One Kiss From Ruin by Nancy Yeager

Author:Nancy Yeager [Yeager, Nancy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nyb Publishing
Published: 2019-02-28T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Emme entered the breakfast room at an impossibly early hour. The spinsters believed in “early to bed, early to rise,” and if Emme hoped to be one of them, she had to adopt the habit, even if she did startle more than one of the servants who hurried to set a place for her at the breakfast table. It all would have been easier to manage if she and Aunt Juliana hadn’t stayed up late two nights in a row with Mother, but even a day-and-a-half after being reunited, there still seemed to be so much more to share about the year they’d been apart.

She could tell by the unused place settings that she’d arrived even earlier than her father and brother this morning. And from the missing one that her mother didn’t plan on joining them. The only one Emme could never have beaten to breakfast had been Eleanor.

As the footman poured a cup of tea and served her a plate salmon and eggs fresh from the kitchen, she could almost picture her sister there, in the seat just across from hers, peeking at the morning papers before Father arrived to tell her ladies don’t read at the breakfast table. Emme smiled, remembering the few mornings she’d had breakfast alone with her sister. Eleanor was always full of good cheer, but never more so than first thing in the morning. Except when Emme vexed her, as she had that fateful summer she’d made the dastardly mistake of falling in love.

Emme had risen at the crack of dawn, full of energy she couldn’t contain, despite the late hours she’d kept to rendezvous with Daniel in the library. She’d found her sister in the breakfast room with a nearly finished plate of food in front of her and a book balanced on the edge of the table. Emme had forced herself to slow down as she’d entered the room, not wanting to rouse her sister’s suspicion that something was amiss.

“Good morning, sister,” Emme said.

Eleanor surveyed Emme silently, sweeping her eyes from Emme’s head to her toes with a penetrating gaze. As Emme piled eggs, bacon, and fruit onto her plate, Eleanor didn’t speak. When Emme sat down opposite Eleanor, her sister leaned back in her seat.

“What have you done now, Emme?”

Emme struggled to swallow the forkful of eggs she’d shoveled into her mouth. Daniel’s late-night attentions had left her famished, but now she worried her older sister would deduce the reason for her early-morning appetite. Emme longed to confess to Eleanor, to share her delicious secret, but she only wanted to share her hopes for a bright future with Daniel, not the details of what had passed between them. Those should remain between lovers.

“Why do you assume I’ve done something?”

“Because I’m not an idiot, nor am I blind.” Eleanor leaned forward and dropped her voice to a whisper. “It’s Edensbridge, isn’t it? What happened? And where were you yesterday afternoon when you asked your maid to lie and say you’d taken to your room with a headache?”

Emme’s face flushed hot.

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