“Tell me. Why?” I countered his movement, leaning toward him. “Stop treating me like a little girl. Or as if I’m not allowed to be part of this because I am a girl. I’m the eldest. This is mine someday too.” At least Fredrick was modern enough to allow Wentworth House to go to me and my little sister, Olivia. Landen would inherit the larger Chatstone Manor. We all planned to sell the moment we could.
“I will not.” He shoved the papers to the side, his anger bursting at the seams.
“Dad. Please.”
“Because we can’t afford it,” he snapped, his chest heaving in a deep gulp of air, his eyes landing on me.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He regrouped, peering down at his files. “Go check on your mother; she had a migraine this morning.”
She always had a headache, mostly brought on by alcohol and the stress she created.
“Dad,” I said softly.
“Spencer. Please. I have enough on my plate today.” He gazed at me, looking exhausted. Defeated.
Biting down on my lip, I nodded, retrieved the letter, and headed for the door.
“Spencer.” He stopped me, turning my head to look at him. “I really am sorry.”
“Yeah.” I gripped the door in my hands. “Me too.”
I stepped out, shutting the door behind me. My heart heavy, I rushed outside, trying to hold back the tears. The breeze wound around my hair as I growled deeply at the blue sky. “Fuck!” I locked the scream down so no one would hear me, but it tore at my throat. Caged. I felt trapped in this life. I knew I had a lot to be grateful for, but it struck me that any so-called “ordinary” family would be thrilled for their daughter to be accepted to this university. Encourage her to follow her dreams. It was only the nobles who would take such an achievement and make it feel like nothing.
“Spencie!” My younger sister waved to me as she skipped up the walkway from the garden, a flower crown in her long strawberry-blonde hair. She had a darker shade of my father’s eyes.
Olivia could lose herself in her imagination for hours out in the garden, playing and singing to herself. We were a little more than eight years apart; she had turned ten in June and was a strange mixture of being too old for her age and too immature. She didn’t really fit with girls in her class, not interested in what they were into. She was like this old soul stuck in a body who still loved to play make-believe, talking to flowers and humming happily to herself, lost in her dream world.
Responsibility had yet to be pinned on her, she was still carefree and starry-eyed. Sometimes I felt like keeping her protected from life as long as I could, but then another part of me knew we were doing her no favors anymore.
Plopping down on the back steps, I batted back my grief clogging my throat, staring at “Dear Ms. Spencer Helen Sutton, Congratulations! It is our great pleasure to offer you admittance …” My teary vision blurred out the rest, my hand crumpling the note. The admittance lady warned me that my window to accept their offer was closing tomorrow. This was my last chance to change my father’s mind.
I felt gutted. Everything I had done, all the studying and work I did, had been pointless.
“Spencie, what’s wrong?” Olivia gently sat next to me, touching my arm, her eyes wide and concerned. She even spoke like some grand lady from a movie. Fredrick adored Olivia, while I was too independent, brash, and strong willed.
“Nothing.” I forced a smile on my lips, still defaulting to keeping her from the big bad world out there. Who knows, maybe she could be one who just floats through it, fine with her duty as a baroness. She had shown no signs of resisting so far, but that might change the older she got. For some reason, I doubted it. Olivia seemed to drift around untouched by our confined world. She loved this house and was happy to be here all the time. I couldn’t wait to break free.
“You are sad.” She touched the space between my brows as if she was some spiritualist. “Like your heart is breaking.”
I huffed, a sorrowful smile on my lips. “It feels like it is.”
She dropped her hands in her lap, staring at them. “It won’t be like that forever.”
“Maybe not.”
“I am sad as well.” She leaned into me.
“Why?”
“Because school is starting tomorrow. I hate being there. I want to be outside in my garden.”
“Funny. You are sad because you’re going to school, and I’m sad because I’m not.” I leaned my cheek on the top of her head. It was warm from soaking in the sun.
She took my hand in hers. “I don’t know why, but I feel scared.”
“Why is that?”
“Everything is going to change.”
“That’s what is exciting about life. Changing and growing. Learning new things. You’ll be fine.”
“Oh no, not me.” She popped her head up, her deep gaze piercing into mine. “For you.”
Snuggled on the window seat in the library, I tried to lose myself in a book, but found myself staring absently out the large window. Green leaves on the tall trees lining our drive swayed and danced, mesmerizing me. A light breeze wafted from the open window. A touch of autumn licked at the air, lightly goosepimpling my bare legs. It felt good. Like I was still alive, and if I shut the window, I would suffocate to death.
Sighing, I leaned against the built-in bookshelf that was also mirrored on the other side of the window lining the walls. Besides my room, this was the only place that felt like home to me. It was real. Comfortable. Not trying to put on a show and pretend it was something it wasn’t. It was smaller and cozier compared to most of the house, smelling of leather-bound books, peonies from the garden on one side, and in the winter, a warm fireplace. Even as a kid, when I got scared, it wasn’t my parents’ room I ran to, it was here. I would wrap myself in the soft lambswool blanket, curl into either the overstuffed sofa or the wingback chair, and fall asleep.
Today it was not working. It was no longer easy to abate my worries and fears. The monster under my bed had morphed into the terror of a stagnant life, which I found even more terrifying. Because it was real. Smiling falsely at donation dinners donned in dresses and garments that would be able to provide a year’s worth of care or medication for animals.
I knew I could probably talk my uncle into letting me go abroad at least once a year for a week to Africa or South America, but it would be for publicity. And without proper training in the field, I would be kept to very easy tasks. I wanted to do real work. Stay for months or years. Researching and going out in the field, fighting poachers, and helping those animals who could not protect themselves.
I slammed my book closed, giving up on the pretense I was reading it. The house felt quiet and lonely today. Olivia was at school, my mother out with my aunt Lauren, having lunch with other noble wives, talking about some charity dinner. Landen got dragged with my father and Fredrick, assessing our back property. Dad wanted to sell it as we never used it anymore, the sheep having long since been sold, but Fredrick was fighting it. It was territory to him in the sense if he let some go, it showed our standing was weakening. Slipping. That we needed money.
My father and uncle didn’t have jobs in the normal sense. Most of the money came from trade in the stock markets. They also invested in a few racehorses, but by the way my dad slumped over his desk going over the expenses, I knew things were tighter than normal.