A Marquess for Christmas (Scandalous Seasons Book 5) Read Online Free

She started down the hall.
    “You do look like that. And you still refuse to tell me where you’re off to. Every. Day.” Poppy, as tenacious as the day was long, trotted fast on her heels.
    Patrina turned quickly down the corridor, and Poppy hastened her step to keep up. “It’s not your business.”
    Her sister carried on as though she’d not even spoken. “At first I believed you merely went shopping. Except, you never returned with any packages.” She shook her head. “So, you most assuredly weren’t shopping.”
    “Most assuredly,” she murmured.
    “You’re not like Prudence.”
    “Who is not like me?”
    The sisters shrieked as Prudence stepped out of the Ivory Parlor, into the hall.
    Poppy frowned at her. “Must you sneak up on a body like that?”
    Patrina continued on, welcoming Prudence’s unexpected, and much timely, intervention. Alas, Prudence appeared as bored as Poppy for she hurried to keep pace with Patrina. Patrina stepped inside the music room and made to close the door behind her.
    Prudence stuck the tip of her slipper in the doorway. “That’s not well-done of you,” she said on a huff and then shoved her way through. Poppy followed suit.
    A sigh escaped Patrina, and she made her way over to her pianoforte. She settled onto her bench and proceeded to play in a desperate attempt to divert her sister’s attention.
    “Ugh, must you insist on playing, Trina,” Prudence said on a wince. “You know you’re quite deplorable. Surely you know that.”
    Patrina continued to play. A particularly discordant note echoed throughout the room. She frowned. “I like to play,” she said, a touch defensively. Her sister was quite right. There was not a single thing remarkable about her playing, other than how absolutely horrendous she was. Her pace too slow, her fingers too clumsy, she’d been mocked for playing at more than one musical recital.
    Of course, salacious gossips would never mention anything so mundane as Patrina Tidemore’s poor pianoforte playing now, not when she’d gone and eloped with a shameless cad who’d had no intention of ever making her his wife.
    She sighed and shoved thoughts of Albert from her mind. She forgot her sisters’ prattling on about some such nonsense, and lost herself in her playing. For everyone’s derision over her pianoforte skills, Patrina enjoyed it rather immensely. The instrument provided the singular pleasure she found in life, and the one pleasure not dictated by others, one that she was solely in control of. Her fingers stumbled over the keys.
    “Oh dear, you have the look again. She has the look again,” Poppy said, this time to Prudence.
    I will not engage them. I will not engage them.
    Prudence sighed. “She does.”
    “Nor will she tell me where she goes off to everyday.”
    “Because it is not your business.” Three pairs of eyes swiveled to the door as Penelope, their second youngest sister sailed into the room.
    Patrina played all the louder.
    Poppy slapped her hands over her ears.
    “Must you do that?” Penelope called out.
    Patrina played louder still. “Yes.” As much as her sisters wore on her patience, in those dark days following Albert’s betrayal, they’d been steadfast, and loyal, and somber…and for that she could never repay them. If she were being truthful, she could admit she far preferred them to the loquacious bits of baggage before her now.
    “We’re trying to determine where she’s been off to,” Poppy said over Patrina’s playing.
    “But she’ll not tell us,” Prudence groused.
    Patrina picked her gaze up from the keys long enough to detect the flash of hurt shot her direction by Prudence. She fought back a wave of guilt. In sacrificing her sisters’ own future marital prospects with her own foolish decision, her sisters had been far more forgiving than she deserved. In this, Prudence was indeed correct. She owed them truths and yet…could not bring herself to share her meeting with the