Page 4 of Earl of St. Seville

Patience sat bolt upright in bed, clutching her warm blankets to her chest as her wide-eyed stare darted around her dark room. The faint glow of the embers in her hearth told her that the hour was late, and the entire household was likely abed, despite the lingering warmth in her chambers.

Yet, someone was indeed in Merit’s room.

Perhaps her brothers had returned early from their holiday.

The sound of a cough echoed through the thin wall, followed by a groan, and then another cough. An ensuing litany of cursing echoed, too low for Patience to comprehend every word but enough to fill her with a burst of happiness.

Her rascal of a brother had returned…and without the foresight of sending word to her.

Had he stopped at his club for a drink—or three—before arriving home? Perhaps that explained his less than subtle arrival and his string of highly unacceptable language.

None of that mattered. Her brother was home. Patience would no longer suffer through endless days of solitude with little conversation besides what she engaged in with her father or her maid.

Patience tossed her blankets aside and scurried from the sanctuary of her bed, her bare feet touching the cold, wood-planked floors as she hopped across the room in delight. Her unease from a few moments before was all but forgotten in her haste to chastise her brother for his untimely arrival, thus rousing her from sleep.

She wasn’t actually vexed—quite the contrary in fact.

In truth, she missed her siblings greatly when they were not at home.

With her eldest sisters—Verity and Temperance—lovingly wed and living with their husbands, Patience found herself alone much of the time, her father hidden in his study claiming he had much work to do and could not be bothered by her idle chatter. Patience did not, in any way, see her discussions and debates regarding the health and safety of all her countrymen as idle or chatter. However, in addition to passing around her pamphlets, her father had begged her to set her attention on other topics.

That only left Valor and Merit to keep her company and banish the loneliness that had set in after their mother’s passing five years prior.

Patience pulled her door open just enough to slip into the corridor, a draft ruffling the hem of her long, white nightshift around her bare ankles.

Indeed! A dim glow shone below her brother’s door.

The eagerness that coursed through her was unexpected, though welcome. Except for her work crafting her pamphlets, Patience had little to occupy the long hours in each day, though she had taken her father’s advice and researched drought in the Southern African nations and the extreme poverty currently plaguing areas in Eastern Asia. She suspected he’d only suggested the distraction to keep her mind occupied.

Visitors were few and far between at Marsh Manor. Any friends she’d thought to possess had long been married and now had their own families to care for and were, therefore, not concerned with the grave injustices around the world nor continuing a friendship with a woman who now verged on being a social outcast. At twenty years of age, Patience had danced her way through three Seasons before setting her sights on other activities to fill the endless days—far more noteworthy and pressing matters than what color was fashionable during the current Season or what lord every marriage-minded mum desired to set their caps on for their unattached daughters.

Not that she verbally admonished those who filled their every waking moment with such drivel—regularly, at least.

Her only reprieve from her causes was her rakehell brothers—and the mischief they found, even though they were both past the age of childish games. Her sisters, bless them, had both turned into tedious shells of their former selves, preferring to spend their time on the trivial matters of societal life, the exact things that Patience had, for lack of a better word, no patience for.

Patience took a few steps toward Merit’s door before glancing across the hall to Valor’s bedchambers. No light could be seen in the space between the bottom of the wood and the polished floor. Odd, her brothers never went anywhere without one another. They were joined at the hip, as her father liked to jest—thought Patience sometimes called the pair joined at the brain, as they seldom had any original thoughts between them.

But, as her sisters were always eager to remind her, it only mattered that a gentleman was pleasing to the eye—and heavy in the pockets.

Merit and Valor were most assuredly dashing young men with ample funds provided by Patience’s father. She supposed a handsome exterior, large, deep pockets, and sense to use both wisely would be a rare combination indeed.

Patience grasped the latch to Merit’s door and pushed it open, her smile still wide.

The alarming speed with which her grin faded, and the swift awareness of her scantily clad appearance gripping her would have caused all her siblings to fall upon one another in unrestrained merriment.

Her skin flushed warmer than a late August afternoon spent rowing on the clear, placid waters of the lake at her father’s country seat—and, at the same time, a tremor caused her grasp to slip from the latch.

Perhaps she should have knocked.

Or, preferably, remained safely abed.

Before her stood a man, not one of her brothers that she still pictured as boys even though they were two and four years her senior, but instead a true man—stripped to the waist, his back to her.

Thank the heavens above for small miracles.

But to deny that her heart skipped a beat—or ten—would be preposterous. In fact, as Patience stood, unnoticed, studying the man now looking out Merit’s open window, she wondered if her heart would ever beat a normal, steady rhythm again or if her skin would ever cool enough to need an overcoat or shawl. It was only when her lungs began to burn that she realized she’d held her breath since opening the door, a call of greeting stuck in her throat.

One utterly forgotten.