Summerset Abbey: Spring Awakening (Summerset Abbey Trilogy) Read Free Page A

mad . . . ’ ”
    “ ‘How do you know I’m mad?’ ” Kit asked, his voice affronted.
    “ ‘You must be or else you wouldn’t have come here,’ ” Victoria finished out the quote from their most treasured book. ApparentlyLady Barrymore hadn’t read Lewis Carroll because she merely shook her head and walked away, clucking her tongue.
    “Old bat,” Annalisa giggled.
    “Mind your manners,” Edward said. “The Dowager Barrymore is a paragon of virtue and too good for the likes of us, so sayeth my mother.”
    “Never mind that!” Elaine snapped. “I want to know why my brother would do something so . . . absurd. Father will kill you. He’s been waiting for you to finish at the university so he can start training you to take over Summerset.”
    Elaine’s normally mischievous eyes were as serious as Victoria had ever seen them.
    Colin shrugged. “Perhaps that’s why I joined. Perhaps it was the boring years I have ahead of me playing lord of the manor instead of having fun like the rest of my peers.”
    “Good grief, man, one doesn’t join the army to have fun,” Sebastian said.
    Victoria shook her head. “When are you going to tell Auntie and Uncle? Because I want to return to London before you do.”
    “You can take me with you,” Elaine murmured.
    “You two ladies worry overmuch,” Colin said. “They will fuss a bit, but will no doubt give in. It’s not as though we’re at war.”
    “We would be if the Germans had their way,” Sebastian said.
    Victoria shook her head. “It won’t get that far. The Kaiser is related to the royal family, for goodness’ sake.”
    The butler announced that dinner was now being served, and the ladies and gentlemen found their partners to go in for supper.
    Victoria had been partnered with Kit so many times that she was surprised when Aunt Charlotte came up behind them in the line going out the door. “I’m so sorry, but because Rowenais missing dinner, I had to juggle the order a bit. Victoria, you are going in with Colin. Kit, could you please escort Annalisa?”
    “Aren’t I the lucky one,” Colin said, taking Victoria’s arm. “Shall we go in, Cousin?”
    A frown crossed Kit’s handsome features for a moment, then he shrugged. “Actually, I think I’m the lucky one. Be careful of her tongue, Colin, old boy. It’s as sharp as an ax.”
    Victoria waited until her aunt Charlotte had moved past them before sticking her tongue out at Kit. He winked back, and she couldn’t help but smile. He was such good fun. If only he would forget all that marriage nonsense.
    “So do you really think they are going to take it badly?” Colin asked with a worried frown.
    Victoria didn’t have to ask whom he was referring to. “You were in OTC all through university, weren’t you? And they didn’t object to that.”
    “Every wellborn young man goes through the Officers’ Training Corp. It’s expected. That doesn’t mean they want me to actually become an officer.”
    Victoria tried to give Colin a reassuring smile as they walked through the door to the massive, formal dining room with its long, shining mahogany table, which was actually several tables pushed together. She could see the burden of his secret in the tight, tense line of his shoulders. For a moment, she conjured up an image of her cousin as the tormenting tease that he had been so long ago. “Don’t worry so. I’m sure they’ll be reasonable.”
    But even though her voice was carefully confident, neither of them believed it.

chapter
two

    R owena stared out the dormer window of her bedroom, watching the lights from the house splashing out onto the garden. The Coterie must have managed to extricate themselves from the card games because Rowena could hear low echoes of illicit laughter as it spilled out into the night from the billiards room.
    Earlier, music from the drawing room had wafted up to her open bedroom windows—sweet classical airs drawn from the masters that had