Banished Love Read Online Free

prattle. I knew by now that trying to speak was a pointless endeavor.
    “Really, Clarissa, you should take more care to prevent becoming wet. I can’t understand why you haven’t retired to your room to change. You’ll catch a cold if you aren’t careful,” she admonished. “Have I not told you, over and over again, to stay dry? We can’t have you catching cold now, of all times,” she wailed, unceremoniously pushing me toward the stairs.
    Mrs. Smythe followed on my heels up the stairs to Da’s study, calling out for him, I was convinced, to report on my unladylike behavior.
    As I hastily changed clothes with the aid of my maid, Mary, I heard the guffaws coming from the dining room, and I realized that Patrick had begun regaling the family with today’s tale. I quickly descended the stairs and entered the dining room, as Patrick, Colin, and Da were known to eat my share of supper as well as their own when I arrived late to the meal.
    I glanced around the room as I settled into my chair. Da sat relaxed at the head of the table, light brown eyes lit with pleasure at the storytelling. His broad shoulders and muscled arms were the only indication of his profession as a blacksmith.
    Colin, the middle sibling at age twenty-five, sitting next to me on my right, was as tall as Da, at least six feet, though not quite as stocky. Instead of brown, his hair was a thick, wavy auburn. His light blue eyes were generally filled with merriment, and he was the least serious of us all, loving a good joke and story. He worked with Da as a blacksmith.
    I glanced toward my eldest brother, seated across from me, as he continued to expound on a particular detail from today. At twenty-eight, Patrick had just finished apprenticing to be an architect, and we were all extraordinarily proud of him. He worked hard, and his chestnut-brown hair already showed a little gray. His rather plain “muddy brown” eyes—as he liked to call them—hid his inquisitive nature. He rarely found himself home at night due to the long hours at his new job.
    My eyes rested on the final person at the supper table, Mrs. Smythe, seated at the other end of the table and thus some distance from the rest of us. I watched her through lowered eyes, noting that her posture, hair and clothes all seemed perfect. She was slightly shorter than me, about five foot four. Her golden brown eyes appeared dull unless you looked closely and caught the cunning glimmer hidden within. Her petite frame, expertly draped in an immaculate, crisp white shirtwaist with a burgundy red skirt, highlighted her tightly corseted figure. Her long, thin face portrayed flashes of displeasure, although she tried to quell any outward reaction.
    Tonight we ate in the dining room, one of my favorite rooms. We had shared many wonderful family meals here when my mama lived. The dining room table was long and made of sturdy maple with eight matching chairs around it. Along the wall toward the butler’s pantry sat a simple maple sideboard with drawers to hold linens. A small oak table separated the twin windows in the room, with a small overflowing potted fern. Plush red drapes covered the windows, an addition from Mrs. Smythe. The pale slate-blue wallpaper, slightly faded, had been chosen when my mama had first decorated the room.
    “Hey, human catapult!” Colin said with a wink. I blushed, realizing Patrick had already told the worst of the tale. I wondered what they would think had I been the one telling it. That thought made my cheeks redden further, as all I seemed able to recall were Gabriel’s eyes and his intense, inquisitive stares.
    “As long as the man wasn’t hurt badly,” Da said with a note of resignation, the pleasure dimming from his eyes at the realization I had hurt someone this time. He focused his light brown eyes on me. “I thought your aunt was giving you lessons?”
    “Yes, in manners.”
    “Though clearly not in comportment,” Mrs. Smythe said with a disdainful sniff.