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She felt Blake standing at her side, and when he whispered, "Do you knohat happened?" she couldn't even forht of her sister standing in the doorway and gaping at the Jane and Lucas to crash into each other in a laughing tangle of skinny arms and blond hair

"Elizabeth!" Susan exclai on? I didn't expect you to be still awake"

"Oh, Elizabeth!" Jane cried out "Thehas happened You'll never believe!"

"Wonderful," Elizabeth replied, her e into the word But she tried She didn't knohat had happened to bring such bliss to her siblings, but she owed it to them to wipe some of the pain from her eyes and at least atte a piece of paper she'd retrieved fro table "Look what arrived while you were out A er," Jane added "He was terribly handsome"

"He was a servant," Lucas told her

"That doesn't mean he wasn't handso to Lucas and Jane bicker was so wonderfully nor She took the paper froan to shake

"Isn't it brilliant?" Susan asked, her blue eyes lighting onder "Who would have thought?"

Elizabeth said nothing, trying to fight the rising tide of nausea in her stomach

"Who do you think it could be?" Jane asked "It must be someone so very lovely The kindest, loveliest person in all the world"

"May I?" Blake murmured

Silently, she handed him the paper When she looked up, Susan, Jane, and Lucas were staring at her with bewildered expressions

"Aren't you happy?" Jane whispered

Blake gave her back the paper and she looked down again, as if another reading would soe

Sir Lucas Hotchkiss,

Miss Hotchkiss,

Miss Susan Hotchkiss,

Miss Jane Hotchkiss,