And Then She Fell (Cynster 19 Cynster Sisters Duo #1)
Read And Then She Fell (Cynster 19 Cynster Sisters Duo #1) Online
Authors: Stephanie Laurens
Tags: #Regency Romance
And Then She Fell
Stephanie Laurens
Contents
An Excerpt from
The Perfect Lover
T
itles for books are fickle things—the right one might pop into my head even before I start writing, and at other times it’s like pulling teeth, finding a suitable set of words that “fit.” Normally, my agent, my editor, and I brainstorm, tossing possibilities back and forth until something clicks, and we sing, “Eureka!” But when it came to Henrietta’s book, my fifty-first, we came up blank. Yes, we had titles, but none of them sang. So we decided to turn to my readers for inspiration via the Cynster Sisters Title Challenge, inviting title suggestions for both Henrietta’s and Mary’s books, selecting a final five for each, and letting readers vote on which one worked best for them. Out of that, it’s my pleasure to acknowledge Joyce Marie Verellen for her brilliant suggestion of
And Then She Fell
as the title for this book. Thank you, Joyce—you hit the mark, not just for me, but for an overwhelming number of my readers.
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April 1837
London
I
t was time to dress for what was sure to prove a trying evening. As she climbed the stairs of her parents’ house in Upper Brook Street, Henrietta Cynster mentally rehearsed the news she would have to impart to her friend Melinda Wentworth when they met as arranged at Lady Montague’s ball.
Henrietta sighed. Reaching her bedroom door, she opened it and halted on the threshold, arrested by the sight of her younger sister, Mary, riffling through the jewelry box on Henrietta’s dressing table.
Mary acknowledged Henrietta’s arrival with a flick of her eyes and continued pawing through the jumble of chains, earrings, brooches, and beads.
Movement drew Henrietta’s attention to the armoire beside her bed. Her maid, Hannah, was lifting out Henrietta’s new royal-blue ball gown, simultaneously shooting disapproving glances at Mary’s slender back.
Stepping inside, Henrietta shut the door. Like her, Mary was still in her day gown and hadn’t yet changed. Curious, she studied Mary’s intent expression; the baby of the family, Mary had the single-minded focus of a terrier when it came to anything she wanted. “What are you looking for?”
Mary threw her an impatient glance. Shutting one drawer, she reached for the last, the bottom drawer in the box. “The—
aha
!” Inserting, then withdrawing, her fingers, Mary’s face transformed as she held up her find, suspending it between the fingers of both hands. “I was looking for this.”
Eyeing the necklace of fine gold links interspersed with polished amethyst beads from which a faceted rose-quartz crystal hung, then noting that Mary’s expression now held the satisfaction of a general who’d just learned his troops had captured a vital enemy position, Henrietta waved dismissively. “It’s never done anything for me. You’re welcome to have it.”
Mary’s vivid blue eyes swung to Henrietta’s face. “I wasn’t looking for it for me.” Mary held out the necklace. “
You
have to wear it.”
The necklace had been gifted to the Cynster girls by a Scottish deity, The Lady, and was supposedly a charm to assist the wearer in finding her true hero, the man by whose side she would live in wedded bliss for the rest of her life. Pragmatic and practical, Henrietta had always had difficulty believing in the necklace’s efficacy.
More, in the same pragmatic vein, she’d always considered it was unreasonable to expect that all seven Cynster girls of her generation would find love and happiness in the arms of their true heroes, that it was in the cards that one, at least, would not achieve that outcome, and if that were the case, then the Cynster girl destined to die an old maid would, almost certainly, be her.