What Tempest Wants by Jerrica Knight-Catania

Author:Jerrica Knight-Catania
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: historical, historical romance, shakespeare, regency, regency romance, regency family
Publisher: Jerrica Knight-Catania

NINETEEN

The lady doth protest too much, me thinks

-William Shakespeare, Hamlet

“A letter for Miss Verona.”

Tempest looked up from her needlepoint to find a footman standing before her sister, a silver salver resting atop his hand. Verona stared up at him, her eyes wide behind her spectacles and her mouth hanging open like a stunned fish.

“For me?” she said, coming across as a bit daft, if you asked Tempest.

“Yes, miss.”

Verona cast her gaze to the letter and then back to the footman.

“Good heavens, Verona, take the letter so the man can go about his day, for heaven’s sake,” Tempest said.

“Oh, yes,” Verona said, finally reaching up to take the letter from the tray. “So sorry. Thank you.”

The footman bowed in response and then quit the room. Tempest turned to her sister, but Verona wasn’t looking at her. She was staring at the letter, which she held firmly in her hands. A bit too firmly. Was she shaking?

“Verona?” she ventured quietly.

Verona’s head snapped up and she finally met Tempest’s eyes. “Mm?”

“Everything all right?”

“Oh, erm…yes, just fine.” A tight smile pulled her lips wide for but a moment, and then she furrowed again as she turned her attention back to the letter.

Odd, that one. But then, she always had been. Tempest could pry further but she had her own concerns to worry about. Like where her youngest sister was. The “picnic” was supposed to begin soon, it was pouring rain outside, and everyone had returned…except Robin and Lord Aidan. Of course, she would have preferred to put her energies toward thinking of her own blooming romance, but that would have to be secondary to what was happening with her sister. It was Tempest’s duty to protect them and keep them out of trouble. Verona was no problem, but barely a day here and Robin was already proving to be a challenge.

“Ah, there you are, girls,” came Mama’s voice from the doorway. “I should have known I’d find you here.”

“It’s where I found Verona, of course,” Tempest replied.

“The library is always the quietest room in the house,” Verona countered.

“And filled with your very best friends.” Tempest meant the joke in a good-natured way, but Verona only stared up at her for a moment and then looked away again, so Tempest felt the need to explain. “Books, I mean. They are your best friends.”

Verona looked at her again, and then smiled, though it didn’t quite meet her eyes. “Oh, yes. Of course. The books.”

“The picnic is to start soon, girls. They’ve set it up in the ballroom.”

“Indeed?”

“It should be great fun. Now come along.”

Tempest set her needlepoint aside as Verona tucked the unopened letter into her bodice, and then they followed Mama out of the library, through the music room, down a long corridor, past the courtyard, until at last they reached the ballroom. It was the largest ballroom Tempest had ever seen in her life. Surely, they could have fit their cottage into the space at least three times. Pink damask paper lined the walls, which were decorated with gilded mirrors, and murals of cherubs topped each one.

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