Io: The Shrew (THE HALE SAGA SERIES: AMERICANS IN LONDON #2) by S.M. LaViolette EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Authors: S.M. LaViolette
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Romance
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- Size: 2.9 MB
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New York City
Several Months Earlier
The carriage slowed and Io gawked at the monstrous Fifth Avenue
mansion looming above them. It looked large enough to easily
accommodate all the members of the Canoga Community with plenty of
room to spare.
“Good Lord,” Balthazar, Io’s twin, muttered beside her.
Their other three siblings—Apollo, Ares, and Evadne—appeared to be
awed into silence.
The moment the carriage drew to a halt a dozen servants erupted from
the enormous house and descended on the two luxurious coaches that had
collected the five Hale siblings and their scant luggage from the recently
completed Grand Central Depot.
The horde of servants put Io in mind of ants—but garbed in expensive
livery—working as a single organism, intent on their task.
It was a little unnerving to be the focus of so much domestic service,
especially since Io had never had a servant in her life.
A man in a sober black suit followed behind all the others, his clothing
declaring his role as butler.
He came to a halt in front of the carriages once the Hales had all
scrambled out.
“Good evening, my lords, my ladies. My name is Collins, His Grace’s
butler.”
Io startled at the sound of their ridiculous new titles on his tongue and
felt Balthazar jolt beside her. Their younger brothers—yet another set of
twins, but identical rather than fraternal—snickered, the sound more than a
little scoffing.
Only their little sister Eva—an anglophile through and through—
smiled, looking as if she were in heaven.
Collins ignored all their reactions and boomed, “Please, come in. His
Grace and Miss Barrymore are expecting you.”
Io and Bal looked at each other. Miss Barrymore?
Her twin knew what she was thinking without her needing to speak,
and he shrugged. So, Bal didn’t know who this person was, either.
Ever since they’d discovered a month ago that they had a recently
deceased millionaire grandfather and an older brother they’d not known
existed—Zeus Constantine Jonathan Hale—and that Zeus had recently
inherited an English dukedom, Balthazar had been the one who’d been in
charge of communicating with their new sibling.
Not because Bal wanted to, mind, but because Zeus was a product of
paternalistic male-dominated New York society and believed that only men
were capable of comprehending subjects like their grandfather’s last will
and testament.
Or complex subjects of any kind, for that matter.
A woman’s role was to be decorative, deferential, and obedient. Seen
but not heard, just like all the children they were expected to bear for their
lords and masters.
Io felt her temperature rising just thinking about the world she was
walking into. She reluctantly thrust away her irritation. She would have
months and months—two whole years, in fact—to fume and seethe about
the injustices rampant in upper class society.
“This way,” Collins said, gesturing to the room beyond the double
doors.
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