Read Online Untamed by Hope Tarr - Free Book Online Page A

scowled at her from the foot of the bed. “It’s not fair that you got to go and I didn’t.”
    Resisting the urge to point out that life, strictly speaking, wasn’t required to be fair, Kate bypassed the bed and crossed to the bow-front dresser. Peering into the mirror atop, she said, “We’ve had this discussion until I at least am blue in the face. You’re not out yet. You have four months before you turn eighteen, and then you may attend all the dreary formal functions you desire.”
    “But four months is an eternity.”
    Kate smothered a smile and reached up to remove her earrings. “It seems so now, but the time shall fly by before you know it.”
    In the interim, there was at least one more payment due her from Mr. St. Claire. Sales of the
cartes postales
continued to be brisk, and of the PBs whose photographs he stocked, she remained his best seller. She hoped that would continue. Those yet-to-be realized funds were already marked for the dressmaker. To come out, a young lady must be properly turned out. Even if family pride was not at stake, she wouldn’t see her sister go about looking like someone’s country cousin or poor relation. The good news was she doubted Bea would require more than one season before a match was made. Coltishly tall, slender, and blond like their mother, Bea was a pretty girl who promised to bloom into a beautiful woman. If only she might grow some sense to accompany her fine looks.
    She finished taking out her earrings, the pearl drops her sole remaining legacy from her mother, and flipped the lid on the rosewood jewelry box. Laying them to rest in the velvet-lined compartment, she said, “You should have been in bed hours ago. It’s almost one o’ clock.”
    Reflected in the mirror, Bea hugged her tented legs and leaned forward, resting her chin atop her knees. “Very well, I’ll go, but first I want to hear all about it, every delicious detail.”
    Delicious details such as their father getting drunk—again—and gaming away funds they didn’t have—again? Tonight’s loss was limited to fifty pounds. Where he’d gotten his hands on the blunt to play, Kate couldn’t begin to know. Tamping down her anger, or trying to, she plucked the pins from her hair. As much as she tried to shelter Bea from the truth, she was beginning to wonder if keeping the girl in the dark wasn’t doing her a disservice.
    Where
had
he gotten his hands on that kind of money? A horrid thought struck her, and though she wanted to believe it was only her paranoia at play, she couldn’t go to bed until she’d settled her suspicions one way or the other. She pulled the dresser’s top drawer all the way out, emptied it of handkerchiefs and under things, and turned it over to examine the sliding drawer at the false bottom.
    Bea unfolded her long legs and rose from the bed. Walking up behind her, she frowned. “Kat, what are you doing?”
    “Hush.”
    Kate slid the compartment door back and felt around the hollow for the pouch secreted within. It was there still. She sighed, this time in relief. She loosened the drawstring and pulled the folded money out, counting quickly. Her “nest egg,” one hundred pounds, was thankfully all there.
    Bea’s eyes popped. “Why, Kat, it’s a fortune. Where did you get—”
    “Hush!” Kate spun about and grabbed her little sister by the shoulders. “Bea-Bea, mind me, you are never to tell Papa about this money, do you understand?”
    Goggle-eyed, Bea nodded. Dropping her voice, she said, “All right, but what’s it for?”
    “It’s my … pin money from posing for Mr. St. Claire, and that is all you or anyone else need know.”
    Kate turned back about, shoved the wad back in the pouch, and replaced it in the drawer. She slid the drawer back inside its cavity and turned back to Bea, once more seated on the bed. Moving to the bed, she sank down on the edge next to her sister.
    Twisting her long blond braid about her index finger, Bea turned to her.