midst, particularly one that spoke with a stutter and preferred books to people. As the years passed they made it quite clear that while they were swans, elegant and beautiful and highly regarded by Society, poor Calliope would always be a duckling, awkward and bumbling and largely ignored.
For the most part, Calliope didn’t mind being a duckling. Especially since she’d never had very much in common with her cousin or her aunt. They were fond of gossip and parties and the latest fashion trends from Paris, while she enjoyed reading and climbing trees.
There was one tree in particular, an old oak right outside her bedroom window, she liked the best. The bark was worn smooth from all the hours she’d sat in it, gazing longingly across the London skyline and dreaming of what her life might have been like if her parents’ boat hadn’t sunk to the bottom of the ocean.
All she remembered of that night was being roused from her bed when it was still too dark to see. Her governess was crying. The maids as well. She was ushered downstairs into the parlor where a man she vaguely recognized was waiting for her, hat in his hands. He did not smile when she approached, but rather gave a clipped nod and then walked briskly out the door.
“Go on then,” her governess said, giving her a gentle push. “That’s your uncle, Lord Shillington. You’re to live with him now. Your belongings will be sent over in the morning.”
“Are Mama and Papa going on a trip?” she’d asked, confused – but not overly alarmed – by the strangeness of it all. She was still innocent then, in those few precious moments before the enormity of what had happened began to sink in.
She wasn’t innocent any longer.
“Calliope! Calliope, come down here at once.”
Wincing as Lady Shillington’s shrill voice ricocheted through the house like a gunshot, Calliope swung her legs through her bedroom window and slid gracefully to the ground. After checking her hair to make sure there weren’t any leaves or twigs hiding in the golden curls, she hurried downstairs to the formal parlor where her aunt and cousin were waiting impatiently.
“Are you ready?” Lady Shillington snapped.
“We’ve been here forever,” Beatrice added, rolling her eyes.
Only a year younger than Calliope, Beatrice had inherited her mother’s gleaming black hair, narrow face, and withering stare. She hadn’t been interested in having a sister when Calliope was thrust upon her doorstep fourteen years ago and she wasn’t interested in having one now, something which she never failed to make readily apparent no matter the circumstance.
“I’m sorry,” Calliope said breathlessly as she flicked a glance at the family solicitor standing in the middle of the room looking oh-so-important with his portfolio of papers and neatly trimmed moustache. “I was reading and lost track of the time.”
“Of course you did.” With a disdainful sniff, Lady Shillington turned her attention to the solicitor, Mr. Highwater-Cleary. “You may begin. While it ‘tis evident my niece could care less about her uncle’s passing, I should very much like to learn the terms of his will and estate.”
“Very much,” Beatrice repeated. A single tear rolled gently down her cheek, hovered artfully on the edge of her chin, and then was dashed away with a black lace glove while Calliope bit her lip in an effort to remain silent.
When she had learned of Lord Shillington’s death seven days ago, she’d been overcome by an uncomfortably familiar sense of loss. He was another family member taken far too soon. The last blood connection (aside from Beatrice, which, all things considered, really didn’t count) to a mother whose face faded more and more with each passing year.
While Beatrice and Lady Shillington had wailed and sobbed and carried on downstairs as if the world were ending (as they leaned on the sympathetic shoulders of their peers, of course) Calliope had quietly mourned her uncle’s passing in the privacy of her own bedchamber.
He was a solemn man, but he’d honored his word to his sister and he had been, if not the most loving of guardians, at least a fair and thoughtful one. Yes, perhaps he’d looked the other way more than he should have when Beatrice was teasing her unmercifully, but then Beatrice was his daughter and Calliope was not, something Lady Shillington had never let her forget.
So, contrary to what her aunt and cousin seemed to believe, Calliope had grieved her uncle. She grieved him still, although apparently not in the way Lady