Read Online The Stepsister's Triumph by Darcie Wilde - Free Book Online

but across the room, opening his mind’s eye. He saw Madelene Valmeyer in the gallery, just as she’d turned toward him, startled, pale. Beautiful. Delicate. Lost and waiting to be found.
    His hand began to move, laying down simple outlines, defining boundaries, creating basic shapes. He worked quickly, not thinking too much. He just let the images flicker across his inner vision and let his hand break them down into line and shadow. When at last he rose back into normal consciousness, he looked at the picture in his hand.
    It was Madelene Valmeyer as the goddess of the moon. Not the cold warrior figure of Artemis, but Selene, who drew her silver chariot across the sky. Selene had once looked down on the earth and fallen in love with a sleeping shepherd named Endymion. In the story, she feared the consequences of loving a mortal, so she begged a gift from her father Zeus. She asked that Endymion be placed in eternal sleep, so he’d never grow old and die, and never leave her.
    Yes. Benedict let out a long, slow breath. It was right. This was what he what he felt when he was with Madelene—a warm heart held at a distance, a woman who wanted love and life and yet feared it.
    He laid down the book and the pencil and went over to his writing desk to take up his pen instead.
    Windford,
    You may tell Lady Adele I would be honored to accept her commission.
    Yrs.
    Benedict Pelham
    â€œI can see her,” he said to the letter, to the paintings and sketches, to his heart, which seemed to have migrated to his throat. “I can speak with her. Paint the portrait, help my friend and his sister. That can do no harm. I’m not a boy anymore. I won’t . . . I wouldn’t . . .” Benedict grit his teeth and did not allow himself to finish that thought.

VI
    â€œThis is a mistake,” Madelene whispered as Adele’s coachman placed the step and helped her down onto the cobbles.
    â€œNo, it’s not,” Adele answered. “It’s an hour of your time. That’s all.” She took Madelene’s arm and squeezed it gently. “If you want to change your mind about anything . . .”
    Madelene sucked in as deep a breath as her stays allowed. “No. I have said I will do this, and I will.”
    â€œWe’re all with you.”
    Except you won’t be. That’s the whole point
, thought Madelene, torn between laughter and panic as they mounted the steps of the half-timber house.
    She still could not believe she had contrived all this herself. She, Madelene Valmeyer, Madelene the mouse, had conceived of a plan to spend one hour alone in the company of an unmarried man. An unmarried artist, no less, with a striking face and chestnut hair who set her whole body alight with one glance from his dark eyes and one soft, solemn whisper.
    Adele thought it was a marvelous lark. Madelene had known she would, which was why she’d asked Adele to come with her rather than Helene. Helene thought nothing was occurring today beyond the initial sitting for Adele’s portrait. She was Madelene’s best friend, but she was as protective as a mother hen. Helene would not have agreed to let Madelene have this moment alone with Benedict, even though it was her planning that had inspired the idea.
    Helene would not appreciate knowing that, either, even though nothing at all was going to happen.
    And that’s true, really. Nothing is going to happen. It’s just a pleasant hour, as Adele says.
Madelene made herself repeat those words as Adele knocked on the freshly painted door.
An hour, that’s all.
    The address Marcus had given Adele proved to be a sprawling edifice, several times larger than its neighbors. It was taller, too, with a third story under its broad eaves, when the other houses around had only two stories at most.
    Adele applied the brass knocker again. Somewhere a flute was playing. The music stopped and started again.
    Finally, the door