WolfeBlade: de Wolfe Pack Generations by Kathryn Veque (top 20 books to read .TXT) 📗

was quite confused. As Camilla tried to pull her night shift over her head, Gavriella held fast and pulled away. “Tell me where we are going or I will not budge an inch.”

Aurelia was in the wardrobe. She pulled forth a beautiful red damask gown with pearls embroidered on the sleeves and the bodice.

“This should do,” she said, ignoring Gavriella’s question. “It’s Cammie’s gown and a little small for you, but it will make your breasts look full.”

“They’ll pop out over the top of the neckline!” Camilla giggled.

Gavriella didn’t want to pop out of anything. She had no idea what her naughty cousins were up to, but she wasn’t going anywhere with them in the middle of the night unless they were clear about their intensions. She folded her arms across her chest stubbornly.

“Tell me or I will not go,” she said.

Aurelia tossed the gown on the bed. “Then we shall go without you.”

“Go and I will tell Aunt Drucilla.”

Camilla shrieked in fear as Aurelia eyed her country cousin unhappily. She’d really only met her three times in her life because Gavriella lived in Northumberland on the border with Scotland. That was quite far to the north and visits with that branch of the family had been infrequent.

In fact, this most recent visit had been quite unexpected.

Gavriella had appeared a few days ago, unannounced, with a small contingent of de Leia men and a missive to their mother. Drucilla de Kennet had read the contents of the letter and promptly brought Gavriella into their enormous manse called The Asher. It was a beautiful home to the northeast of the Tower of London and it had been in the de Kennet family, the Earls of Blackburn, for decades.

It was one of the prized jewels of London.

Aurelia wasn’t sure how she felt about her cousin, to be truthful. She was beautiful – too beautiful and Aurelia didn’t like the attention being taken off of her. She was sweet and obedient, but that’s where the problem was – she was too obedient. There was no nerve in the woman, no bravery. She seemed to cry easily and didn’t seem very happy.

Aurelia suspected that Gavriella had been sent here for a reason.

But what reason?

Her mother wouldn’t tell her, nor would Gavriella. But it just seemed strange that the woman would show up one day like a beaten dog. Something about her seemed… crushed. Defeated. She seemed too meek and quiet for Aurelia’s taste, but rather than be understanding of that trait, Aurelia had turned into a bully.

Everyone at The Asher did as she wished. Gavriella would be no different.

There would be consequences if she were.

“You will not tell my mother because if you do, I’ll tell my mother than you have been stealing and lying and demand she send you home,” Aurelia fired back. “You will listen to me, you little country mouse, and you will listen well. You are going to do as I say or there will be trouble. Why did you even come here, anyway? We have not seen you for ten years and, suddenly, you show up unannounced? Why? Why did you even come?”

Gavriella didn’t back down, but she also wasn’t going to answer her bossy cousin’s questions. She’d never had much of an opinion of Aurelia because she’d never spent an inordinate amount of time around her, but the past week had seen that changed.

She wasn’t sure she liked her cousin.

“Please, Gavy,” Camilla pleaded softly. “We’re going to a place that is full of fun and music. Don’t you want to come?”

Fun and music.

Gavriella wasn’t sure such things existed anymore. Did they? Ever since her life changed last year, things like joy and laughter didn’t exist in her world anymore.

Was it possible that people here still laughed and enjoyed themselves?

Camilla seemed to think so.

So did Aurelia.

“Fun and music?” she repeated. “Are we going to a feast, then?”

“In a way,” Aurelia said. She’d spent enough time discussing the point with her killjoy cousin. “Come with us or don’t come with us; ’tis all the same to me. But if you don’t come, you’ll not say a word to my mother or I’ll have her send you back where you came from.”

It was a threat, pure and simple. Gavriella eyed her cousin as Camilla pulled the shift over her head. Whether or not the threat was real, returning home at the moment wasn’t an option.

She was relegated to London until her father sent for her.

“Come on,” Camilla said, pushing her to move. “Hurry and dress. We’re going to have such fun!”

At that point, Gavriella didn’t have much choice. She had already implied that she would comply simply by getting out of bed, and she honestly wasn’t strong enough to fend Camilla off. Therefore, she stood there while Camilla dressed her in the beautiful red silk with the pearls. Gavriella didn’t own anything quite so fine and, in truth, she was a little intrigued by the soft and lovely garment, and the way it emphasized her full breasts.

Breasts that so recently had been engorged with milk for a baby they no longer needed to feed.

In fact, her entire body was a curvier version of the slender woman she used to be before … before the event that changed her life forever.

It was something she would take to her grave, something so horrific that it wasn’t anything she could ever repeat, and especially not to her cousins. Aurelia had asked her why she had visited unannounced, or in her words, simply showed up. Gavriella couldn’t tell her the truth.

The truth was too horrible to even speak of.

She’d been sent to London because her father couldn’t bear to look at her anymore. That was the truth of it. Merek de Leia knew that sending his daughter to his sister in London would get her out of his sight, but it was only a temporary measure until something more permanent could be arranged.

And that is why Gavriella was here.

She hated every minute of it.

Now, her bossy and disobedient