Read Beneath the Black Moon (Root Sisters) for Free Online

anywhere
because she wasn't entertained anymore. Cam hated dressing up, and Helen
submitted to her aunt’s grooming and then scrambled over walls or trekked
through the forest in her finery. Together, the three of them left Aunt Beth at
a loss.
    Cam
stopped at that point and put her aunt out of her mind, because she was truly
starting to feel sorry for her. It was a little disturbing to feel such pity
for the woman who had raised her. Within a few minutes the music began, and Cam
could hear the sounds of dancing and conversation floating up the main
staircase and down the hall to her bedroom, where it slipped under the door and
mingled with the sounds that drifted in Cam's open window. The cheeriest of
waltzes was accompanied by the hum of the cicadas and with every bout of
laughter from downstairs she could hear the shrill of a cricket from some
corner of her room.
    Downstairs
girls like Marianne were at their best, and Helen probably at her fair share of
admirers too, for all that she had embarrassed the family by climbing over a
wall in her haste to reach the barbecue. No one but the gossips would miss Cam,
which was fine by her. She was comfortable with being the shadow upstairs.
    Or
in the kitchen, as the case may be , Cam thought. She
stood and crossed her room to unlatch her bedroom window. The balcony that
graced the front of the house could only be accessed by the three front
bedrooms, which were inhabited by Cam and her sisters. With Cam’s bedroom door
locked no one would know that she was missing. Aunt Beth and Helen were
downstairs, preoccupied with the dance, and Diana was likely still brooding.
Cam opened her window, carefully swung one leg over the sill, and then climbed
out onto the balcony. Night had fallen outside, so it was unlikely that she
would be seen, but Cam kept her head down anyway as she crept across the balcony.
    ***
    The
middle Johnson sister was not at the ball. Brent was surprised by how
disappointed he was. He'd been rather interested to see her at a ball: how she
behaved, how she danced, how many men she danced with. . . He'd been especially
curious about the men. As it was there were only been the usual suspects there,
the same girls that he had been dancing with for two months. There were plenty
of girls who were interested and just as many mothers trying to foist off their
daughters on him. He managed to avoid Marianne, which was a miracle in itself,
because for a girl who liked to act silly and scatterbrained she was as
tenacious as a bulldog.
    He
did dance once with Helen Johnson. Meeting Cam had made him curious about her
sisters. The eldest one was nowhere to be found, but Helen was actually quite
popular. She reminded him strongly of Cam in some ways, but was very different in
others. She had the same carefully balanced gaze, and her answers came readily,
almost too easily. It was as if she expected to be interrogated and so already
had a very detailed cover story planned. She smiled more than Cam and was a
little shyer. She lacked the challenge that Cam had in her eyes, but when she
laughed, she laughed heartily, especially when Brent inquired about her sister.
    “I've
heard that Miss Camilla is indisposed?” He asked. It was a little improper to
inquire about a lady's indisposition, but Cam hadn't looked like the sickly
sort and he was curious.
    “Oh?”
Helen's eyes danced, “Well, I'm sure that's the story,” she laughed, and Brent
wondered if Cam sounded that way when she laughed. It was hard to imagine her
laughing, but he'd like to see it.
    Yes,
well, you'd also like to know what they're hiding, he reminded himself, but you're going to have to settle for one or the
other, and your brother...
    The
thought of his brother at home, hovering over his dying wife, was enough to put
him out of the dancing mood. He excused himself in between the fourth and fifth
dance and stepped out onto the porch. It was still hot enough to snatch the
breath from his lungs, though the sun had