Worth Winning Read Online Free PDF Page B

that she’d probably find someone to marry at some point. That she’d have children and settle down. After Archie . . . well, everything had been different. After.
    “I’d rather not talk about it,” Julia said finally.
    Claire looked away and shuffled the drawings that were scattered around both her bed and the night table. “He’s not worth it, you know, no matter how handsome he’s gotten.”
    “I thought you were the one trying to encourage me to be interested, just a moment ago?”
    “Please,” Claire said, looking up, her delicate eyebrows arched haughtily. “As a human being? Robeson is clearly far, far beneath you. There’s not a single story or example you’ve shared with me that would even begin to suggest that he’s worthy of being your first love. But then again, that’s the beauty of first loves—we grow out of, and get over, them.”
    “You’re very young to sound so experienced.”
    “I don’t pretend to be as clever as you in any other subject. But in terms of men? And relationships? I would say I’m practically gifted. So when I tell you that he’s not worthy, I mean it. I’m just hoping that now that he’s here, you’ll finally see it yourself.”

*
    Back in her own room, Julia went to her mirror and looked again at her reflection. Her nose was still a little red, her freckles . . . decidedly unflair-like.
    She touched them gingerly and wondered whether she owed Mr. Alver an apology. He surely hadn’t meant to offend her and couldn’t have known that freckles were a particularly sensitive topic.
    The first time they’d talked, Robeson had complimented her on her freckles. He’d pointed out that they looked like little constellations, and though he’d been unable to specify Hydra versus Sagittarius, and though another woman might have been put off by such a compliment, it had seemed unique and thoroughly charming to Julia. She’d been flattered that someone had taken the time to look at a feature she had always considered a flaw and pleased that he’d tried to spin it as a positive. The fact that she’d been going through an astronomy phase at the time, devouring everything from reproductions of Doppelmayr’s plates to Flamsteed’s atlases . . . well, that had just been an ultimately unfortunate happenstance.
    She looked away from the mirror, not wanting to remember or dwell too much in the past. She’d thought she’d known her own heart. For that matter, she’d trusted Archie when he’d said that she was the only woman for him, that she . . .
    Julia shook her head. In the years since Archie had left, Claire had tried, frequently and unsuccessfully, to play matchmaker. She’d tried to teach her older stepsister that men often communicated more clearly in their actions than with their words. She’d said that the way a man looked was just as important as the way he didn’t look , and the way his head tilted or didn’t tilt said just as much as his words. Details that Julia always seemed to miss . . .
    Truly, it gave her a headache, just thinking about it.
    Julia noticed things about the people she cared about, certainly. Things like coughs and hoarse voices, backaches and extra bags under her father’s eyes when he’d been up too late: ailments that were physical in nature and for which there were, if not solutions, at least possible antidotes. Ginger and chicken broth. Tea with honey. A warmed-up pillow. She was a problem solver by nature and enjoyed not only helping but also correctly deducing how best to help.
    But details like indrawn breaths, slanted or narrowed eyes, noticing without being obvious about noticing, the little tightening expressions and other interpersonal signals and subtleties had always eluded her. If she were paying attention, she could catch some of what Claire reported and observed, but she just didn’t understand why it should be important. It had always seemed to her that people should say what they meant.
    If they were