The carriage was drawing closer to Exmoor's estate,and the thought filled Nicola with dread.Why had she ever agreed to visit her sister here? With every passing mile,Nicola wished more and more she had not.She would have much preferred staying in London and helping Mariana and Penelope with their wedding plans.
But Deborah had looked so unhappy and frail, and even afraid, and Nicola had not been able to deny her please.Deborah was,after all, her younger sister, and Nicola loved her.It was only after her marriage to the Earl of Exmoor that had caused the bitterness and estrangement between them.
Nicola sighed and shifted on her seat.She hated to think of the quarrels that had followed Deborah's announcement that she was going to marry Richard.Nicola had done her best to dissuade her,but Deborah had been determinedly blind to Richard's fault.
When Nicola pointed out that only month before Richard had been pursuing her, Deborah had lashed out that Nicola was just jealous and unable to accept that a man might want Deborah instead of herself.
After that Nicola had given up trying, and for the past nine years, she and her sister had seen each other only occasionally.Nicola had refused to enter the Earl's house,and Deborah had grown more and more reclusive, rarely travelling to London or even venturing out of her house.
But when Nicola had seen Deborah last month at their cousin Bucky's house party, Deborah had begged Nicola to come stay with her through her fourth pregnancy.She had miscarried three times in her marriage, never managing to provide the Earl with a son, and she was terrified for losing this child,too.Looking into her haunted eyes, Nicola had been unable to refuse,no matter how much she hated the thought of living under the same roof with Richard Montford, even for a few months.
Deborah, of course, could not understand Nicola's hatred for the man.But Nicola could not escape the fact that every time she looked at Richard,she was reminded that he had ruined her life. That he had killed the only man she had ever loved.