Determined to be acknowledged, determined to be heard.ĭetermined to protect her sister, at any cost. She might very well be plain, bookish, distracted, and awkward-but she was determined. She kept her fist lifted overhead, beating on the door in an even, stubborn rhythm. However, after a solid minute of knocking to no avail, the fatigue of her journey set in, knotting her calf muscles and softening her spine. She hadn’t climbed all this distance from the village to the castle, slipping over mossy outcroppings and tracing muddy rills in the dark, just to trudge the same way back home, defeated. Minerva would root herself to this spot until he let her in, even if this cold spring rain soaked her to the very marrow. She raised her fist again, pounding at the door with renewed force. Swiping aside the hair matted to her cheek, Minerva stared up at the ancient stone turret-one of four that comprised the Rycliff Castle keep. Cold rain pelted her neck, adding injury to insult. The wind caught her hood and whisked it back. She’d transcribed the words herself, penning them at Mama’s dictation.

To make it worse, Minerva hadn’t discovered this description by snooping through private correspondence. The words of her own mother, in a recent letter to their cousin.

The only one with no prospects, no reputation to protect.ĭiana and Charlotte will do well for themselves, but Minerva? Plain, bookish, distracted, awkward with gentlemen. Of the three Highwood sisters, she was the only dark-haired one, the only bespectacled one, the only one who preferred sturdy lace-up boots to silk slippers, and the only one who cared one whit about the difference between sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. Neither of them were at all the sort to slip from bed at night, steal down the back stairs of the rooming house, and rendezvous with an infamous rake.īut Minerva was different.

And the eldest of the family, Diana, possessed not only angelic beauty, but the disposition to match. Her younger sister, Charlotte, was an exuberant yet tender fifteen years of age. From Minerva’s view, it ought to be obvious. Rather nonsensical, that she needed to state just which Miss Highwood she was. “Do come to the door! It’s Miss Highwood.” After a moment’s pause, she clarified, “Miss Minerva Highwood.” “Lord Payne,” she shouted, hoping her voice would carry through the thick oak planks. She stared in desperation at the closed door, then pounded it with the flat of her fist. When a girl trudged through the rain at midnight to knock at the Devil’s door, the Devil should at least have the depravity-if not the decency-to answer.Minerva gathered the edges of her cloak with one hand, weathering another cold, stinging blast of wind.

A Week to be Wicked by Tessa Dare