by Lara Temple
‘Diverting—and expensive,’ Harry muttered, but he couldn’t help laughing at Charles’s devil-may-care smile. It was always thus with his younger brother, their mother’s golden boy. While Charles was the fun one, Harry had indeed always been the responsible one. The quiet one.
Charles shrugged. ‘What else can one do? I would be wretched in the army, worse than useless. The church would never have me.’
‘What of your painting?’ he asked, remembering the rare talent Charles once possessed with a brush, the way he could capture the mood of a landscape in a few deft strokes of paint.
Charles laughed. ‘A boy’s diversion. Not fit for a grown man, y’know.’
‘According to who? Our father?’ Harry asked quietly.
Rather than answer, Charles pushed open the carriage door as soon as they came to a full halt and jumped down. Harry followed him up the shallow stone steps into the echoing hall of Hilltop Grange. In the shadows, the portraits of their ancestors, including their golden-haired mother, watched them in silence. In the rooms beyond, the furniture was shrouded in canvas covers, like ghosts. Their mother’s cherished pianoforte was silent.
For just an instant, Harry had such a different vision of the house, light gleaming on polished wood. The warmth of the fire, the scent of flowers from the gardens, the rush of small feet down the stairs, music. But the lady who turned from the keyboard to welcome him with a smile—her eyes were the sweet, soft hazel of Rose Parker.
‘Father, wake up!’ Charles shouted, banging on the library door with his fist. The dream was shattered, like the dust of Hilltop itself.
Copyright © 2017 by Ammanda McCabe
ISBN-13: 9781488021848
Lord Hunter’s Cinderella Heiress
Copyright © 2017 by Ilana Treston
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