Before her, right before her, mere inches away, was everything she had ever wanted in life. The man of her dreams: Ryan Terrell.
“What is there to lose?” she whispered.
Ryan frowned because he was more concerned than ever now. The desolation he saw in her face was horrifying and made him angrier at Arthur than he ever believed he could be. But, before he could say anything, for the first time in his entire adult life Ryan was rendered speechless.
While everything within her was screaming at her not to do it, a hidden wayward part of Sian wanted to know what it would be like to kiss him. The worst she could do was embarrass herself, but that couldn’t make her situation any worse, not given how much everyone else had embarrassed her in front of him today. Ryan’s opinion of her couldn’t be made any worse. He already thought she was betrothed to someone else. Without giving herself time to think, Sian shoved all her doubts aside and placed firm hands on either side of his head. Tugging his unresisting head toward hers, Sian stood on tiptoe and pressed a bold kiss to Ryan’s lips that was driven by all the frustrated adoration she had felt since the dawn of her maturity.
The second her lips touched his, though, she realised she had made a colossal mistake because she was captivated, ensnared, trapped, and didn’t want to step back again. His hands instinctively lifted to her waist to steady her, or hold her closer, she couldn’t be sure which. She couldn’t think beyond the coolness of his lips - until the unmoving way they held firm against her began to break through her tumultuous emotions.
It was only when he didn’t offer any response, that Sian knew she had no chance of ever getting Ryan to see her as a potential mate. Thoroughly humiliated, she released him, stepped back and barged past him. Without stopping, she raced through the house and straight out of the back door.
“I am so sorry about that,” Arthur growled as he rounded his desk to stand before Ryan. “I don’t know what in the blazes has gotten into her.”
Ryan opened his mouth to assure the man that it was fine, but it wasn’t. He shook his head and ran a hand through his hair.
“We will go and find her,” Martha and Lucinda offered.
“No. With your permission, Arthur, I think I should go,” Ryan interrupted.
Arthur froze. “I don’t think that is at all wise, do you? Sian is being a little wayward right now.”
“She is a little too old to be wayward, don’t you think?” Ryan snapped. “She is not a child anymore. You cannot order her about as if she was five years old and still in the nursery. I warn you now that if she is betrothed to Cedrick, you are going to lose her, and not to matrimony.”
“I didn’t realise that she had discussed it with you,” Arthur began awkwardly, a little unfamiliar with discussing the family’s intimate affairs with the neighbour.
“I was brazenly told by that sister of yours that she had arranged for Sian to be engaged to that friend of hers, Cedrick, and in the middle of the street, no less. Arthur, what were you thinking?” Ryan demanded. “Do you not want to repair your problems?”
“Of course.”
“Then don’t say another damned word about marriage, to Wilhelmina or Cedrick, or anybody else for that matter, especially Sian.” It wasn’t a request.
“I have to do something.”
“You are, and it won’t require you to sell anybody. For God’s sakes man, I thought you were reputable.”
“I am,” Arthur replied, looking horrified that Ryan might think otherwise.
“Then don’t be so draconian. Stay here,” Ryan sighed. “I will go and see if I can find her.”
Leaving a stunned silence in his wake, Ryan turned to go. He was angry, with Wilhelmina and Cedrick, Arthur, and Sian, especially Sian. Having her take control in the middle of her father’s study with her family watching was not how he had envisioned their first kiss to be. He was furious, not least because he didn’t want her to view him as some sort of alternative to matrimony. Ryan had no idea what had compelled her to do what she had but didn’t want to think about it too much. He wasn’t at all sure what he would do if he didn’t like the answer he came up with. What he did know was that he had to do everything possible to ensure that this ridiculous business about Sian being married to Cedrick, of all people, stopped instantly.
“Let me just ask you, Arthur. How bad is it?” Ryan demanded, not least because the shares Arthur owned in his father’s mill were at stake.
Arthur looked at the women gathered in the doorway. He motioned for them to go by waving his hand.
“God, you never listen, do you?” Mabel threw him a dour look before she ushered the girls out of the door. Rather than follow them as she would ordinarily have done, she remained in the room. “I demand to know.”
Arthur studied the woman he had been married to for the better part of five and twenty years. Theirs was a co-habitation rather than a marriage, but he didn’t say as much in front of Ryan.
“I am going to have to sell my shares in the mill,” he admitted, as if the words were being wrenched out of him.
Ryan nodded. “Father will buy them, or I will.”
“You don’t understand,” Arthur whispered. He was humiliated, not least because pride refused to allow him to openly admit to how wrong he had been with practically all the decisions he had ever made. “I wonder if I am capable of deciding anything anymore.”
“What’s gone wrong?”
Arthur looked up. He ha