“The Chinese,” Crispin said.
“Do I look Chinese to you?”
He didn’t answer, because of course I don’t, and I added, “Christopher chose the dress. I thought it was a bit bland, but he insisted.” And at least Crispin couldn’t tell me that I looked like an apple, or a banana, or—most recently—a stalk of rhubarb in it.
“Of course.” He gave me—or the dress—another look before turning his attention back to my face. “What are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I wasn’t aware I was waiting for anything.”
An apology would be nice, I suppose, but I wasn’t foolish enough to think I would get one. Nor did I have any plans of apologizing myself, either. I may have felt guilty, but not that guilty.
“Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”
“Of course.” I smiled toothily. “My very best wishes for your happiness, St George, and for a long—” I said it again for good measure, “longlife together. Your grandfather was almost ninety when he passed, wasn’t he?”
Of course he had been. We all knew that.
“And that wasn’t even natural causes,” I added, helpfully. “Just think: the two of you could be looking at the next seventy years side by side. Or more. You could live to be a hundred, St George, just to spite the rest of us. I wouldn’t put it past you. And through all of it, you’ll be side by side with Laetitia, and?—”
“Yes, yes.” He interrupted before I could wax poetic about the twelve children and twenty-seven grandchildren he’d have by then, not to mention the fidelity Laetitia would surely expect in exchange for it all. “I get the point, Darling.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said. “After making such a well-reasoned and deliberate choice, not rash at all, not at all emotionallymotivated, I wouldn’t want your marriage to be cut tragically short. Not before you’ve had the chance to truly appreciate your decision. To wallow in it. Decade upon decade upon decade of it?—”
“Yes,” Crispin interrupted. “Thank you, Darling. Without you, I wouldn’t be here now, looking at such a glorious future.”
No, he wouldn’t. “I was delighted to be of assistance,” I said, “and I can’t wait to see you put on the old ball and chain. December, wasn’t it? Not very long at all.”
He looked like he might have winced at the reminder, and I twisted the knife, “I don’t mean to be indelicate, but that’s quite a quick denouement, isn’t it? Is there something I should know?”
For a second he looked at me, his face blank, before a flush stained the tops of his cheekbones. “Are you asking me whether my fiancée is in the pudding club, Darling?”
“I’m simply suggesting that it seems fast,” I said. “Francis and Constance got engaged before you, and they’re waiting until next summer. Of course, if you know that you love one another, there’s no need to wait…”
“No.” The syllable sounded like it had been wrung from him by force.
I arched a brow. “No?”
“No,” Crispin said, through gritted teeth. “You, of all people, know why I proposed, and it wasn’t because I had to. We are not…” He looked nauseated, “expecting.”
I patted his arm. “That’s good to know. I knew, of course, that that might have been an issue after what happened in January,” when he had brought Laetitia to Sutherland House and spent the night with her, “but I didn’t know whether it had happened again since then.”
He gave me a look. It could have flayed fish. “We are not expecting.”
“Just eager to tie the knot.” I smiled sweetly. “I understand.”
And I did, of course. Laetitia wanted to close the deal before he could change his mind. Not that he could do that at this point. Not without being subject to that breach of promise suit we had discussed over dinner last night. But even so, it was hard to blame her for wanting to make sure that the marriage—and Crispin—was in the bag before anything could happen to change anything.
His nostrils flared, and I opened my mouth, but before I could comment on Laetitia’s indecent hurry to tie him down, his eyes fixed on something over my shoulder. “What’shedoing here?”
I assumed it was Wolfgang, of course, so I preened a little. “Your fiancée invited him.”
He flicked me a look, but it was more distracted than I would have expected under the circumstances. “How do you know that?”
“He wrote to me,” I said, and watched Crispin’s eyebrow arch.
“Dear me, Darling. I didn’t realize that you and Dom were on such friendly terms.”
“Dom—?” I swung on my heel to gaze in the same direction that he was. “No, of course we’re not.”
