The Stepsister's Triumph by Darcie Wilde Read Free Book Online Page B

even be allowed to retire to someplace like Bath or Bristol with a paid companion. It would be a bleak, barren life, but it would be better than this.
    Madelene turned away from the window. She glanced toward the locked door and Helene, who was waiting patiently.
    Then she went to her desk and took out paper and quill and ink. She wrote out a letter, sealed it, and penned the direction of the Theatre Royal in Drury Lane. Then she wrote a second letter:
    Miss Sewell,
    Enclosed you’ll find a letter for my cousin Mr. Henry Cross asking him to call and explaining some of our plan. Will you please post it from No. 48? I’ve directed him to send any reply there, to save the awkwardness of questions at home.
    Yrs. Sincerely,
    Madelene Valmeyer
    *   *   *
    Without a word, Madelene sanded and sealed the letter. “Here,” she said, holding out the quill to Helene. “You’d better write the direction on this one so it’s not in my hand, in case anyone in the house sees.”
    Helene nodded and did as Madelene suggested. Then she stowed the letter in her reticule. “And what about Lord Benedict, Madelene? Miss Sewell thinks one of us should be the subject of his painting to be unveiled at our ball. Will you do it?”
    Will I?
    She knew what her answer should be. She also knew what it must be. “Helene, if I don’t get out of this house I’m going to die. I know that sounds hysterical and you hate hysterics, but it’s the truth, I promise it is. I
have
to make this season work, all of it. It’s not just about a party or a . . . a flirtation, do you see? It’s not even about social position. It’s about a life for me.”
    Helene laid a hand on her shoulder. “You know we’ll help you. All of us.”
    She smiled, and tears stung her eyes. “I may need a lot of help.”
    â€œYou just watch,” Helene said. “Together, there is nothing we can’t do. This letter”—she patted her bag—“this is only the first step.”
    â€œThe door is open.” Madelene touched her sleeve and felt Benedict’s note press against her skin, exactly where he’d held her to keep her steady when she stumbled.
    â€œAnd you are not alone,” Helene agreed. “You never were.”

V
    â€œHello, Pelham.”
    â€œWindford!” Benedict looked up from the canvas he was fixing to a frame, surprised but not unpleased. He waved the hand holding the tack hammer toward the cluttered expanse that was his studio. “Move something and have yourself a seat.”
    Marcus Endicott, the Duke of Windford, took off his hat before he ducked under the low threshold. Knowing full well the hazards of paint and charcoal that lurked in the artist’s studio, Windford had dressed for the visit in old breeches and a plain coat.
    â€œI’m not interrupting a new masterwork?” he said, pausing to peer at the sketch of a lake that had been set on an easel by the windows.
    â€œNot yet.” Benedict tapped the last tack into place and flipped the canvas so it lay faceup. “What brings you so far out of the stylish districts this morning?”
    Benedict’s studio was in a half-timber house in Lincoln’s Inn Fields that had once belonged to a prosperous merchant. But fashions in neighborhoods as well as in dresses could change within the space of a season, and the merchant had left long ago. Now, it belonged to a canny old widow who had divided the rooms up into a series of flats that she let to artists and musicians and the occasional law clerk.
    â€œI’m here on an errand.” Windford, against all expectations, found a cane-bottom chair that was free of brushes or paint pots or newspapers and sat down. “My sister has a request, an urgent one. In fact, she took utmost pains to impress upon me that it is a matter of life and death.”
    â€œYours?” Benedict quirked one