She pulled the covers all the way to her chin in an effort to hide herself from the rest of the world as she allowed the tears to simply stream down her cheeks. Suddenly, the door to her chamber burst open, and Selina appeared, looking furious.
Lydia’s eyes widened in shock. She quickly wiped the tears with her sleeves, hoping that they weren’t visible in the darkness and that Selina would not be asking her questions she wasn’t willing to reply to. As it turned out, Selina seemed lost in her own troubles, focusing on them, unable to notice anything that was happening around her.
“Selina?” Lydia asked as she sat up in the bed. She quickly lit a candle which rested on a small table by her bedside then watched as Selina walked over to her. “What on earth is the matter?”
“I cannot believe she would do this!” Selina hissed angrily through clenched teeth.
“Who?” Lydia wondered, still somewhere between sleep and wakeful state.
“Why, Anna, of course!” Selina frowned, placing her hands on her hips.
“What did Anna do?” Lydia aksed, unable to come up with a single reasonable explanation as to why Selina would barge into her bed chamber in the middle of the night and accuse her sister of doing something that sounded outrageous.
“She and the Viscount!” Selina snapped, her words like her thoughts, chopped up and making sense only to her.
Lydia frowned this time. Selena lifted her hands to the level of her chest, incredulous and shocked.
“Wait, Selina… you are not making any sense,” Lydia tried to clarify. “What about Anna and the Viscount?”
Selina’s brows furrowed as if she were angry at her sister that she simply could not make the necessary assumption on her own. “They are involved… romantically!”
Lydia gasped. “That cannot be,” she quickly shook her head. “You are not making any sense.”
“I’m not, am I?” Selina glared. “Then, pray tell me, where is Anna?”
“What do you mean, where is Anna?” Lydia was having enough of this conversation. “Why, in her bed of course! Where else would she be?”
Lydia pulled the covers off of herself and got up, ready to head to Anna’s room immediately, and sort all this nonsense out.
“I was just in her chamber, and she isn’t there,” Selina said, victoriously. As if that was any sort of a victory.
Lydia still couldn’t understand what exactly Selina was accusing Anna of. None of it made any sense.
“The Viscount said he was going away and would not be home, and now, Anna is missing as well,” Selina continued. “And this was all happening right underneath my nose!”
“Selina, you are being paranoid,” Lydia could not listen to a word more of this.
“Paranoid?” Selina echoed incredulously. “I overheard one of your conversations with Anna about her secret admirer. Then, I got curious. I wanted to see what those letters were all about. I… I read them.”
“You read your sister’s letters?” Lydia asked, shocked at this breach of privacy.
“I had to,” Selina tried to explain herself. “And it is good that I did, because…” She swallowed heavily before continuing. “Because I recognized the Viscount’s handwriting. The letters… they were all from him.”
“Wait…” Lydia shook her head. This was all too much. “What did you say?”
“The Viscount is Anna’s secret admirer,” Selina finally said it clearly, aloud.
Lydia couldn’t say anything at first. It was too much. It was unbelievable.
“Are you certain of what you are saying, Selina?” Lydia asked, accentuating every single word.
“I wouldn’t come to you if I wasn’t,” Selina admitted. This time, she sounded much less angry and more hurt. Lydia could tell that she was heartbroken even though she had decided already that she would not be marrying this man.
“And Anna isn’t in her room?” Lydia asked although the answer to this was already obvious. Still, she had to ask again… for her own sake.
“No,” Selina confirmed.
“We need to alert the entire house,” Lydia’s mind suddenly switched on, and she could think properly. She was once again the protector, the one who kept her sisters safe. Her own problems instantly became unimportant. “We have to find Anna, immediately!”