Midnight Rose Read Free Page A

Erin interrupted, then rushed to beg desperately once more, “Can’t we just forget this madness? I wasn’t invited to the ball, and we both know why. Zachary has never been accepted by the social elite of Richmond, and neither have we. It doesn’t matter how much money he’s got. Everyone knows how he got it—by cheating and swindling people.”
    “Erin, no!” Arlene said, quickly sinking into a nearby chair because her trembling legs would no longer support her. She drew closer, leaned to whisper, even though they were alone in the alcove. “Youmustn’t talk like that. Ever. He might hear you, and it wouldn’t do. He’d be so hurt to hear you say such things. I know he’s not a perfect man, far from it, but he is my husband, and he’s your stepfather, and you should try to get along with him, show some respect.”
    Erin’s heart went out to her, but still she couldn’t hold back her loathing. “I can’t stand him. I wish I could have stayed in Atlanta, because I can’t hide the way I feel about him, and I’m sorry, for your sake.”
    Arlene’s lower lip trembled as she fought to hold back the tears. In only a little while, both she and Erin were expected by Zachary in his study, to have a glass of sherry before they left for the ball. He wasn’t going, thank goodness, said he had to go away for a few days on business, but had expressed a desire to see them in their new finery. She didn’t want him to think she’d been crying.
    Reaching to give Erin a gentle shake, she tremulously begged, “I want you to try and get along with him, please, for me. It was time for you to come home, because this is your home, and it’s also time for you to take a husband, get married. You couldn’t go on living with your father’s sister forever, and I didn’t want you to meet someone and marry and settle down there, so far away.”
    She paused on a melancholy sigh. “I never understood why you were so hysterical to leave here anyway. I knew you and Zachary just couldn’t seem to get along, but I never dreamed it was so bad you’d want to go away.”
    Erin wasn’t about to tell her just how bad it had been, knew it would crush her to learn what that fiend had tried to do to her when she was twelve years old. Instead, she pointed out, “I can’t stand the way he treats the servants, and he’s always ranting and raving about something.” She shook her head in dismay, wished things were different, but knew they never would be.
    Arlene ignored that. “You have to remember, if it hadn’t been for Zachary asking me to marry him right after your father died, we’d be as poor as your Aunt Sarah and her family. No man from a wealthy and prominent family would have ever courted me, because I didn’t come from a similar background.”
    Erin gave an unladylike snort. “So you married a man of disrepute, because he had money.”
    “Erin, please…” Arlene choked back a sob, the tears she was fighting beginning to sting her eyes. “I had no choice. I had you to think about, and I didn’t want you to grow up in a life of poverty like I did. I was pretty then, too, and that’s why Zachary wanted me, and I held out for marriage, and now look what I have…” She waved her arms in a gesture to the opulent surroundings. “He isn’t all bad, Erin,” she rushed on. “He just gets mean when he’s drinking.”
    “Which seems to be all the time.”
    Arlene ignored that painful reality and continued her plea. “All I’m asking is that you try to get along with him. Maybe tonightwe’ll find someone suitable for you, so you can hurry and get married and move out of the house.
    “But I don’t want just anybody for you. And tonight you’ll be exposed to the cream of Virginia’s most eligible bachelors. I want you to stop worrying that we weren’t invited. We’ll just behave as though we were, because we should have been, and no one will say anything, because no one will dare make a scene. Now then…” She