Burning Bright Read Free Page B

well, I suppose I’ll have to order another.” Selina handed Elinor a loose sheet of newsprint and removed the offending bonnet, revealing dark-blonde hair that shone in the diffuse light from the windows. “I don’t know how you can bear to read about all the misery in the world. I know it makes me positively ill with anxiety.”
    “I like knowing things. And it’s not all miserable. The Royal Navy has just announced the commission of half a dozen new ships, smaller and faster to fight these awful pirates coming out of the West Indies.”
    “You see? Horrible pirates preying on our shipping lanes.”
    Elinor laughed and shook her head. “I see there is no convincing you. But there are far more interesting things to talk about. How are my dearest nephews?”
    “Very dear indeed, though poor Jack has had a terrible cough all week. Colin is beside himself at being deprived of his favorite playmate.” Selina cast her eyes down demurely and smoothed her fur-lined grey pelisse over her stomach. “And I expect to give them another companion before the year is out.”
    Elinor threw her arms around her sister again, laughing in delight. “Such wonderful news! John must be bursting with pride.”
    “He does dote on his sons fiercely,” Selina agreed. “Though I believe he would be just as happy with a daughter.”
    “Of course he would! You are so lucky in your family, sister. If I believed I could be half as happy—” She stopped, biting her lip.
    Selina took her hands and squeezed, gently. “I know why mama and papa have brought you to town,” she said. “They treat you differently now that you have an Extraordinary talent.”
    Elinor nodded. “All these years of being the non-talented one, and then one night… I don’t understand it, Selina, but there it is. And now nothing will do but that I marry some duke or earl I neither know nor care for—” The tears she hadn’t shed for four months choked her. She swallowed hard, and went on, “This is not the life I wanted.”
    “What life did you want? Certainly not to be Miss Pembroke, spinster daughter of Josiah and Albina Pembroke, living in their house and eating their food with no home nor portion of your own.”
    It felt like a rebuke. “You sound as if you agree with them.”
    Selina shook her head. “I apologize, dearest, that’s not what I meant at all. I’m simply asking what you
do
want, if it’s not living with papa for the rest of your life or marrying some chinless duke.”
    “I want…” Nothing sprang to mind. “I want to be free to do as I choose. If I marry, I want to marry someone I can at least respect or even love, not because he has the right talent—and I certainly want to marry someone who cares for me and not this…this
gift
, I suppose you could call it, though that raises the question of who gave it me. God, possibly. But mostly I want not to feel I owe my every breath to someone else. I don’t want to be
grateful
all the time, Selina, and papa never fails to make me feel as though everything I am and have and will be is due to him.”
    “I wish I knew how to give that to you.”
    “So do I.”
    Selina patted her hand compassionately. “Do you not think it even remotely possible one of these titled lords might be someone you could love?”
    “I suppose.” Elinor shrugged. “But with papa spreading the news of my valuable talent as if he were advertising a horse for sale, I doubt any of them will look at me as more than a breeding animal.”
    “Oh, don’t, pray don’t talk like that! You are breaking my heart.” Selina’s enormous fur muff fell off her lap and rolled a little way across the floor. “Elly, you deserve so much more than that!”
    “Tell it to papa. He might listen to Lady Wrathingham. He is certainly not interested in Miss Pembroke’s opinion.”
    “If I thought it would do any good…you know he has only your best interest in mind.”
    “Or what he believes is my best interest, which