness of her cheek.
    How it felt to seat her in my lap, to hold her like the precious girl she has always been to me.
    â€œI thought you were nice.” Lifting her hand from Captain’s back, Maggie pushed back her unbound hair. Tentatively, she glanced over her shoulder.
    Young Maggie Catlett was going to be a