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“Everyone I love will leave me.”
Josephine St. Claire, daughter of a viscount, sister of too many a person to name, and friend of a complete idiot, was watching her older sister dance with her new husband of barely a few hours. And, as her mother would say, she was sulking.
But she was not sulking, at least not on purpose. That was the natural expression on her face. It might be true that she was internally dying, but she was not as immature as to show it.Or am I?
With her back firmly planted against the ballroom’s wallpaper, Josephine St. Claire observed her two sisters, trying to compare her conduct to theirs, and thus judge whether she was, indeed, still a child or not. The comparison did not prove favorable to her.
Margaret was radiant, having changed from her modest wedding muslin into a silver, sparkling taffeta gown, and appeared to be the most beautiful woman in the room, as she danced in her husband’s arms. She and Josephine were of the build: tall and willowy, with wisps of tawny hair forever escaping their chignons. But that was where their similarities ended. While Margaret was the soul of poise, wisdom and grace, Josephine was wild, untamed and defying convention.
At the other side of the enormous, even by London’s standards, ballroom, Josephine’s younger sister, Amy, was absolutely enchanting. Amy, two years younger than Josephine, was already looking much more the proper lady than Josephine ever would. Her golden curls were swept up in a perfect halo around her beautiful face, and she had gathered a crowd of admirers already, young men of various titles and fortunes, hanging onto her every word. She looked like a fairy—as if she were not of this world. She was that beautiful.
It was a bad idea to compare myself to Amy, Josephine thought morosely.I look frumpy next to her in the garden, but here? I must look a positive goblin.
The last St. Claire sibling, the viscount’s heir himself, was competing with his younger sister in both popularity and good looks. Justin St. Claire, the firstborn of the family, was elegance and charm itself. The way he spoke and moved enchanted every single female in the room, and they were all vying for his attention. His blonde locks were darker than Amy’s but lighter than Josephine and Margaret’s, and he had put on his fake smile that did not betray his black, stone-cold heart.
Yes, I am definitely not ready for a crowd of this magnitude.
Josephine shrunk further into the wall, trying to blend in with the chaperones. Margaret’s new husband was tolerable, she supposed, even though he was an Honorable. It had been a love match,otherwise Josephine would never have allowed her sister to leave her.
She tried her best not to think of the empty house that awaited her with both her sisters gone. Or her third sister, who was there, as always, but invisible. The angel who watched over them. The loss that had marked their lives permanently, irrevocably.
Do not think of such things on such a joyous day. ‘Tis bad luck.
That sounded horrible. Like something a silly heroine of a book would say before becoming a tragic heroine.
Oh, I should write this down. I should have smuggled a quill in my pocket, no matter what Amy says.
According to their Aunt March, a never-married duke’s daughter, who had been living happily for over sixty years in the company of her cats, a myriad of books and a small circle of friends, Jo was ‘still a child’. Well, at nineteen years old, if everyone saw Josephine as a child still, then it made perfect sense why they kept moving on and leaving her behind.
Like her older sister Margaret had, by getting married.
Like her younger sister Amy had, by taking off to Europe with said maiden aunt on the pretext of pursuing her painting, but with the actual purpose of eventually finding a husband. Josephine herself had not been invited, even though she was two yearsolder, and unmarried. Everyone knew she was beyond hope in that regard.
Like her brother Justin had, by going to Oxford. He was four years older than her, and had once been her hero, but she had barely seen him after he’d been sent away to boarding school, as befit a boy who would one day be Viscount Vidal in the place of her father.
But what about the plays they had put up at Christmas, her and her siblings?
What about all the hours they’d spent sword-playing together, and it not mattering that she was a ‘girl’, because her brother had thought she was as good as any boy? Better, even. But those days were long gone.
She had hoped she and her siblings would remain friends well into adulthood and beyond, but apparently that was not ‘done’.
Josephine did not understand it. They were family. They were not supposed to fling themselves as far away from each other as they possibly could, in pursuit of more diverting company. Apparently, family did not equal ‘friendship’. Everyone was in such a darned hurry to leave. And she only wanted to stay. So where did that leave her?
Behind.
It left her behind.
“Everyone I love will leave me,” Josephine whispered to herself again. She should say it more often. Try to get used to the idea.
“Wrong again,” an annoying voice said behind her ear. “Iwon’t leave you.”
She turned around to behold the beautiful yet immensely irritating face of her best friend in the whole world.
“You don’t count, Teddy, you’re my best frie—wait, is your mouth full?”
“Indeed it is,” Theodore Augustus Lawrence, Lord Lowry, or simply ‘Laurie’ to his long-suffering friends said behind her shoulder, spitting crumbs of wedding cake. “And, may I ask, why do I not count?”
