Let Her Wail

I knew wailing at an English aristocrat's funeral was an insult to the dead, and I let my husband's foster sister do it anyway.

In my last life, a distant English relative of his in the aristocracy died. The solicitor said Todd stood to inherit and invited him to the funeral.

His foster sister insisted on tagging along to see the world. She wanted to get in with the aristocracy, wanted to be seen, and she decided she would wail in front of all of them.

I jumped in to stop her. "The English aristocracy considers wailing taboo.

Forget a share of the estate — we'll probably all get thrown out!" She cried and said I looked down on her, that I thought she wasn't good enough to know aristocrats.

Then she ran out of the funeral and was killed by street thugs in a case of mistaken identity. I thought my husband would fall apart.

Instead he sat through the rest of the funeral in silence and inherited the estate without a hitch.

Six months later, on our anniversary, he took me up a snowy mountain to take pictures.

The moment we got up there, he stuffed me into a sleeping bag and tied it shut. "If you hadn't made such a big deal out of nothing, Britt never would have run off and gotten shot." I was buried alive in the snow and froze to death, and he used that aristocratic inheritance to become chairman of a publicly traded company.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back on the day my husband's foster sister insisted on wailing at the funeral. … Chapter 1 "Elena, why won't you let me wail?" "The Duke had no children.

What's the harm in me crying for him?" In the car on the way to the funeral, I heard that familiar complaint from my husband's foster sister, and I realized, clear as day: I had been reborn.

Brittany Fontaine's eyes were rimmed red. She hadn't even started wailing for sympathy yet and she was already performing the part of the girl I bullied.

My motherinlaw pulled her in close, all tenderness, and shot me a look. "Everybody at that funeral is somebody!

What's the harm in a couple of sobs?" "What if somebody sees how tenderhearted she is and a rich husband lands right in her lap?" Now that someone had her back, Brittany stopped bothering to hide what she was after.

She tipped her mirror up and worked eyeshadow into her lids. "I studied this look for a solid month.

Crying in this makeup, I'm going to be so pitiful nobody could stand it!" "Elena's just jealous that I'm young and pretty.

She's afraid I'll outshine her in front of the aristocrats!" Oh, she'd prepared, all right. Brittany had been getting ready for today for a long time.

She had blown money on a month of treatments at a highend med spa, and she had taken lessons in how to cry.

I snorted, and let the mockery show in my eyes. "You're going to a funeral, not a first date." "All done up like that — worried somebody might not notice you're fishing for a man?" Brittany went off like a scalded cat, sniffling as she talked. "I looked up the Duke's whole life.

I paid a professional writer for the eulogy and I have it memorized cold." "What's wrong with letting the Duke know a guest from overseas was thinking of him?

You just look down on me, deep down." My husband, Todd Westbrook, threw in an impatient jab of his own. "Elena Holloway, what is wrong with you?

It isn't enough that you make scenes at home, now you have to take it out of the country?" "Do you know how much Britt put into this funeral? She might actually make us look good.

What do you do besides pick at people?" That was Todd. He spoiled his foster sister and always assumed I was the one doing the bullying.

No matter what ridiculous thing she did, he never corrected her. He expected me to be grateful for her on top of it.

In my last life I made a point of it: wailing at an English aristocrat's funeral was a serious offense. My fatherinlaw was waiting on that money to stay alive.

Once the inheritance came through, the family could breathe. If we disturbed the dead man's rest and made a room full of aristocrats uncomfortable, forget inheriting anything.

We might well be thrown out of the funeral on the spot. But nothing got through to Brittany. She was going to wail.

When I saw I couldn't stop her, I clamped my hand over her mouth in front of everyone so she couldn't make a sound. Chapter 2 I never expected Brittany to lose her mind over it.

She ran out crying, and street thugs killed her by mistake. My husband got his inheritance, laid her death entirely at my feet, and pushed me down a snowy mountain without blinking.

This time around, I was going to stand there and watch Brittany dig her own grave. She could cry however she liked.

If Todd didn't get that inheritance today, there would be no money at all to treat his father. And then they'd be planning a funeral of their own.

That was when the whole family would really have something to wail about.

Once we were inside, maybe because we were so obviously foreign guests, a young woman from the catering staff walked us through the order of service, and she couldn't help adding a word. "By English custom, at an aristocratic funeral there's no wailing…" The second she walked away, Brittany raised her eyebrows. "Please.

She's just jealous that I'm better looking. She's scared the man she works for will notice me." My motherinlaw nodded along eagerly. "Women who wait on aristocrats?

Every one of them has an angle." I laughed out loud before I could stop myself. Brittany really did think a great deal of herself.

Did she honestly believe she was so beautiful that every woman on earth turned green?

She saw me laughing, and something seemed to click for her. "You were awfully friendly with that girl carrying trays.

I'll bet you already paid her off." "The lengths you'll go to, just to stop me from wailing!" Todd turned around and yelled at me. "Elena Holloway, you behave yourself.

Prince Reginald of the British royal family is going to be at this funeral!" "If you ruin my inheritance, I will never forgive you." At the word "prince," Brittany's eyes lit up.

My motherinlaw jumped in with a warning of her own. "Elena Holloway, don't you dare pull anything!

Cost me my shot at being a prince's motherinlaw and see if I don't make Todd leave you." It was almost funny. Did they really think Brittany had it in her?

One glance across a room and Prince Reginald would be hooked, refusing to marry anyone else?

They knew the aristocracy and the royal family would be there, and she still planned to use wailing to reel in a man. I would wait.

I wanted to see them get more than they bargained for. As more guests arrived, Brittany worked her way toward every marriageable man in the room and shook his hand.

She put on a plummy, overcooked English upperclass accent and gave off charm nobody had asked for.

Then she pressed a hand to her chest, faked a little breathlessness, and turned to me. "Elena, go get my spray out of the car.

I'm afraid I'll get so nervous later I won't be able to breathe." Huh. With all that screaming and wailing coming, she probably did need the spray on hand. I didn't think twice.

I went out to the car, and the second I pulled the door open and got in, my hands and feet were tied. Then the door slammed and the locks went down.

Brittany looked in at me through the window with disgust all over her face. "You keep getting in my way.

It's because you're scared I'll marry an aristocrat and end up above you, isn't it?" My motherinlaw gave me a cold look through the glass. "You've already been married.

Nobody wants that anymore. There are so many eligible young men here — our Britt can take her pick." Todd was standing right there and he didn't move.

I glared at him. "You're just going to let them lock me in? It's hot out. There's no air in here.

Are you trying to suffocate me?" He frowned and snapped at me. "Don't play the victim.

I'm sick of watching you compete with Britt over every little thing." "You sit in this car and you stay there until the funeral is over." He turned and walked off.

Brittany was still touching up her makeup in the car mirror.

Watching her pack powder onto her face, I couldn't help snorting. "A little more powder and anyone who didn't know better would think today's funeral was yours." She started to frown, then her mouth curved into a smile instead.

Chapter 3 "You know, Elena, you should be hoping I land a rich husband." "Because if I don't find a good man out there, I wouldn't mind stealing my brother away from you." Huh.

From the moment Todd pushed me down that snowy mountain, I saw exactly what he felt for Brittany, the part he couldn't say out loud.

He pinned her death on me and arranged my murder over it. On paper he was my husband. In his heart there had only ever been his foster sister.

Once I'd worked that out, I looked at her and my mouth pulled to one side. "Take him? I stopped wanting that piece of trash a long time ago.

He's yours." When the service started, Brittany got up in front of everyone and read her eulogy. At first it was soft little sobs. Then the sobbing wouldn't stop.

People all around were staring at her. Brittany never noticed. She took the shock on their faces as proof that her grief was moving them.

A gentleman, seeing how hard she was crying, offered her a handkerchief as she came down. Her eyes lit up. She took it as a man making a move.

Her crying climbed a few notches, the tears coming like beads off a broken necklace. The woman with him scoffed and needled her. "You're from abroad.

I don't suppose you know our customs." "A funeral is a solemn occasion.

Who exactly are you crying like that for?" Brittany decided the woman was jealous that the man had paid attention to her, and lifted her chin. "The Duke's death doesn't touch you at all, so a single tear seems like too much to you!" "You're that coldblooded, and you think you get to teach me manners?" Having put the woman in her place, Brittany did the math.

She cried, and sure enough it pulled in a man and left an aristocratic woman sour about it. The crying was working. She was certain of it.

She grabbed my motherinlaw and the two of them started wailing together, louder than a bullhorn. Every guest in the room frowned.

Nobody wanted trouble, so they turned to the vicar — the one man there with the standing to speak — and urged him to go over and stop her.

If he explained the customs, maybe this foreign woman would actually listen. But the vicar had only just lifted a hand to pat her shoulder and comfort her.

She looked up, saw an old man, and threw his arm off. His face went dark at the rudeness and his voice came out sharp. "Stop crying.

At an aristocrat's funeral we mourn in silence." "Carrying on like this is a grave insult to the dead." Brittany decided the old man had tried to get a hand on her, hadn't managed it, and was picking a fight over it.

She turned on him. "God himself calls on us to be merciful, and here you are guarding your stuffy little rules!" "You won't even let a person cry.

What is the point of choking down human nature?" The nonsense landed, and the vicar stood there frozen, with no answer for a long moment.

Then every eye in the room swung her way, and Brittany was floating. Obviously her original insight and her quick tongue had dazzled the entire room.

As for the unfriendly looks, those were just women out of their minds with jealousy. She leaned in close to Todd's ear. "Todd, cry. Come on. See?

Look how much they admire me." "Don't you want to meet more of these people?

This is a perfect chance to be noticed." Todd heard money in it and started bawling like he'd buried both his parents that morning.

By then an aristocrat had found me and freed me, and I was standing on the second floor above the service.

I had a clear view of the whole crying act Brittany was staging with the family. The idiots were sobbing themselves blind.

They never saw that the faces of the aristocrats above them had gone grim with anger. Chapter 4 The real show hadn't even started. The wailing had brought the service to a stop.

The Duke's housekeeper couldn't take it any longer and went over to Brittany. "Madam, you never met the Duke. You don't know what he was like." "I served him for forty years.

In his last years he often said the thing he hated most was people sniveling and putting on a show at a funeral." Brittany decided the woman was bitter about not getting a share of the estate. "Some people wait on a man for forty years and all they're worth is wages.

Never so much as a place in the family. What would you know about what the Duke suffered?" "The Duke died all alone.

Forty years at his side, and your heart is that hard?" The words went in like a knife, and the housekeeper's eyes went red.

The grief she'd been holding down came up over her, and she turned and walked out. I went after her to say something kind.

Brittany caught sight of me and shouted. "How are you everywhere? Look at you — tied up and you still got out." "You latch onto anyone.

What do you think you'll get out of sucking up to a housekeeper?" I gave her a look of pure contempt. And she still had the nerve to claim she'd studied the Duke's life.

She had no idea that this housekeeper was the person the Duke had respected most in the world. She was first in line in the will.

But the Duke had been good to her, and she was getting on in years, so she had turned the whole inheritance down and left it to people who needed it more.

And Brittany had the gall to grind her down in public. With the housekeeper gone and nobody left in her way, Brittany waved Todd and my motherinlaw off to the side.

She dropped to her knees, threw her arms around the Duke's casket, and cried like her insides were coming apart.

She was determined that the first thing Prince Reginald saw when he walked in would be her "deep and loyal" grief.

It was an ugly thing to watch, and the solicitor who had invited us to the funeral lost his patience on the spot. "Stop that wailing!

Prince Reginald will be here any minute, and he is a stickler for how these things are done!" "If he sees you wailing and making a scene, he will have you thrown out where you stand!" Brittany blew up