raydee'anne

raydee'anne allowed her eyes to trace the path of the server's white-gloved hand as he gently placed the next elaborately executed dish directly in front of her on the polished mahogany table, and she sighed. the sigh wasn't loud enough to reach the ears of her father, seated at the head of the table some twenty feet away, but jared stokes no longer had to hear his daughter expel breath to know when she was nearing her limit. the sag of her shoulders and the bend of her long and innately aristocratic neck as they bore the weight of her resignedly bowed head revealed what he already knew: raydee'anne was too weak for this life. fourteen months had passed since she had appeared at the sables of many maples and collapsed into the arms of jared's personal liveryman, who had been cleaning the mud and ice from jared's hunting saddle, and in those fourteen months her strength had waned with each passing day.