“We need to have a meeting.” Noelle entered without knocking, Holly dragging her feet behind her.
“I hope you intend to make this quick. Not all of us spend our days sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves.” Her youngest sister slid Eve a meaningful glance.
Eve pinched her mouth into a tight line but allowed the slight without comment.
“I wish you wouldn’t be so mean.” For as long as Eve could remember, Noelle was always trying to keep the peace. “And besides, this is rather important.”
“How important?” Eve asked.
Noelle straightened her shoulders, glancing between Eve and Holly, who was fussing with her blond hair at the vanity.
“He wants to marry me,” Noelle announced.
What? Eve spun around. “Who wants to marry you?”
“Lord Blitzencracker?” Holly froze.
“Blitzencreek.” Noelle appeared nervous and scared but also… excited.
No! This could not be good. It was too soon!
Eve rushed away from the window, took Noelle by the hand, and set her down in the high-backed upholstered chair sitting by the bed. “You can’t marry him, Noelle. You’ve only just met him. It is up to a gentleman to court a lady before asking for her hand. He hasn’t even met Papa yet!”
But Noelle refused to meet her eyes. “He promised me a boon and so I was hoping he would marry you, Eve, but he says that the two of you don’t have any…” She waved her hands in the air, searching for the proper word. “Butterflies for one another. But he thinks that he and I might…”
But that was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. Of course, there weren’t any butterflies between her and Lord Blitzencreek.
“Why on earth would I want him to marry me?”
“He thinks the two of you might… what?” Holly seemed far more interested in this conversation now than she had initially. “And by butterflies do you mean—?”
“Because you have been so sad. I thought that if you had a husband—”
The hurt from Nicholas’s failure to follow through with his intentions still stung and for Noelle to think she needed to blackmail a gentleman into marrying her almost felt like salt poured onto her wounds.
“I do not need my little sister to find a husband for me. Do you think I’m such a dolt as all that?” But Eve couldn’t help but think that Nicholas hadn’t cared enough to even read her letters.
“Because the two of you might… what?” Holly whined, kneeling on the floor beside Noelle now.
“Enjoy marital relations,” Noelle answered but turned back to Eve. “I just wanted to do something that would help you.”
“I don’t need your help! Or anyone else’s!”
“But you’ve not been yourself. And I don’t think it’s simply because of Mother. There is something else.”
Holly turned to stare up at Eve as well. “When Mama died, you were a watering pot but after the funeral you stopped. And that was even worse. You turned into… a shadow.”
Eve glanced back and forth between Noelle and Holly and her heart cracked. Had she really been so selfish? She’d thought that she’d been being strong for them. But had she shut them out in the process? “I have been rather gloomy, haven’t I?”
Noelle nodded. “We miss you. You are our sister. We are sisters. If we don’t watch out for each other, who will?”
The past year had been dreadful for all of them. In that moment, Eve resolved that she would be more cheerful—especially with the holidays so near. She would do her very best to make Christmas a time of celebration. Regardless of what happened with Nicholas.
“I’m sorry.” Eve blinked away tears. “I truly am. I should have been doing my best to cheer the two of you and instead all I’ve done is feel sorry for myself. And now this…” She half-sobbed, half-laughed. “My little sister is trying to marry me off to a perfect stranger.”
Eve nearly choked at the idea.
Holly sniffed. “I’m sorry too.”
Noelle let out a huge sigh. “None of us has anything we need to apologize for. But we can’t keep ourselves locked in this grief.”
“No, we cannot.” Eve only wished they could do something about their father. “Even if Father has.”
Both her sisters nodded.
“Aunt Winifred isn’t grieving. She has a beau.” Holly grinned slyly.
Eve turned, staring at her little sister and marveling at what a beautiful young lady she had become. Holly had always been the most loving amongst them—the most affectionate. Also, the most likely to get into mischief.
Still… “Of course, she’s grieving. Mother was her sister.” Eve huffed.
“It’s been a year now.” Holly frowned but then shrugged. “I saw her walking with Mr. Kringle before the storm yesterday. And just before they parted, the two of them stepped behind the tall evergreen and he kissed her.”
“On the lips?” Noelle giggled.
“You were spying on them?” Eve clarified.
Holly nodded. “Of course. What else is there to do in such a tiny village?”
“Aunt did seem awfully interested when Lord Blitzencreek mentioned his feelings on physical love.” Eve’s mind flashed back to all of the roasts and chickens Mr. Kringle had sent over since they’d arrived…
Which reminded Eve of why Noella and Holly were here to begin with.
“What are your thoughts on the baron’s rather abrupt proposal?” If that blighter hurt Noelle in any way—by heavens—Eve would make certain he became well acquainted with her sister’s wrath!
“It’s to be something of a marriage of convenience. I don’t love him or anything so absurd as all that.”
“Don’t you want a love match, Noelle?” Holly sounded sad at the idea.
But Noelle was being wise in that regard. Love was dangerous. It could hurt a person more than she had ever imagined. A part of her agreed with Noelle’s reasoning, and yet a marriage without love could be painful as well.
“Father loved Mother desperately. Remember, he used to tell us that she mattered more than the earth and the moon and all the stars in the sky to him.” Noelle’s lips trembled. “It’s like he died when she died.
