Prima Donna by Megan Chance

Author:Megan Chance [Chance, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780307461025
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2009-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

JANUARY 11, 1874—Today I had a visit from Willa.

How wretched it was! I had not expected her, and when the boy came to ask if the manager might send her up, I was in bed with Gideon. It was near eleven, and though we had been up very late the night before after the Hamilton soiree, I knew Willa would think me very decadent indeed to be sleeping the day away (though, in truth, I hadn’t been sleeping). I told the boy to have her wait for me in the Ladies’ Tearoom, but he said she insisted on a private interview. Gideon kissed me and said he would stay and that it was time my family understood there was no separating us now.

There was no time to dress, so I put on a chemise and dressing gown, and Gideon pulled on his trousers and a shirt, but no coat or vest, and the bed was unmade behind us, even though I pulled out the screen, so I knew Willa would see right away how intimate we were, and I was nervous to face her.

I was right to be so. When she came through the door, her gaze went right to Gideon, and I saw the longing that came into her eyes in the moment before he came to stand behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. When he touched me, her expression went hard. But worse still was that Willa was no longer pregnant. She’d had the baby, and I hadn’t known. No one had sent a note or told me anything. When I asked her, she said she had a little boy who looked just like his father, and that she’d named him Barret after her brother—her brother, as if he was nothing to me—and that she hadn’t told me because she wanted him not to have anything to do with me.

I started to cry, though I tried to hide it from her. Gideon squeezed my shoulder and asked her why she’d come, and Willa said she was on an errand from Papa. When I said how strange it was that he’d sent her instead of coming himself, she said Papa had no wish to see me, that I was selfish and willful, and Barret was dead because of me and none of them could forgive that.

She must have known how much she hurt me. I grew angry and said very sarcastically that shame hadn’t kept Papa from taking the money I sent him. She reached into her bag and brought out a small stack of bills tied with string and set it on the table—it was why she’d come, to return the money I’d just sent Papa, the first since Barret’s funeral. “Don’t send any more,” she said flatly. She said Papa didn’t want anything from me, that he wanted her to tell me I was no longer his daughter.

I said Mama could not feel the same, and Willa said she did. That since I so obviously wanted to be free, my family would release me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.