“Percival thinks Audric’s destined for the church,” Eleanor remarked.
“Audric will never make a priest if he keeps gazing at Lavinia the way he does,” Riona replied, trying not to think of another man who would not have made a good priest.
“Do you suppose Sir Nicholas has noticed their affection?”
“I don’t see how he couldn’t.”
“Yet she’s still here.”
“I’m sure he has what he considers excellent political reasons for that. Perhaps he doesn’t want to risk offending their families or other relatives by asking them to go. My uncle and I are still here, after all, simply to stave off the Scots’ complaints.”
“I don’t think you’re still here just because Sir Nicholas doesn’t want to offend the Scots,” Eleanor replied. “I think he likes you.”
Riona had been dealing with Uncle Fergus’s suggestions long enough that she no longer blushed to hear such talk. “He may not dislike me, but he’ll never marry me—and truly, I won’t be upset if he doesn’t. I don’t think he’s the man for me.”
Unless they were in bed.
She simply had to control these lustful thoughts! And she would. God help her, she would!
Priscilla giggled over something Lady Joscelind said, as she was wont to do, causing both Eleanor and Riona to instinctively cringe.
They weren’t the only ones who reacted that way to Priscilla’s giggles. Riona had never spoken of it to Eleanor, but she wasquite sure Nicholas found that giggle aggravating. She’d seen his jaw clench too many times when Priscilla was giggling through dinner to think it was a coincidence. The night Priscilla had sat with him at the high table, Riona had wondered how he’d managed to eat.
“If Sir Nicholas doesn’t want Lavinia and she doesn’t want him, that’s one less woman vying for him,” Eleanor said as she went back to her sewing.
“Did you ever hear why Lady Mary left?”
Eleanor reached for the blue thread. “Fredella heard her maid saying that the earl wanted to go home. He couldn’t stand the weather.”
Riona frowned. For one thing, the July weather had been wonderful—mild, with many sunny days and enough rainy ones to ensure an excellent harvest. For another, she couldn’t help feeling that any snub aimed at Dunkeathe, even to the weather, was somehow a snub of Scotland. “It’s been very pleasant.”
“I think that was just an excuse, too. I suppose Lady Mary thought she had no chance.”
Riona couldn’t disagree with that.
“It’s a pity about Lady Eloise,” Eleanor remarked, knotting and snipping off a sky-blue thread. “I quite liked her.”
“Uncle Fergus told me Sir George didn’t think she’d go through with her threat to leave without him if he didn’t stay away from the wine,” Riona replied as she threaded a needle with some lovely emerald thread that was to represent delicatelittle vines in the pattern. “He says Sir George went white as snow when he heard she’d done it.”
“I was shocked, too,” Eleanor said as she exchanged her needle with the small remnant of blue thread for the one Riona held out. “I daresay she’s been humiliated too many times. Do you think they’ll come back?”
Riona mused a moment, then shook her head as she reached for another needle. “I don’t think so. It was fairly clear Sir Nicholas didn’t think very highly of Sir George, and there would be little reason for him to marry Sir George’s daughter when he has you and Joscelind to choose from.”
Eleanor’s face turned deep pink as she bent over her sewing, Riona was sorry if she’d embarrassed her friend, but that was the truth, and Eleanor, who was no fool, had to know it. It was becoming more and more obvious that the real competition was between Eleanor and Joscelind.
Not for the first time, Riona wanted to ask Eleanor how she felt about Nicholas and her chances of succeeding, but as always, she couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
Instead, she was about to ask Eleanor what color thread she’d require next when Polly came hurrying in from the kitchen, looking very worried.
She spotted Riona and Eleanor and rushed over to them. “Oh, my lady!” she cried, wringing her hands.
“What is it?” Riona asked, shoving the needle in the sawdust filled cushion and setting it in Eleanor’s lovely sewing box.
“It’s the cook. He’s been in a right foul mood since the guests come, and he’s been taking it out on all the servants. He’s been shouting, and cursing something fierce.”
Riona immediately remembered that first night in the garden, when she heard the cook loudly chastising the servants.
“A body might get used to that, but this morning, he lit into the spit boy with a ladle and the poor lad’s black-and-blue. Won’t you do something?”
