Ellie shot Adam an uneasy look.“I should probably try to explain…”
“It’s a hell of a goddamned picture, but I think I’m getting it,” Adam replied.
“It’s my grandmother that you should be worried about!”Constance hissed to Neil.
“Oh God!”he wailed.
“I’m sure we could tell them it was all a slight misunderstanding…” Ellie hedged.
“No,” Constance cut back grimly.“We’re in it now.There’s no way out but through.We’ll simply have to discuss the rest later.”
The words sounded like a threat.
“Princess alert,” Adam muttered as Padma returned to the breakfast room.
“I see we are all still celebrating the happy news?”Padma observed blandly.
“Yes,” Ellie replied awkwardly.“It’s very… celebratory.”
Constance snuggled into Neil’s side.“Of course, Neil and I have known about it for a while.”
“Indeed,” Padma agreed wryly.“Kondi, I wonder if I could part you from your intended for an hour to accompany me on an errand in town.Miss Mallory, I thought you might like to join us.”
“Me?”Ellie protested helplessly.
Constance snagged her arm, hauling Ellie to her other side.“Ellie is ever so fond of joining things.Aren’t you?”
“I am,” Ellie quickly agreed.
Adam clamped a hand on Neil’s shoulder.“I’ll just take care of my good buddy here.Make sure he doesn’t hyperventilate.From happiness.”
“It has been known to happen,” Ellie helpfully added.
Neil forced a weak smile.
Padma’s mouth curved with a hint of threat.“How very wonderful.Shall we?”
Constance steered Ellie toward the door, pausing to call back over her shoulder at Neil.“Don’t miss me too much, Sugar Plum!”
“What?”Neil blinked with confusion.
Ellie turned the corner on Constance’s arm, and her friend leaned in for a darkly conspiratorial mutter.“I do hope your brother’s subterfuge skills can be improved quickly.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Ellie warned grimly as they hurried after the princess.
?
Sixteen
Constance wasn’t surewhether she ought to feel grateful or murderous.She had thought that the question of a fake engagement had been firmly settled the prior evening.What had Stuffy been thinking when he blurted it out over breakfast?
Constance and I are getting married.
He might at least have warned her that he had still been thinking about it—though to be fair, based on the look on his face as the words had come out of his mouth, Constance wasn’t sure how much actual thought had been involved.
Still, it was done now.She would just have to find a way for them to extricate themselves from the fiction once it was no longer convenient.She would not have this little stratagem put Neil’s reputation or their friendship at risk.However precipitously he’d done it, he’d done it forher, and she was hardly going to repay that by letting him be thought a cad.
At least she would have plenty of time to think of a solution to that problem—and to the ongoing pressure from her family to wed—thanks to Neil.
