Page 36 of What a Lord Wants

Their eyes met in the mirror. “But you found yours,” Eve reminded her. “So there must be hope for the rest of us.”

Mariah smiled. “There’s the romantic I know, who believes everyone will be happily wed.”

She used to be that. She wasn’t so certain now, at least not for herself. There were only so many times her heart could shatter before she was unable to mend it.

“So this teacher of yours,” Mariah said, trying to keep her voice nonchalant as she pried into Eve’s affairs. “Is he the reason you were late this evening?”

“Yes. We were together, and I lost track of time.” Her face in the mirror lit up, despite herself. “He’s wonderful to talk to, Mariah—you have no idea how brilliant and talented he is. He’s traveled and been on so many adventures, and he has such a unique way of looking at the world. He makes me feel alive and beautiful.”

“Because you are.” Before Eve could roll her eyes again, Mariah interjected, “He possess good character, then?”

“Yes.” Fie on what other people thought of him!

“Who treats you well?”

“Very.”

“With enough income to keep you in the lifestyle you’re used to?”

Eve’s mouth fell open, aghast. “Who said anything aboutthat?”

“Marriageisthe natural course of attraction,” Mariah muttered, turning her attention to the dress’s sleeves. But she couldn’t hide her happy smile. “Followed by babies.”

Eve froze, her heart skipping. “Mariah?” She grabbed her sister’s hand. “Are you and Robert…?”

Her smile blossomed into a full beam. “Well,Iam. Robert’s not.”

Eve spun around as she rose from the stool and hugged her sister. Both laughed with happiness in each other’s arms.

“Mariah, this is wonderful! Does Papa know?”

“Not yet.” A mischievous gleam lit her eyes. “I’m making Robert tell him this evening.”

Eve’s hand flew to her mouth to hold back her laughter at Robert’s expense. “I wish I could be a fly on the wall for that conversation!”

“Oh me, too.” Mariah stepped back with a squeeze to Eve’s hands. “You’re the only one who knows. I wanted you to be the first. Robert’s family doesn’t even know yet. We’re telling his mother in the morning. Elizabeth is going to be overjoyed!”

A pang of jealousy stabbed into Eve so fiercely that she winced. She had to turn away, back toward the dressing table, before her sister could see the pain on her face. Mariah had found a second mother in Elizabeth Carlisle, while all Eve had was a ghost who still haunted her. Even now in her own reflection, her mother seemed to stare out at her from the mirror. The same eyes, the same hair…

“I’m like her, aren’t I?” Eve whispered.

Mariah smiled as she laid the dress across Eve’s bed. “Who?”

“Mama.”

Mariah laughed faintly. “In some ways, exactly like her.”

Eve’s chest constricted.

“All those stories Papa likes to tell about how rambunctious she was, all the trouble she got into, all the antics she caused.” Mariah smoothed out the gown’s skirt and checked its hem. “Apparently, she couldn’t sit still either.”

Eve’s heart began to race the way it always did when she thought of Mama, paired with that metallic taste of fear on her tongue. The same reaction that even now, fifteen years after her mother’s death, sometimes made her too terrified to fall asleep at night, for fear that she’d die just like her mother, by going to sleep and never waking up.

Mariah came up behind her and studied her reflection in the mirror. “Sitting here like this, you look exactly like her in her portrait.”

Her throat tightened. Eve didn’t have to look at the portrait to know that. She’d been only eight when Mama died, but she remembered everything about her. How could she not, when they were so similar? The beauty and grace that Dom saw in her wasn’t hers—it belonged to her mother.

Would Eve inherit her short life, as well? All things died—Eve had come to accept that since Mama’s death—whether today, five years from now, or fifty. What terrified her was wasting what precious little time she might be given to live.