Sari Robins - [Andersen Hall Orphanage] Read Online Free Page B

instead of a lad of fourteen. “Can I go now?”
    Her hand began to throb and she looked down, realizing that she was clutching the jug handle in a viselike grip. She set it down on the grass and crossed her arms, trying to make sense of the only flesh-and-blood relative that she acknowledged. “I don’t know what to do with you, Jared. I try to give you the opportunities to be the best man you can be. To be prepared for the next phase in your life. The extra money for books, the tutor whom I can hardly afford—”
    “What if I don’t want it?”
    “Don’t want what?” she cried exasperated. “The tutor?”
    “Any of it.”
    “What do you want then?”
    His hands fisted by his sides. “You to stop yanking on my tails.”
    “Tails?” Frustration made her voice pitch up. “What on earth are you talking about?”
    “Forget it,” he muttered as if she were the one speaking gibberish.
    She looked around, then grabbed his arm, heaving him into the side door of the chapel and into the vestibule. No one should be in the sanctuary at this hour. “I am trying to give you the education that Mother and Father would have wanted you to have. That you would have had if the blasted Caddyhorns had not been so wretchedly insidious,” she whispered harshly. “You need to be prepared for when you take your rightful place in Society as Baron Coleridge.”
    “Why, Catherine?”
    She sputtered a moment, flabbergasted by his obtuseness. “Why, because it’s your just due.”
    “And how the bloody hell do you suppose that fantasy is going to happen?” His voice was full of contempt. “We are orphans, Catherine. We have no means of stopping the Caddyhorns or reclaiming our money. My title is nothing more than an empty designation, one that I heard the Caddyhorns were going to get anyway, since everyone thinks that the real Baron Coleridge is dead.”
    “They presume that you are dead, but they cannot have the title if you are alive…”
    He glared, not even bothering to state the obvious paradox. They could not let Uncle Dickey and Aunt Frederica Caddyhorn, their legal guardians, know of Jared’s existence or they might try to resurrect their plan of locking her brother in Bedlam. Or, worse, Catherine wouldn’t put it past them to try to kill Jared. Yet, if she and Jared did not speak up, the title might be declared vacant and all would be lost.
    Jared shrugged. “At this point I don’t see the purpose in banging our heads against the wall for a dream that willnever become a reality. It’s gone, all of it. The money, the title, life as nobility. Accept your lot and learn to live with it. I know I have.”
    His pessimism shocked her. He had made feeble protests in the past but now he seemed so certain of failure. It almost broke her heart.
    “Mother and Father would never have given up,” she replied carefully. “They would not wish for us to either.”
    “Mother and Father aren’t here now. Nor were they ever forced to deal with life served up on a chipped platter. They were born to a station of privilege and lived a life of plenty.”
    “You say it as if it’s a crime.”
    “Well, they never had to deal with the things we’ve had to face. Don’t try pretending you don’t think of the Caddyhorns every day, Catherine. I know I do whenever I see you limp.”
    Involuntarily, her hand flitted to her leg, broken during their escape ten years before. Thank heavens only she had suffered from the fall; a rhododendron bush had saved four-year-old Jared.
    “I don’t know that in similar circumstances Mother and Father wouldn’t have stopped pining for fantasy either.” Jared scowled, anger marring his boyishly handsome features. “Face it, Cat. This is our lot now. Going up against the Caddyhorns is a fool’s game. You’ve tried and failed before, as you will if you try again.”
    “I don’t agree,” she snapped, crossing her arms as if to ward off his charges. “We simply need to bide our