Glain had learned early on and long ago the expectations had for her. The Duke of Devonshire and the long line of stern, soulless governesses he’d employed had drummed into Glain, precisely what fate and future awaited her as a duke’s daughter, and also the way he, along with Polite Society expected her to behave.
Unfortunately, her younger sister, Opal, had proven a far less apt study.
Seated upon the striped Hepplewhite sofa that overlooked the quiet London streets below, Glain added another diamond stitch to her whitework embroidery. The winter season brought with it a welcome peace. This time of year, when the ton retreated to their country estates, always brought a reprieve from the inanity of it all.
Or, at least it usually did.
“You are being ridiculous,” Opal whispered, stomping her foot in a noiseless way upon the rose-pastel carpet.
That attempt at silence proved Opal may have gathered more than Glain had credited.
It didn’t change anything.
“No,” Glain said calmly, threading the tip of her needle through the monochrome background in her frame. She paused to assess her needlework, angling the fine muslin. “I am being rational. That is entirely different and eminently better.”
“I shan’t ever become you, Glain. Never, ever.” With every reiteration of that word, her sister stamped her foot for emphasis. “Ever!”
Alas, her sister would. At thirteen, however, she’d just not realized it.
Unlike Glain whose earliest remembrances were age seven when her father had entered the nursery and discovered her writing her own fairytale stories upon the empty pages her kindly governess had provided.
The duke had stormed the room, grabbed the sheets, and into the hearth they’d gone.
The governess whom she’d loved, a woman who’d encouraged Glain, even at that young age, to think bigger, to dream of more, had been sacked, only to be replaced by a new sterner, colder, pinch-mouthed woman, who’d been unafraid to wield a switch to Glain’s knuckles when she’d deemed Glain’s work inappropriate.
Eventually her sister who loved both art and books with the same intensity Glain once had, would realize the limitations placed upon them both. Opal had simply managed to escape the certainty of her future until now.
She’d discover what Glain had, and what all women ultimately did—their voices weren’t their own. Neither were their interests and passions. In the end, first their fathers, and then their husbands dictated who a woman must be.
To resist was futile.
A small hand waggled before Glain’s face, and Glain went briefly cross-eyed as she concentrated on those paint-stained fingers.
“Hullo? You’re not even listening to me. Have you heard any of what I said?”
“On the contrary.” Glain angled her frame and resumed her sewing. “I’ve heard everything. It’s why I’m now ignoring—”
Opal yanked the wood frame from her sister’s fingers, hid it behind her own back, and glared. “I don’t know why you always insisted on being called Glain. Diamond suits you far better. They’re cold and icy. You are incapable of feeling anything.”
It was because of their mother. Her mother had been the one who’d chosen the name Glain…the duke had insisted his daughter be a ‘Diamond’ in every way. As such, Opal’s charge struck in a place deep within her heart, the pain making a liar of her sister.
“I am capable of making safe decisions,” she said calmly, keeping her features perfectly even.
“Safe,” Opal’s face pulled. “Bah, how dull and how very boring.”
“Dull and boring essentially mean the same.”
“It is a circulating library,” Opal entreated. “A circulating library. Why can’t I go?”
“Because there is no board of directors who oversee the type of books offered. The library is largely sponsored by the Duke of Strathearn.” A duke whose reputation preceded him.
“Well, if a duke is a sponsor, that should be good enough for father.”
One would think.
“It would be, if the establishment was more selective in who it allows memberships to.”
Her sister stared confusedly back. “And who is that?”
“Anyone and everyone, regardless of station or…reputation.” Prostitutes. Notorious mistresses. Self-made men.
Opal wrinkled her nose. “That’s snobbish.”
“I don’t disagree, but my opinion doesn’t matter.” In a tyrannical world, no woman’s did.
Fury poured from her sister’s eyes. “I hate him.”
There was an area they could come to a consensus on.
“Opal,” Glain tried again. “You have books here. Ones—”
“Ones hand-picked by father, and boring and dull.”
“Which both still mean the same thing.”
Opal clasped her hands against her small chest, and her eyes took on a faraway, romantic glimmer. “But not all books are the same. These books, Glain, they are…magical.” She whispered that latter word with an awed reverence one might bestow upon a newly discovered land or rare gemstone.
“Magic doesn’t exist, Opal,” Glain spoke gently, but as firmly as she could. She cast a watchful look at the doorway. “And certainly not in the gothic stories you read,” she whispered.
Opal dropped her arms to her side and glared. “They are magnificent, and clever and you would judge them.”
“Father will. And when he does, gone they go. Spare yourself that hurt. You are better off not indulging in them.”
“Reading is not an indulgence.”
Her sister scrambled onto the sofa, going up on her knees beside Glain. She gripped her with desperate little hands. “Look at me and tell me there’s nothing that’s ever brought you joy the way my books do. Because I don’t believe it.”
Glain held her sister’s eyes. “Opal, I was six when I,” learned, “Accepted how my life would proceed. You would do well to remember that pastimes like reading or painting, or whatever it is…they aren’t worth,” Losing loved ones over.“Angering the duke.”
Opal sank back on her haunches. “It is no wonder you find yourself Princesse de Glace,” she said. Had those words been shouted, with her sister glowering and stomping, it would have been easier than this…quiet acceptance.
Ice Princess.
Yes, the world—her own sister—believed her the flawless, unfeeling Glain, a woman so flawless, so perfect, even after two Seasons she’d not found a man worthy. What they’d failed to realize was how lonely Glain’s life truly was. That not even Opal her beloved sister realized as much, would never not hurt.
Glain, however, had discovered something altogether more agonizing—having people ripped from her life. Her late mother who’d been banished by their father for daring to encourage Glain’s inquisitiveness. The governess who’d been dismissed for daring to encourage Glain’s inquisitiveness.
“Did you hear me?” Opal demanded. “I said you are the Ice Princess. Don’t you even care I’m calling you names?”
“There are certainly worse things than being referred to as a princess, Opal.”
Glain’s was a bald-faced lie. That title cast upon her, whether spoken in the King’s English or French form, stung.
Sadness filled Opal’s light-blue eyes. “You are unbearable, Diamond, and I will never, ever, become you.” Somehow the somberness with which the younger girl spoke sent an even greater spiral of hurt through her.
“Never, ever, ever.”
Opal cocked her head.
“You forgot one of your ‘evers’.”
Opal’s eyes bulged, and then with a piercing shriek she tossed her arms up.
Glain should have expected her tenacious sister was not done. She kept her features even. “I know I’ll not do anything scandalous, and I’d advise you to learn that important lesson, and quickly, Opal.”
“Why?” her sister asked with an unexpected and sudden calm.
In a reversal of roles, Glain tipped her head in an accidental mimicry of her sister’s early befuddlement. “I don’t…?”
“Why are you so determined to be the flawless lady?”
It was a question never before put to her. Glain found her voice once more. “Because it is the way we are expected to conduct ourselves.”
Fire blazed within her sister’s eyes. “Well, it is a stupid way.”
And within Opal’s expressive gaze, Glain saw herself of long, long ago. Back when she’d believed she’d always be as effervescent as her. But then, Glain had been a small child when she’d transformed herself into someone she despised.
Opal, on the other hand? She’d retained hold of her merrymaking ways far longer. Odd Glain should find herself both resenting and envying the younger girl.
Giving up her seat, Glain joined her sister.
“As ladies, we must conduct ourselves in a manner that is above reproach, Opal.” She rested a hand on her sister’s shoulder. “You’d be wise to learn that now. Otherwise, you’ll learn what fate awaits those who don’t conform to Father’s expectations.”
“It is only a book,” her sister entreated.
This forlorn side of Opal, one who was so desperate for her books, threatened to wear Glain down.
“You know he’ll not countenance it, Opal.”
The books in question were gothic stories, ones of grizzly death and murder.
“Bah. He’s a curmudgeon. Either way, he barely knows we’re alive.”
That was only true in part. “Barely or not, he knows, and when he finds out—”
“If,” Opal shot back.
“When. The duke discovers all. And when he does, he will burn your books and fire your governess, Mrs. Fernsby for daring to encourage your reading such works.”
And she’d not have that for her sister.
Opal’s cheeks went a pale shade of white.
Good.
At last, Glain had managed to penetrate her sister’s pertinacity and seemingly unflagging determination to visit the circulating library.
Mrs. Fernsby genuinely cared about Opal and nurtured the girl’s soul. The sole reason Glain and Opal’s tyrannical father hadn’t removed the woman from her post was because Glain had taken care to shield the governess and her charge from the duke’s scrutiny. She couldn’t protect Opal forever, and eventually His Grace would snatch that slight happiness enjoyed by his youngest daughter.
Opal found her voice. “If he burns my books, Glain, then at least I’ll have had the joy of reading them and will carry the memories of what I read for all of time.”
With that, her sister did something Glain never recalled the younger girl doing—she turned ever so quietly and made a slow, silent march from the parlor. She closed the door not with a bang, but a small, nearly indecipherable click.
As specks of ice lightly pinged against the frosted windows, Glain stared after Opal a long moment, wavering between calling her back or running after her.
In the end, she shook her head and picked up her embroidery.
Nothing she said would make her sister happy. Nothing Glain shared would undo the unwanted truths about their circumstances—both as ladies, and more specifically as the Duke of Devonshire’s daughters.
As she worked, however, guilt and regret all swirled in her breast. Guilt that she’d been the bearer of bad truths for her younger, still hopeful, sister. Regret that their father—that the world, on the whole—was not a better, more tolerant place for women. And frustration…there was that, too.
Restless, her embroidery in hand, Glain pushed to her feet and headed over to the floor-to-ceiling length windows covered with a light frost.
She pressed one of her palms against the chilled glass, warming it enough so that she wiped away the residual of ice there. She pressed her forehead against the slight view she’d provided herself of the quiet Mayfair streets below.
Glain knew when her sister looked at her, what she saw and believed. And not only because Opal didn’t spare anything when it came to telling Glain precisely what she thought of her.
Her sister hadn’t discovered the truths yet. But she would.
In a world where men were free to be whom they wished to be, traveling the Continent or world if they so wished, or studying the subjects they wanted—or as this case would have it—even reading the books they wanted, women of their station found themselves relegated to the role of ornamental objects, voiceless. Powerless.
“You want to go play?”
Glain gasped, and whipped around, finding the owner of that small, child’s voice.
Her ten-year-old brother, Flint, stared hopefully at her.
At Glain’s silence, he joined her, walking with measured steps better suited to a grown man.
Whereas the duke largely ignored his daughters, his son received all his attentions and energies. And for all the ways in which Glain lamented the unfairness that came in being born a female in a man’s world, she also found herself pitying Flint for the pressure and attention the duke gave him—suffocated him with.
“Do you?” her brother pressed. “Want to play? You’re looking out the window the way I do when I’m in the middle of my lessons.” He gestured to the lead panes behind her. “I wanted to play with Opal.”
Glain lightly ruffled the top of his blond curls. “And any sister will do?”
“Yes,” he said with all the honesty only a child was capable of. He swatted her hand.
“No,” she said. “I,” can’t, “don’t want to play. I was just…” thinking of how life was and regretting so much of it “…watching the snow fall.” She settled for that easier, simpler answer. “Are you and Opal quarreling?”
Her brother shook his head and similar to the way Glain had moments ago, he cleared himself a spot upon the frosted glass and pressed his nose against the pane. “I can’t find her.”
“Opal is upset,” she explained.
“Why?”
Guilt reared its head once more. “She wanted to go somewhere, and I thought it better we not.”
“The circulating library?”
She bit the inside of her cheek. Even her brother knew that. Which meant it was only a matter of time before the duke did.
Flint puffed out his small chest. “When I’m duke, I won’t care what books my sisters read. I’ll let them buy whatever ones they want, and they shall read them whenever and wherever they wish. Why, if you want to read one of those gory books Opal loves in the middle of Sunday sermons, I shan’t say a thing. Why…why… I’ll see them installed in the pews in place of the boring missals there.”
So much love for him filled her breast. Glain settled her hands upon Flint’s shoulders and gave him a light squeeze. “You are a wonderful brother and will make the best duke,” she said softly. “But until that day, His Grace expects us to conduct ourselves in a manner befitting a nobleman’s children.”
Not unlike Opal of a short while ago, fire lit his eyes. “That’s another thing. When I’m duke, I’m not going to require anyone call me His Grace or duke. Not the way he does. I’m going to order everyone to call me Flint.”
A small smile twitched at the corners of her lips. “What if you don’t order anyone about, and instead, allow them to call you by your given name?”
He scrunched up his heavily freckled nose, a product of his love for the summer sun that left him with those long-lasting remnants through the subsequent seasons. “Very well. I shall invite them to call me Flint. The staff and my friends and everyone. But if they call me His Grace, I shan’t like it.” Suddenly the boy’s eyes brightened, and his entire face lit up. “Ooh! It is snowing,” he exclaimed, scrambling closer to the window so he could stare out, and shifting the topic as only a child could.
While Flint stared wide-eyed out the window, Glain made no attempt to hide a sad smile.
Alas, her brother would inevitably change. He’d develop a similar expectation of how he’d be treated, and how others referred to him. It was only a matter of time. Right now, the duke ceded nearly all control of Flint’s schooling and life to the tutors whom he’d personally interviewed. But that wouldn’t be forever. One day soon, he’d take Flint under his wing completely, so that he might shape him in his image.
