What the Fates Decree: The Caversham Chronicles-The Titans of the Revolution by Sandy Raven Read Free Book Online

someone hasn’t reported on our jumping in the park, why have you called us in? Have the papers said we’ve done something else? I assure you, we…”
    “Not at all, Isabel,” Beverly replied. With a glance to her friends, Beverly went on. “I would like to know if you three would like to accompany me to Aunt Adina’s birthday celebration and hunt this October.”
    “You mean, I can bring Isabel and Charlotte?” Penny’s amber-brown eyes started to glow with excitement. She explained her delight to her friends. “I haven’t been to Rathcavan since we’ve come out. My great aunt has prime horseflesh in her stables and there’s a hunt of some sort almost every day. Well, weather permitting. After all, it is in Scotland in autumn.”
    “Oh, it doesn’t rain every day,” Beverly said. “It just seems that way.”
    Excitement began to well up in the three young ladies. She was encouraged that Penelope was interested in attending, though that was likely to change the moment her daughter knew what she’d not said thus far. “Lady Adina’s birthday celebration is the first weekend of our arrival, and there is likely to be a party of some sort to commemorate her seventy-fifth birthday.”
    Penelope could barely hide her excitement. “Having my dearest friends will make the obligatory trip north to papa’s relatives so much more interesting for me.”
    This was the daughter she remembered from before last spring. This was her normally effervescent Penny. She hated that she had to reopen her old wound.
    Beverly again glanced at Elise and Lia, drawing her strength to proceed from her friends. “And, as if that is not enough, it seems the new earl’s sister, your cousin Olivia, has become engaged to marry. There will be a ball celebrating the betrothal on the weekend before we return home.”
    “That’s nice for her,” Penny said in an off-handed fashion, then immediately, and excitedly starting talking about early morning fox hunts with Charlotte and Isabel.
    “You might want to hear all that your mother has to say, Penelope, before making plans to hunt each day,” Lia advised.
    Penny then returned to her task of flipping pages in the book, still searching, or pretending to search, for something irrelevant to the discussion before them. “What more is there to know,” she said with an indifferent tone and dismissive manner. “Olivia is getting married. Good for her. I hope her husband-to-be has an enormous amount of patience, and an even bigger purse. Because he’ll need both to have any happiness with her.”
    “Penelope!” Beverly didn’t like correcting her daughter in front of her friends, but she had no recourse. She didn’t raise her daughter to be so mean-spirited about anyone.
    “I can understand why you might be lashing out, but she is your cousin, and a sweet girl.”
    “Mother,” her daughter continued, with the same disaffected tone, “she doesn’t like horses.”
    “Not all women like horses as you all do, Penelope,” Lia said with a quiet authority and confidence that comes from being at ease with ones self. “I find them large and a bit… frightening.”
    To Beverly’s ears, her daughter’s words sounded demeaning to all who didn’t have the passion for the hunt, or even riding in general. And that hurt Beverly as much as she was sure it hurt Lia.
    “I think you owe your godmother an apology, Penelope. Now. That was uncalled for.” Beverly could see Penelope understood her meaning.
    Lifting her gaze from the pages of her book, she gave Lia a sincere expression as she apologized. “I am sorry, your grace,” Penelope said. “I should not have spoken so broadly. My cousin is a lovely young lady with interests vastly different from mine, and I likely have not had enough time to get to know her as well as I do Charlotte and Isabel.”
    “That is true, Penny,” said Beverly, herself nervous from having withheld the full story until now. “And I hope you’ll still want to