Wicked Little Game by Christine Wells

Author:Christine Wells
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Penguin Group US

DESPITE the sunshine that flooded the small parlor, simply walking into the Coles’ house again tightened Sarah’s chest. The oppressive atmosphere had not been wholly due to her incarceration, she found. There was a pervasive sense of melancholy in this house that had nothing to do with grief over Brinsley’s death.

She studied Jenny Cole as they conversed. Her flaxen hair was dressed rather fussily around her face, frothing in tight curls out of a matronly lace cap. The black mourning gown she wore was too severe for her pale prettiness. She must be near Sarah’s own age, yet she’d never married. Why hadn’t she? Jenny’s devotion to her elder brother was strong, but surely she longed for a husband, a family of her own.

Something tweaked the back of Sarah’s mind. There’d been an illness of some kind, hadn’t there? According to Brinsley, his sister had never been strong.

“Mama doted on Brinsley, you know,” said Jenny, lifting her teacup to her pursed lips. “He was such an angelic little boy.”

And such a devil of a man.

Sarah shook herself. She shouldn’t harbor so much seething resentment toward her dead husband. He was beyond her reach if she wished to punish him, and vengeance for his sins wasn’t her responsibility, after all. The better part of her knew she ought to forgive him but she couldn’t manage to be quite so good. The one thought that kept swimming to the surface was that he couldn’t hurt her anymore.

Why, then, did she carry this heavy foreboding like a yoke across her back?

Jenny rose and crossed to a piecrust table. “Here are the things Mama wanted Brinsley to have. They were Papa’s.” She brought forth a small marquetry box and handed it to Sarah.

Sarah opened the catch and peered inside.

There was a jumble of expensive trinkets: a stickpin that might be worth a considerable amount if the diamond were genuine; a large square-cut emerald ring, the kind a gentleman would have worn in the previous century; a handsome pocket watch. Sarah didn’t like to examine the contents too closely while Jenny watched, but hope lightened the weight that seemed to press against her chest. These items might bring enough to secure Tom’s future without her ever having recourse to Vane’s massive wealth.

She must be truly without a conscience, because she had no qualms about selling the heirlooms for whatever they might bring. These items held no sentimental value for her. If Brinsley had received them on his mother’s death, he would have pawned them and spent the proceeds on one of his many vices. And if Tom had not entered the equation, Sarah would have told her sister-in-law to keep it all.

As Sarah thanked Jenny and rose to take her leave, a step sounded in the hall. Jenny froze, her gaze flying to Sarah’s face.

Before Sarah could react, Jenny had whisked the box out of Sarah’s hands and hidden it behind a large embroidered bolster.

The next instant, booted footsteps grew louder and erupted into the parlor, carrying Peter Cole with them, an abstracted look on his face.

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.