Read Online English Trifle by Josi S. Kilpack - Free Book Online

finally asked me outright what I expected would happen between us now that I’d seen this part of his life. I couldn’t lie to him, Mom—even if it would have made the last bit of the trip easier. He deserved to know the truth.”
    “That you can’t live this way?” Sadie offered, wanting to be absolutely clear on what had been said.
    “That I won’t live this way,” Breanna clarified. “I didn’t ask him to give it up for me or anything, but you’ve always told me that my future is based on my choices. It would be foolish for me to expect that my feelings for Liam will always be enough to overshadow the fact that I don’t fit in here and I don’t want this lifestyle. I don’t want to run a household and manage servants. I don’t want to spend my life in a foreign country away from my family, friends, and career. And pretending to agree with social systems I just don’t feel are right would be giving up who I am. I won’t do that to me or to Liam. He deserves to find someone more worthy of his . . . station, or at least someone ready to try. I’m not that girl.”
    Sadie was filled with pride mixed with sorrow at what this realization was costing her daughter. Love would not make all those other things disappear, but Sadie also knew that Breanna’s feelings for Liam wouldn’t go away because of her decision. What a heartbreaking reality. Poor Breanna. Poor Liam. “And what did Liam say when you told him this?” Sadie asked.
    “He’s been raised for this, Mom,” she said, waving her hand at the opulent library. “He came to the States when he was young but he was still the son of an earl. Even when the people around him didn’t know, he knew. He’d always planned to return to England when he needed to fulfill that responsibility—that’s why he never became an American citizen, remaining true to the Crown, I guess. His duty and responsibilities were something he and his father talked about a lot, but he didn’t expect to come into the title for a long time—Liam’s grandfather lived to be eight-six years old and had been the earl for over forty years. His father has only been an earl for eighteen. To have it happen this soon changes everything.”
    “Everything?” Sadie asked.
    Breanna dug into her pocket, producing a hair band. She pulled her hair into a ponytail at the base of her neck. It was her usual hairstyle at home, but she’d worn her hair down most of the week. Sadie knew that Liam loved Breanna’s long dark hair, especially when she wore it so that it cascaded over her shoulders and down her back. “Liam called Portland his first life. It was his chosen life and he expected to enjoy it to its fullest before the earldom reached out for him—just as his father had. Becoming the tenth Earl of Garnett would one day become his second life.”
    Breanna kicked off her brown leather clogs and flexed her toes encased in brown-and-white striped socks. She seemed to be making a point, proving that she was not a countess. It hadn’t crossed Sadie’s mind that Breanna had been trying to act any part this week, but she had worn her nicer jeans and kept her hair down. For Breanna that was perhaps as much role-playing as she could stomach. She was done now—the pretenses were over. The thought made Sadie a little bit sad.
    “It reached out to him sooner than he expected,” Sadie summed up when it felt as though Breanna might not continue.
    “And he’s chosen to take its hand,” Breanna said with just a touch of annoyance. She picked up one of the lemon cookies still sitting on the tray and shoved the whole thing in her mouth.
    “But, really, does he have a choice? He’s the heir,” Sadie admonished while Breanna’s cheeks bulged out like a chipmunk. She came around the front of the desk and leaned back against it—telling herself that having another cookie was a bad idea even if Breanna had had one. It was always hard to focus when there was food around, and she’d been doing so