Sinéad fluttered around the parlor, dusting things that didn’t need dusting and moving things that didn’t need moving. She wore an apron to cover her lovely pink dress and kept muttering to herself about how unsightly everything was, how Sylas would run for the hills when he saw the filth she lived in, how she’d never get married because no man wanted a woman who couldn’t keep a house …

  Clara had humored her at first, even ordering Sarah to help Sinéad clean, but eventually realized the grime her daughter saw was invisible and sent the maid away. Now we were all waiting patiently in the drawing room for Lord Sylas Thorne to arrive, though neither Father nor Grandmother looked particularly interested in being there.

  With Sinéad too busy to initiate a conversation, all four of us sat in our own corners of the room in dead silence. Clara remained by the window, watching for a carriage, while Father thumbed through a book without reading it. His chestnut brown hair was dusted with silver. He would soon be forty-three.

  Mother would’ve been forty.

  Father noticed me staring and blinked a couple of times like he’d seen a stranger, before giving me a tiny smile which was mostly concealed by his thick mustache. He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Clara.

  “When is that man to arrive?” she huffed and glanced again at the clock on the hearth.

  Sinéad grabbed the vase of flowers beside the clock and moved it to the windowsill where her mother stood, for the third time this evening. She had yet to decide which surface was less crowded.

  “Shortly after six,” Grandmother replied from her cozy spot near the fire without looking up from her knitting. I’d never understood why she insisted on playing the role of a senile old woman, sitting there with a thick blanket over her knees and rocking back and forth in her chair; she was barely sixty.

  Clara rolled her eyes. “I know when he said he would arrive, but it is already half past six. What wretch makes his future in-laws wait?”

  “Mama!” Sinéad protested, but that’s where the argument died out, because even when berating him, Clara had already given her approval.

  I bit my tongue.

  Bean — the fat, mangy little beast whose job was to hunt for rats and mice — waddled up to me and let out a horrid, whiny sound. I grimaced and gave it a slight shove with my foot in Clara’s direction, since she was the one who’d taken pity on it when she scooped the kitten up from a puddle beside its dead siblings. It came in whenever it pleased to either demand food from the soft-hearted in our family or cuddle up by a fire during a storm.

  Suppose I disliked it so much because it reminded me of myself.

  “The shamelessness of you! Have you stooped to kicking animals?” Clara warned before taking the cat into her arms.

  “I just nudged it,” I replied.

  “Him.”

  “Right.”

  I tugged impatiently at the wolf fang hanging from a cord around my neck and stared past Clara into the darkness outside. The sound of the crackling fire and occasional pitter-patter of rain against the window filled the room.

  Since Thorne hadn’t formally proposed to Sinéad yet, I expected he’d ask our parents for her hand tonight, assuming he intended to do it at all. As usual, I wasn’t quite sure how Father would react, but I trusted Clara to at least give Thorne a good questioning before agreeing to anything.

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  Father cleared his throat, “What was his name again, dear?”

  “Lord Sylas Thorne. Nobility. The proper kind.” Clara stood up straighter with a smile on her face, though I wasn’t sure if she was being sarcastic or not.

  “He is a ‘lord’ here on ‘business,’” I said, perhaps too disdainfully. “We don’t know what business, and I’m wondering why a nobleman has a job to begin with.”

  Clara didn’t acknowledge my words, but the lack of a clear dismissal meant she had to be thinking the same thing.

  “Sidra! Please come help me!” Sinéad’s voice came from somewhere upstairs.

  I jumped out of my seat and hurried out of the room, since there was clearly no need for me here. Sinéad was in her bedchamber, standing in front of the vanity. As soon as I closed the door behind me, she whirled around with a panicked expression.

  Judging by the way she kept tugging at her braid and the periwinkle ribbon tangled in it, she’d found yet another thing to fret over.

  “I don’t know what to do with my hair,” she whined.

  “The braid was pretty, why did you ruin it?”

  “I thought I could wrap it around my head like Mama does, but my hands are shaking too badly.”

  I pressed Sinéad down into the chair in front of the mirror and patiently untangled the silk band out of her hair, before picking up her hairbrush and combing through the remains of the braid.

  “If Lord Thorne loves you, he’ll love your hair too, no matter what it looks like,” I said.

  “I know. But I want it to look good. Don’t you ever want to look good for Mr. Brennan?”

  No, though I didn’t say that. I replied with a noncommittal shrug instead.

  “If this Lord Thorne so much as looks at your hair wrong” — I said slowly as I started twisting it back into a neat, simple braid — “I’ll rip his out of his head.”

  “Sidra!” Sinéad sounded exasperated but couldn’t help but laugh. “I can never tell if you’re a blessing or a curse.”

  “Why not both?”

  “Indeed.”

  We were silent for a while as I continued braiding.

  The sun had set an hour ago, and the candles on the vanity made Sinéad’s eyes glitter like tiny jewels. She kept fidgeting, smoothing out her skirt, checking under her nails, picking at an almost-healed scratch no doubt gifted to her by Bean. She was so desperate to please this stranger, this lowlife who’d never deserve her and who no doubt had no real feelings for her.

  “You should’ve asked your mother for help,” I mumbled. “I can’t do anything more complex than braids.”

  In truth, I was more worried about yanking the hair out of her scalp by accident; I had to breathe deeper to suppress the building rage.

  “No, I’m glad you’re here,” Sinéad replied. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  ”Go marry the first boy who looked at you.”

  ”I’m serious!”

  I tied the silk band around the end of the braid and let it fall against her back. ”There. Go be serious at Lord Thorne with your new hairdo.”

  She reached back to thumb at it before standing up. When she turned around, her sweet, round face was unusually somber. It didn’t become her to look this miserable.

  ”What’s wrong? You look beautiful, I promise.”

  ”It’s not that.”

  ”Then what is it?”

  ”I’m not sure. I just have this feeling, you know?” She searched my eyes for an answer I didn’t have. ”Like everything’s about to change. And I don’t want that. I worry for you.”

  ”For me?”

  ”Yes. If I marry, what will happen to you? I know you don’t love Mr. Brennan. And if I leave, you’ll be alone.”

  She seized my hands as if hoping her touch would keep me company throughout the rest of my life. My heart ached, but I’d always known this would happen, and I was prepared. Her happiness took priority over mine.

  ”I thought you wanted to break off the engagement?” I asked.

  ”Yes, but I’ll marry eventually. I want a family. But I want you to be a part of it, too. I can’t stand the thought of you out there, alone, with nobody to return to.”

  I’d still have Father and Grandmother, though we both knew that wouldn’t be enough to keep me coming back.

  ”I’ll be fine,” I said, wondering if I was lying or not. ”Worry about yourself.”

  ”I think I have enough people worrying about me,” Sinéad sighed.

  "That’s nonsense. Besides, you’re only seventeen. When it’s time for you to get married, you’ll be happy to leave your grumpy old sister behind.”

  She shook her head. ”No, I won’t.” Running her thumbs over my knuckles, she added, ”I’m sorry if this sounds terrible, but I’m glad my mother married your father. Otherwise I may never have met you. No girl could ask for a better sister, or best friend.”

  She was so melancholy I had a hard time keeping myself from choking up. Sinéad had no reason to be saying these things now, unless she’d changed her mind about marrying Sylas and wanted to go through with this stupid engagement after all.

  I took her hands between mine, ”I’ll still be here. We’ll always be sisters, no matter what happens. You can marry as many people as you want, but you won’t get rid of me that easily.”

  She giggled, some of her anxiety melting away.

  ”Good! I was worried all my husbands would scare you off.”

  ”I’d worry more about me scaring off your husbands.”