Читать книгу An Impetuous Abduction - Patricia Rowell Frances - Страница 7

1796, Derbyshire, England

The little girl plastered herself against the wall, her gaze held fast by the long streamer of ribbon she twisted around her finger.

“Come now, Phona dearest.” Mama smiled and placed an encouraging arm across her shoulders. “You want to play the game with the other children, don’t you?”

A cold paralysis enfolded the child. Everyone was looking.

At her.

She pushed harder against the wall. Her mother pried the ribbon loose from her clenched hand. “Now, Phona, my love, you don’t want to rumple your new frock. You must be perfect for your party.”

Phona clutched her pristine white skirt with both hands and transferred her gaze to the tips of her white kid slippers. The immobilizing chill seemed to be taking even her breath.

She could not. She could not. She just could not.

“Phona.” Her mother’s smile faded as she jerked the fabric away from Phona’s small hands and tried to smooth it. “This is the outside of enough. Come and join the game. The party is for you.”

The little girl began to chew on her knuckle. Tears pushed their way out from behind her eyelids. She didn’t know these children. She didn’t know the other ladies. They were all looking.

At her.

Someone tittered. Mama seized her arm and pulled her away from the wall, yanking her fingers out of her mouth. “That looks very disagreeable.” She was not smiling at all now. “Do not be such a baby, Phona. You are a great girl of five years. Big girls do not cry at parties.”

A sob burst out of the child’s constricted throat, but not a word could she utter. Someone else laughed.

Now Mama looked angry. “I went to a great deal of bother for this, and now you will not even play.”

Had a pride of lions descended on her, Phona could not have, at that moment, moved. Could not have run away.

Her mother had on her scary face now. She gave the girl a hard shake and leaned the scary face close to hers.

“Persephone Proserpina! You are embarrassing me!”

She was dragged from the room in disgrace.