He reached out and grabbed her arm roughly.

"Get off of me woman." he hissed quietly. "I have turned you down before and

this time will be no different. You are not the woman in my heart and Tessa’s is the

only dress that I care to remove." He stormed past her angrily and out of the

house.

Hazel slammed her fist roughly into the chair that he'd been sitting on and then

ran up to her room

Tessa awoke the next morning with a very stiff neck. She sighed when she

realized that she had fallen asleep in her chair while reading. She didn't

remember covering herself with a blanket. She guessed that Hazel must have

come in during the night to apologize and covered her then.

Tessa the tap and washed herself with her

rose scented soap. Then she slipped into a plain blue cotton dress and walked

downstairs to cook breakfast.

Hazel came downstairs not long after, just as Tessa was finishing the

eggs.

"Thank you Tessa." Hazel said as Tessa sat her plate and a glass of

water in front of her.

"You're welcome." Tessa replied sitting down to her own breakfast. "Thank

you for covering me with that blanket last night when you came in. I don't know

how I fell asleep in that chair." Hazel didn't even look up from her food.

"I didn't cover you up, Tessa. I felt that you were very childish leaving the way

you did. Hoya could not even enjoy the play. He had to leave early to check

on you."

"Hoya was in my room last night?" Tessa said more to herself than to

Hazel. Tessa had dreamt last night that Hoya had run his hand down her

cheek and kissed her head lightly. Had she really been dreaming or had he

actually been there? She quickly decided that she must have dreamt about the

kiss and the tender touch. He had simply covered her up and then left. After all

caring for her and her sister was simply a responsibility left to him by their father

and nothing more. "I wouldn't read too much into it Tess. After all he thinks of you as his

sweet, fat sister." Hazel said quickly. She didn't want Tessa to know how

much Hoya cared about her. Hazel was determined to have him one night

and then Tessa would not want him anymore and he would be hers.

"I wasn't reading anything into it." Tessa replied quickly. "Would you like

some more eggs because I would." She spooned some more eggs onto her

plate.

"No thank you, Tess. Some of us women actually care about what we look

like." Hazel replied. Tessa stopped eating and pushed her plate away.

"So what are you going to do today?" Tessa asked and Hazel rolled her

eyes.

"I don't know. I'll probably spend the day out shopping." she replied. Tessa wished that her sister would invite her along but knew that she wouldn't.

"I believe I will do a little sewing. I am making myself a new dress to wear to the

dance tomorrow night but it is taking longer than I planned." Tessa said

taking a sip of her water.

"Perhaps if you were smaller it wouldn't take so much fabric or time to make a

dress." Hazel said with a laugh. Tessa felt her heart break just as it always

did when her younger sister insulted her.

"Quit it, Hazel. That's not funny." she said quietly.

"Have a good day sewing, Tessi. I'm going out."Hazel  replied and with

that she practically danced out of the room her dark curls bouncing. Tessa finished eating her breakfast now that her sister was gone and then cleared the

table. After washing up the breakfast dishes she settled down to work on her

dress.