Wild Conquest. Hannah Howell

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      And Tearlach allowed Letitia to lead him into the house.

      Pleasance slowly unclenched her hands. She stared at the four half-moon-shaped gouges in each palm. She had the sinking feeling that she had just made the biggest mistake of her life. Worse, she knew she had only just begun to pay for it.

      Chapter Two

      “I want you to steal something for me.”

      Pleasance gaped at her fair-haired sister. A month ago, when Letitia had demanded that Pleasance reject Tearlach O’Duine so that she could have the man for herself, Pleasance had decided that nothing else her family could do would shock her. She was not pleased to be proven wrong. She also felt she had done more than enough already for them; Letitia was appallingly audacious to ask for more now.

      “Steal? Did you truly say steal something for you?” she asked Letitia.

      “Aye.” Letitia pursed her lips in a sullen pout. “Why do you act so horrified? ’Tis not such a grand favor I ask of you. Why are you so reluctant?”

      “Why? Because if caught, I would face hanging, the pillory, flogging, or virtual enslavement!” Pleasance paced her small, sparsely furnished bedroom before stopping to glare at her younger sister.

      “I am well aware of the penalties for theft, Pleasance. There is no need to recite them,” Letitia grumbled.

      “Yet you ask me to risk them.”

      Pleasance frowned as she watched her voluptuous sister shrink down in her seat. Letitia always stood tall, straight, and proud—perhaps too proud, blatantly displaying the curves so many men ogled. Yet now she looked defeated and just a little afraid. Although instinct told Pleasance that it would probably cost her dearly, she felt her heart go out to her young sister.

      “What is it you wish me to steal and why must I steal it?”

      “Oh, thank you, Pleasance. Thank you!” Letitia immediately sat up straighter.

      “Do not be so hasty. I have not yet said I will do it. I simply want to hear more about it. If your answers do not suit me, then I shall not risk it.” Pleasance moved to open a window, but it did little to ease the oppressive heat in the room, the late August night proving as hot as the day.

      “I want you to steal some letters, some love letters.”

      “What harm or threat can there be in a few innocent billets-doux?”

      Letitia grimaced and ran a hand through her thick golden hair in an uncharacteristic gesture of agitation. “A great deal of trouble when they are letters, and rather explicit letters at that, which were written to a man other than the one I plan to marry.”

      Nearly gaping, Pleasance sat down on her small bed. “You are to be married? Why have I heard nothing of this?” She feared her own agitation was revealed in the way she began to fidgit with a stray lock of her chestnut hair.

      “Because it has yet to be announced. In truth, I have yet to be asked. But I shall be. I feel certain that Father has already been approached or will be within the next day or so.”

      It was an arrogant assumption, but Pleasance did not argue. If Letitia said the proposal was coming, then it probably was. Nearly a dozen men had been lurking around waiting for some sign of willingness from her, for some hint that she would accept a proposal. Pleasance hated to ask, and dreaded the answer, but knew that the question hovering on her tongue was the only logical thing to say next.

      “Who do you intend to marry?”

      “John Leonard Martin.”

      Surprise overwhelmed her relief, but was quickly followed by anger. John Martin had been their father’s original choice, but Letitia had repeatedly demanded the right to choose her own husband. Several of the young men courting her had eventually tired of her fickleness and had ventured toward Pleasance, only to have Letitia immediately regain interest and pull them back to her. In every case their parents had sided with Letitia, ordering Pleasance to give her sister precedence.

      Letitia had claimed to feel both love and passion for Tearlach O’Duine, but only a few weeks after Pleasance had given him up, the fickle girl had lost interest in him.

      “I see,” Pleasance murmured. “John—the man whom only a month ago you swore you did not want. The very man Papa wished you to marry from the start.”

      “Well, aye, but I had to see his worth on my own.”

      “Of course. And those torrid, impassioned love letters were not written to the most worthy John.”

      “Nay, of course not, or why should I wish them back?”

      “Why, indeed. Letitia, if you felt strongly enough to write such letters to a man, why do you wish them back at all? Why, in fact, choose to wed another man?”

      “Because I finally see that John is worthy,” Letitia replied, staring up at the ceiling of Pleasance’s tiny room.

      “And this other man is not?”

      “Not in the ways that matter. I had to gain the maturity to see beyond fine looks and pretty words, and at last I have.”

      “See beyond them to what?”

      “To the future. To security and the manner of life I am most comfortable with. As I said, John is more worthy.”

      And John is so worthily wealthy too, Pleasance thought, then sharply scolded herself. Letitia was spoiled and vain, but the girl had never been otherwise. The results of all the pampering Letitia had received since birth could not be allowed to annoy Pleasance now. As always she had stepped aside for her sister. She could not fully blame Letitia if her own life was not to her liking.

      “Well, who has these letters then?” Pleasance asked.

      “Tearlach O’Duine.”

      Pleasance was not at all surprised, but she was dismayed. After she had turned Tearlach away, there had seemed to be something between Letitia and Master O’Duine. Pleasance hated to think that that something had gone beyond warm looks and pretty words. She also hated the idea of stealing from the man or, far worse, being caught as she attempted it.

      “Have you tried asking him for the letters?”

      “Aye,” muttered Letitia. “Fool that I was. That cruel man laughed at me. He told me it might do me some good to fret a little.”

      That it might, Pleasance mused, but far worse than a few hours of worry for Letitia could result from those letters. Pleasance dreaded to think of the possible scandal. Letitia lacked the wisdom and foresight to temper her outpourings. When caught up in some fancied passion, she had even less sense than usual. If the letters became public, marriage with John would become utterly impossible.

      Pleasance studied Letitia for a moment. She was probably not in love with John; Letitia was incapable of loving anyone but herself. With John, however, Letitia would have the society she craved and the wealth to become a leader within it. John would never trouble her to be any more than she was. Their father had clearly chosen the perfect match for her. Pleasance supposed it СКАЧАТЬ