Page 2 of The Mysterious Miss Lydia
Her lips parted, but her heart slammed dangerously in her chest and any words she might have uttered died in her throat.
Her father’s smile wavered, and Lydia caught the flicker of disappointment in his eyes.
In Wendell’s she saw...smug satisfaction. A glimmer of amusement at her expense. There and gone so quickly she wasn’t even sure herself if she was being paranoid, and definitely too brief for anyone else to take note of it.
Wendell reached for her hand which lay limp on top of her novel. He held it in his and bowed over it—a gallant, silly, foolishgesture. And she was certain she caught a challenge in his eyes when he said. “How wonderful it is to see you again.”
She couldn’t speak. She could barely breathe for the way her heart was racing and her stomach was churning. Bile rose in the back of her mouth and she tugged her hand out of his just as he released it, so her hand flung back too quickly and she smacked her own chest.
“Yes, I can see Lydia is quite overwhelmed at this happy reunion,” Wendell said smoothly.
Her father smiled at that, and it seemed every relative in the room gave an indulgent chuckle.
Her mother smiled at Wendell like he was some dear creature to take such pity on her mute, awkward daughter.
Anger sizzled in her veins, but it only rendered her even more speechless. Her hands gripped the novel as her father continued the introductions. Wendell was greeted by all as some sort of returning hero.
More like a recurring nightmare. The anger that burned in her chest started to sting the back of her eyes.
Tears of anger. How useless. She let out a sharp exhale of irritation. Useless was exactly how she felt right now, watching the boy who’d bullied her during childhood charm her family.
“Sir Cedric has been too kind,” he was saying, making her mother’s smile turn doting.
It made Lydia’s stomach turn. Was she the only one who saw that it was all a false pretense? The man might have charm, but he was vile through and through. He’d been cruel as a child, and she had no doubt that trait still remained.
They couldn’t honestly expect her to marry this man, could they?
She watched her mother laugh as he launched into a tale about his time abroad. Before his father passed and he’d takenon the baronet title, Wendell had gone to the continent to ‘earn his keep,’ her father used to say.
Doing what? No one seemed to know precisely. Something to do with exports or imports. All that mattered was that when his father fell ill and he’d returned home, he’d come with a fortune.
And when his father died and he was needed at home to care for his mother and sister, he’d gone to work for her father at the Home Office.
Her father approached while the others were being entertained by Wendell’s tales. “Are you all right, my dear?”
She forced a smile because there was genuine worry in his eyes and she didn’t want that. She was tired of being the object of everyone’s pity or concern.
The concern in her father’s eyes was unbearable now, just as it had been when she’d been young and ill. Her whole childhood had been spent in her sickbed, and she’d seen enough fear and worry in her father’s eyes on those nights when he’d prayed over her, asking that her soul be taken to heaven.
She hated that he still worried about her. Her mother too. And Imogene...
She heard Imogene’s tinkling laughter at Wendell’s story and winced.
Well, Imogene didn’t worry about her so much as resent the fact that she was still alive.
“I know we took you by surprise,” her father was saying. “And for that I’m sorry. Your mother was worried that if we told you of our plan—”
“That I’d run and hide,” she said softly.
He smiled indulgently. “Something like that.”
She couldn’t argue. Because she would have.
“We just want to see you happy and settled,” he said, his gaze turning back to Wendell. “And Wendell knows you. He doesn’t expect you to...” Her father faltered slightly. “To change.”
She pressed her lips together. Somehow his kindness stung more than Imogene’s mockery and her mother’s criticisms.
“I don’t want to marry him, Father,” she said.
