For Your Arms Only

moved, setting her rose skirts aflutter as they both admired the glow of candlelight ripple across the silk. “It’s so nice to be out in company.”
“I’m sure the gentlemen in attendance are thinking the same thing. You really do look beautiful tonight.”
Her sister had a way of wrinkling her nose just a little, managing to look fetching instead of gruesome. “They are not all looking at me.” She paused. “Major Hayes certainly looks at you a great deal, though.”
Cressida jerked in surprise. “He does not.”
“You don’t think so?” Callie was watching him across the room. Cressida glanced at him from under her eyelashes, just in time to realize he was looking her way. He stood by his mother, and as they watched he leaned down and murmured something to her before walking out the back of the room. “I vow, every time I happen to catch a glimpse of him, he’s looking at you in that contemplative way.”
“Rubbish,” Cressida said with a small, uncomfortable laugh.
“You look very nice tonight. Perhaps that’s it.”
“Perhaps he’s contemplating where I might have my pistol hidden.” Callie laughed and Cressida grinned, although she would perish of embarrassment if anyone else knew she had pointed a gun at their host.
“You always make fun when I suggest a man might be admiring you.”
She went rigid. “I am sure that is not why he’s looking at me. The very idea is ridiculous.” Ridiculous and dangerous. Just the thought of those piercing eyes turned on her like that…Cressida shivered, then gave her sister a frown to reinforce her statement that it was ridiculous. Even if he did seem to look at her mouth fairly often.
“I doubt it’s ridiculous, but of course I have no idea,” Callie conceded. “But any time I say such a thing, about anyone, you turn it into a joke.”
Cressida turned and walked toward the open doors. Callie followed her into the empty hall. “It is a joke. Gentlemen look at you that way, not at me. I don’t mind,” she said as her sister looked at her in reproach. “Truly I don’t.”
“You must.”
She shook her head, running her fingers along the edge of the marble table. The hall was quiet and cool, scented with roses. She loved the genteel comfort of this house. Penford managed to be grand without being ostentatious, elegant without being cold, and above all a home, where children were allowed to skip in the corridors and there was always some bit of greenery brightening the rooms. “Not much. You’ve always been prettier than I, and everyone knows it. And you’re also more even-tempered, with a sweeter disposition and a gentler nature, so there’s never much reason for anyone to look at me at all when you’re about.”
“I don’t think much of that is true, but even if so, it doesn’t stand to reason that every man would prefer me to you.” Cressida snorted, and Callie poked her in the arm with her fan. “Nor should they! And you should not assume they do.”
Cressida snorted again. She didn’t like this conversation. It wasn’t Callie’s fault she had a knack for turning men away. It was just easier to make sport of them all than to admit out loud that she would in fact not mind being married, if only she could find someone who didn’t treat her like an oddity. She should find a prosperous innkeeper who would be too busy to mind her plain looks and might even welcome her sharp tongue and practical manner.
“Don’t you want to marry? Ever?”
The smart retort was on her lips. Cressida swallowed it and forced herself to be honest. “I suppose I wouldn’t mind, if the right man…” She glanced at Callie and sighed. “Why do you ask?”
“Because I have been thinking about our problems and how we might solve them. If one of us were to marry—”
Cressida felt a flicker of panic, but gave Callie a withering glare to hide it. “You’ve been listening to Granny again.”
“No,” said her sister quietly. “I arrived at this myself. Cressida, what are we going to do? If one of us married a well-situated man, we would be provided for. Granny would be provided for.” That was true; they had Granny to think of as well, Granny with her wandering mind and failing body. “I confess, it is a daunting thought”—Callie’s voice faltered—“but I’m selfish not to consider it.”
“But to whom?” They were whispering now, huddled close to each other. Cressida clasped her sister’s hands. “Is there someone you admire?”
Callie blushed. “N-No, not in particular, but I think—I think I must look. And you must as well. We neither of us want to end as poor spinsters, I think.”
Except that Callie was already a widow. Cressida was the spinster, and she hadn’t Callie’s reason to be skittish about marriage. “I intend to speak to Mrs. Blatchford in Marston about taking in work.”
“Taking in sewing isn’t going to support all of us,” Callie pointed out. Cressida fell silent. For a moment they just stood in somber contemplation of their future.
“Well, this needn’t ruin our evening.” Cressida shook herself and squeezed her sister’s hand. “We can’t change anything tonight, so we might as well be merry.”
“No.” Callie glanced around the hall. “This is an odd place to discuss such a thing, I suppose.”
“Very,” Cressida agreed dryly.
“Well. Shall we go back?”
She shook her head. “I want to see the garden at night. I’ll return in a moment.” Callie smiled and went back into the drawing room. Cressida slid her fingers once more along the marble table, catching up a few rose petals that had fallen. She brought them to her face and breathed in the soft, wild scent as she went through the back of the hall to the door to the terrace.
“Would you like one?”
She froze, petals clutched guiltily in her fist. She dared a glance behind her, but the major was nowhere to be seen, even though his voice had sounded very near. Then she saw him just around