My Favorite Bride Read Online Free Page B

the sink in the dressing room, and donned her undergarments. As Clarinda slipped the gown over Samantha’s head, Samantha asked, “Why is Colonel Gregory so strict with the children?”
    â€œIt’s his military training. He wants them t’ follow orders. T’ march in drill. T’ never get dirty, and if they do, t’ clean their boots until they shine.”
    Samantha lifted her eyebrows. “These children must be saints. Why, I’ll have nothing to do at all!”
    Clarinda burst into laughter. “We’ll see about that, miss.”
    â€œPsst!” the sound echoed up and down the second-floor corridor.
    Samantha stopped on her way to meet Colonel Gregory, and glanced around. A door stood slightly open. Three young faces were pressed to the crack, and three hands gestured for her to come in.
    â€œDid you want me?” Samantha pointed to herself. As if she didn’t know.
    â€œShh!” The children put their fingers to their lips, then vigorously gestured again.
    Amused and intrigued, Samantha entered a stark bedchamber. Three narrow iron beds, spread with quilts, stood against the wall. A rigid row of dolls nodded on the window seat. Neither toys nor a rug cluttered a hardwood floor. Plain curtains hung at the windows. The girls’ room, Samantha realized, although it bore more resemblance to an orphanage than to the bedchamber of much indulged children.
    Then, as six dark-haired children lined up before her, the ones at the door as well as the ones waiting inside, she realized—every one of these children were girls. The colonel had only girls.
    She almost laughed. Since her conversation with Adorna she’d been worried about her responsibilities. Worried that, for the first time, she had taken on more than she could handle.
    But aristocratic girls were sweet, modest, and easy to manage, and only a military man, trying tofit them into a military mold, could imagine this to be a difficult assignment.
    â€œGreetings, my lasses! Are you my new charges?” Samantha asked merrily.
    The tallest girl, a beauty with budding breasts and a officious expression, pulled a riding crop out from behind her back and slapped her ankle-high black boot with it. “You are the new governess?”
    Taken aback, Samantha considered the lass, and the line of her sisters, all dressed in indistinguishable, plain, dark blue shirtdresses, cut to a child’s shorter length, with a white pinafore over the top. Each child’s hair was pulled back in a tight braid tied with dark blue ribbon. They all wore the same ankle-high boots, and they all wore identical expressions of distrust and aggression. “Yes. I’m Miss Samantha Prendregast.” Some second, cautionary sense made her add, “You may call me Miss Prendregast.”
    â€œI am Agnes.” The girl indicated the next oldest should speak.
    â€œI’m Vivian.” This child was as tall as her sister, strikingly handsome, with dark hair and brows that winged upward without curve.
    Agnes pointed with her crop.
    The next child, dark haired and blue eyed, announced, “Mara.”
    Samantha had caught on now, and smiled warmly. “Good to meet you, Vivian and Mara. How old are you, Vivian?” She pointed at the girl.
    Vivian answered, “Eleven.”
    â€œAnd you, Mara?”
    â€œNine.”
    Agnes glared at Samantha. “ Don’t interrupt.”
    â€œYou’re young to be issuing orders,” Samantha said softly. “You may want to think before you continue.”
    As if shocked at the soft reprimand, Agnes blinked, then recovered. “No.”
    Her tone reminded Samantha of someone. Samantha frowned. Someone she had met recently. But who?
    Agnes pointed to the next girl.
    â€œHenrietta.” This child, a brunette with brown eyes, clearly didn’t quite understand the scheme to intimidate the new governess, and she curtsied to Samantha.
    Never one to follow