I Thee Wed Read Online Free Page B

hole.”
    Orion shook his head. “That is not a dependable alternative. Baggage is often stacked. Your airway could easily be covered up.” He stuck out his hand.
    A smaller, sticky one slid into his. It shook ever so slightly in his grip as he pulled his youngest, most brilliant sibling to her feet. She’d been a little frightened after all, which of course she would admit only under penalty of death—and perhaps not even then.
    She stepped from the trunk and began to peruse the chamber with her hands clasped behind her back. “Someone painted fat babies on the ceiling.”
    â€œIt is a frieze. The pigment is worked right into the plaster. Those are cherubs.” She knew all of that, of course. Orion knew she read widely, if erratically.
    Her brows wrinkled scornfully as she gazed up. “Why?”
    Orion thought for a moment. “This chamber is called the ‘blue room.’ Other People sometimes apply imaginative decorations. Blue is the color of sky. Sky reminds some of heaven. Heaven supposedly contains cherubim. Cherubim are traditionally portrayed as obese infants.” He always answered Attie’s questions as fully as he was able—at least until she walked away. He understood his little sister in ways that no one else did. Her high intelligence, like his, was accompanied by a certain lack of comprehension of the activities of Other People, as she called them. Orion, once he had realized that his scientific ambitions would be aided by a higher degree of social skills, had made a study of human facial expressionsand the emotions they represented. Attie would need this information as well, someday. Both his other sisters, Calliope and Elektra, opined that Attie would grow into a Great Beauty, the likes of which Society rarely saw and subsequently placed far too much importance upon.
    Since Callie and Ellie were generally considered to be very attractive themselves, one must assume that they held some expertise on this topic of relative beauty—which interested Orion not at all other than with respect to its effect upon Attie’s future.
    Unbidden, his thoughts slid back to the arresting features of the woman downstairs. He experienced another inexplicable jolt at the mere memory of her remarkable, vibrant presence. Her eyes . . . her lips . . . her voice . . .
    â€œOrion? Are you . . . Are you woolgathering?”
    The astonishment in Attie’s tone brought Orion back to his bedchamber with a snap. He met Attie’s gaze with a frown.
    â€œI think perhaps I was.”
    Her eyes widened. “But we don’t gather wool. Ever.”
    It was true. Other Worthingtons did. The family was in general a dreamy lot, prone to artistic creativity and leaps of inventiveness. They were all quite intelligent in their particular ways, even the more socially aware Elektra, now Lady Arbogast, who currently applied her considerable energy and steely determination to the ongoing restoration of the Worthington family estate in Shropshire.
    However, Attie and Orion shared a capacity for intense focus that had bypassed the others. Their minds did not wander. Their attention did not fade. It might end, rather abruptly, when events became uninteresting—but it did not meander off into contemplations of shining dark hair and lustrous eyes that danced with amusement . . .
    â€œYou’re doing it again!”
    Orion blinked at his sister. “This is a new development.”
    She shook her head, her eyes wide. “Stop it. I don’t like it.”
    â€œI can’t say that I’m happy about it myself.”
    Attie shook off the very thought of his woolgathering with a visible shudder.
    A tap came on the chamber door. “Mr. Worthington?”
    Orion looked at Attie. “It is Miss Judith Blayne,” he informed her. Orion found himself unwilling to mingle his new world with his old. As much as he loved his