Lady of Pleasure by Delilah Marvelle

obvious, despite their time of mourning being over, she showed no signs of wanting to rejoin the living. It was like the girl was still trying to understand what had happened.
    Pausing beside her sister, Caroline reached over the bed and smoothed a gloved hand over her sister’s forehead. “I miss Papa too,” she whispered. “We all do. But you ought to be comforted knowing that he lived a very long life. Most men never see a breath past seventy. Yet he did.”
    Mary pinched her eyes more tightly shut, scrunching her features together all the more.
    Caroline leaned in closer, stroking that cheek. “Do you think Papa would have approved of you acting like this?”
    Mary continued to remain perfectly still except for the rapid breathing through that little freckled nose and the rise of her flat chest just beneath her crossed arms.
    “Mary.” Caroline leaned in as close as the bed and her gown would allow. “You know full well what that coin means to me. Why would you take it without asking?”
    Except for an exaggerated, closed-eyed pout, Mary still didn’t respond.
    Fortunately, she knew a thing or two about mythology. “You need an obolós made out of silver if you plan on summoning Charon. A British sovereign will only offend the undead chap.” She wasn’t even going to mention that if he did exist, one really had to be dead in order to meet him.
    Mary’s eyes popped wide open. She jerked her braided head toward Caroline, her large green-blue eyes staring up at her. “So he won’t be coming? At all?”
    Who was she to ruin the vast imaginings of a child still in mourning? “Do you want to keep it and see if he comes?”
    Mary rolled the coin aside in her mouth, clicking it against her teeth. “Can I?”
    The sound of that coin clicking against teeth made Caroline instinctively shudder. “Yes. You can. But only for this one night. And you are charged to take very good care of it. And above all, don’t do anything half-witted like…swallow it and die.”
    “I won’t.” Mary scrambled into an upright position, spit out the coin into her hand and shifted toward her. “Are you going to ask Lord Caldwell to marry you tonight?”
    Caroline tweaked that freckled nose. “A lady usually waits for the gentleman to ask. But if keeps me waiting, I’ll have no choice, will I?” She smiled, stepped away from the bed and pointed at Mary. “Now get some sleep.” She hurried toward the door.
    Mary scrambled across the bed after her. “I know our time of mourning is over, but why am I the only one still wearing bombazine? I cannot help but feel as though this entire family has already carried on. As if Papa never mattered merely because he moved into a cottage due to his health for a year. Did you not love him?”
    Caroline froze and slowly turned back to her sister, trying not to let her mind linger on the secret she had kept from all of her sisters about why their father had really moved out to the cottage. Her father had long since redeemed himself in her eyes, which was why she never spoke of it. Because he had moved into that cottage to live simply and prove that he was a man capable of being faithful to the ideals of a husband and a father, separate from the wild parties and the women. He had to lock himself away in the country and in a cottage to do it, but he had done it.
    His last year of life had been his best.
    A lone tear unexpectedly trickled its way down her cheek. Caroline swiped it away. Holding her sister’s gaze, Caroline offered in a soft, broken tone, “Of course I loved Papa. Very much.” Too much. She swiped at another tear that had escaped.
    Mary plopped back onto her heels and stared her down with a seriousness that went beyond the age of twelve. “I didn’t mean to make you cry.”
    Caroline smiled tightly. “I know.”
    “Tonight is a very special night for you, yes?”
“Yes. I plan on sharing my first dance with Lord Caldwell.”
    Mary jumped off the bed and padded toward her.