Gertie’s mother wasn’t here to work the same magic on her anxious daughter as she’d done for a shy and anxious Cynthia over a decade ago.
It was Cynthia’s turn now.
She’d steered Gertie’s older sisters into secure,happymarriages, and she would do the same for Gertie.
It was Cynthia’s only hope to pay back her aunt for not treating her orphan niece as an object to be pitied, but rather as though Cynthia had been her daughter, too.
Worthy of her time.
Worthy of being loved.
This was Cynthia’s chance to finally make the countess proud.
“Follow me, please!”
The Duchess of Nottingvale led the crowd past the gauntlet of footmen handing out hats and coats, and out into the snow-dazzled countryside like the Pied Piper of Yuletide Utopia.
Nottingvale adored his family. That was yet another mark in his favor.
Or another hurdle to cross.
“Why do I feel like she’ll be harder to impress than the duke?” Gertie whispered.
“Because you’re right,” Cynthia said dryly. “Go on. Make a good impression.”
Gertie bit her lip as she handed Max to Cynthia. “What do I do?”
“Be yourself. You’re wonderful just as you are.” Cynthia connected the leash to Max’s collar. “And perhaps a compliment or two wouldn’t go amiss.”
“You should’ve let me bring my breathing sack,” Gertie hissed, but she inched forward to blend with the debutantes.
By the fifth house, it was clear that every resident in Cressmouth had prepared vats of wassail to ladle out to carolers. Cynthia began to worry her cousin might make good on her threat to warble drunkenly into the night.
She tried to edge forward, but it was no use. Cynthia was stuck at the back of the crowd. Even her unusual height didn’t help her with all of the top hats and feathered bonnets blocking the view.
“You’re not singing,” came a low voice on her left side.
She rose on her toes. “I’m waiting for ‘A Spinster Goes A-Wenching.’”
A beat of silence.
“Isn’t it ‘A Soldier Goes A-Wenching?’”
“I changed the words. And the roles. What better buffet can there be for a self-respecting unwed wench than an entire squadron full of fit, handsomely uniformed—” Cynthia’s heels came back to earth as she swung her gaze to her side in dawning suspicion.
No. It couldn’t be.
Of course it was.
The Duke of Nottingvale smiled. “You were saying?”
“Dukes are fine, too?” she offered. “After one runs out of soldiers?”
“Flattering,” he murmured. “For the soldiers.”
The crowd began to move again.
Cynthia hung back and watched until she glimpsed Gertie up ahead with a remarkably sober gait and no signs of impending soprano solos.
