Deceived Read Free Page B

to a duke, I’d wed him in a trice!”
    â€œA stranger, Cally? You would marry some stranger you had never set eyes upon? I think it is you who are the fool!” Aurora said.
    â€œMarriages are always arranged,” Calandra answered her stepsister. “So you have never set eyes upon this man. He cannot, surely, be the beast from some fairy tale! And, remember, he has never laid eyes on you either. I’m certain he is wondering during his long days at sea if you are the sort of girl he really wants for a duchess, but he will do his duty, for his father made this match.”
    â€œHe will gain a sugar plantation and this island for his troubles,” Aurora noted.
    â€œAnd you will gain a duchess’s coronet!” Calandra countered.
    â€œI don’t want it,” Aurora said irritably.
    â€œI wish I had your opportunity, you silly creature,” Calandra snapped at her stepsister. “You really are quite spoiled!”
    â€œDo you want this duke, Cally?” Aurora asked the other girl. “Then have him! You marry this Valerian Hawkesworth!”
    â€œAurora, that is quite impossible,” her stepmother said.
    â€œWhy?” Aurora demanded. She brushed a tendril of hair from her face where it had fallen. “Have you seen this marriage contract that Papa arranged? What exactly does it say, Mama?”
    â€œSay? Why, I have no idea,” Oralia replied.
    â€œGeorge! Go to Papa’s library and look in the strongbox he kept by his desk. I will wager a year’s crop you will find this marriage contract in that box. Bring it here at once,” Aurora commanded her stepbrother. Then she looked directly at her stepmother in a way that discomfited the poor woman. “We will see if there is not some way I cannot wheedle my way out of this situation. Why, the nerve of this duke! He has ignored us all these years, and now, with not so much as a by-your-leave, madam, he announces he is coming to marry me!”
    Calandra giggled. “I will wager a year’s crop, if it were mine to wager, that your duke would be horrified to learn what manner of girl you are, Aurora. Men, I am told, do not like forward and fierce women such as yourself. You will have to improve your manners.”
    â€œHah!” her stepsister responded. “The man who marries me will have to accept me for myself. I will not be molded and posed like some clay figurine. Besides, Cally, how would you know what a man wants in a woman. You haven’t been off St. Timothy since you arrived from Jamaica, when my father and your mother married. You don’t know any more about men than I do!”
    â€œWe’re totally backward and gauche, the pair of us,” Calandra lamented. “I don’t know why Papa insisted on making us wait until we were seventeen to have a season in England. Why, he wouldn’t even let us go to Jamaica for a visit. We will seem like savages when we are finally allowed out into polite society.” She pushed her plate away fretfully. “I find I am no longer hungry, Mama.”
    George reappeared, clutching a parchment. “You were right,” he said, handing it to Aurora and sitting back down. “It was in Papa’s strongbox just as you said it would be. Hasn’t anyone looked through that box since Papa’s death? It is chock-full of papers.”
    Aurora didn’t answer him, instead, opened the missive and read it over carefully. Then, suddenly, a very wide smile brightened her face, and she chuckled wickedly. “Here it is! The answer to my problem, Mama. This contract betroths Charlotte Kimberly to Valerian Hawkesworth. Now, while it is true I was christened Charlotte Aurora, Mama, Calandra was christened Charlotte Calandra. Remember that when you married Papa and came with George and Cally to St. Timothy, it was decided that rather than have two Charlottes, each of us would use our second name to avoid jealousy, or the