Love and Other Wicked Games (A Wicked Game Novel) Read Online Free Page A

fing—” She laughed and shook her head. Then she held up her hand again, finger folded over, trying to force her expression into a straight and calm manner. She laughed again. “I can’t. This is just too ridiculous.”
    Ellie sighed and continued on by herself. “You’ve cut off your finger and my mother tells you that you must keep working.”
    Amelia broke into another fit of giggles. “Now why on earth would she do that? I’d be certain to make a right mess of the fabrics and that wouldn’t do anyone any good…”
    “This is nothing to laugh about, Amelia,” Mandy added, sternly. “This is life and death.”
    “Life and death? But—I thought we were talking about the dress shop and working ridiculously long hours and me somehow cutting off my finger…” Amelia let her mouth gape. “And Ellie said this was hypothetical.”
    “Well, the idea of my mother forcing you to work long hours with your finger cut off is. Or course.”
    “Then what are we even talking about? I’m so confused…”
    “We’re just—” Ellie pinched her nose. “We’re just trying to make you see it from your own perspective. Put you in their shoes so it would make more sense and reach you deeper.”
    “Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Amelia bit her lip. “Whose shoes am I supposed to be in?”
    The three woman stared at her blankly.
    “Ohhh. This is about the mill workers, isn’t it? And the protest.”
    “How ever did you guess?” Mandy mumbled. “You know, for someone who reads so many books you sure seem to have a hard time following along at times…”
    Amelia crossed her arms and frowned. “I take back what I said about protests being romantic. The books I read are happy and are about love and outspoken women and dashing heroes. They don’t have any of this serious business about mill workers and protests. That all sounds quite a bit too distressing for my taste.”
    “It’s quite a bit distressing for most people, which is probably why they choose to ignore it. The cowards,” Mandy muttered. “The bloody cowards.”
    “You still haven’t told me what a protest is exactly. Ellie mentioned something about the workers’ neighborhoods and being forced to look… Forced to look at what?”
    Ellie’s mother left the table and went to her daughter, sitting down on the opposite side of her from Mandy. She clenched her jaw as she reached up and stroked Ellie’s hair. “I must have missed that part of the conversation. A protest? Are you alright, dear?”
    “Perfectly fine,” Ellie said with a slight edge in her voice. For just a moment she felt guilty for not revealing what she had been up to today, but she knew that it would only make her mother worry. Besides, Ellie was a grown woman after all, whether she felt like it or not, and she didn’t have to tell her mother everything. Did she?
    Grown woman . Ellie thought the words again. It was a truth that she sometimes, like right now, found hard to comprehend.
    Protecting her had been the entire reason her father gave up his Earldom and as she grew up, it left her feeling confused and uncertain about herself and her life. Ellie often felt as if she needed her parents’ protection and coddling. And permission. They had given her the gift of freedom and because of that she was afraid she would never be free of the guilty feeling that she owed them for it. Now there was bitter irony. But Ellie wasn’t sure how much of her feelings actually came from her parents and how much of them were internal manifestations. As such, she found her own independence and maturity a constant struggle, one she was still learning to overcome.
    “Is someone going to answer my questions or should I just go back to my embroidery?”
    “Oh, why yes. Of course, Amelia.” Ellie’s mother turned. “Mandy? Do you want to take this one since you have the firsthand knowledge?”
    Ellie looked to Mandy. Her eyes were cast down at her lap as if she was