“Just the general malaise of socializing,” Rachel added.
Margaret said, “Lily is hiding from her hordes of gentlemen callers.Ow!It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
“And Sylvia accidentally dyed her hair purple,” Rachel finished.
“I thought the color suited her very well,” Bradford said.
“Are you mocking her?” Rachel Warrington asked, a sharp edge of warning in her voice.
“Not at all,” he said truthfully. “I think the lavender brings out her remarkable eyes.”
“Very well,” Rachel said, sounding somewhat deflated. “Though you’ve deprived me of my righteous indignation on her behalf.”
“I’m certain your defense would have left me properly chastized,” he said. “I’ll go procure some refreshments. And for the record, it was the slipper that attracted my attention, not Lily’s elbow.”
Ten minutes later,Bradford returned, a chilled bottle of champagne beneath one arm and several plates stacked in the other. He glanced both directions down the hallway, then entered the silent room.
“The sandwiches on the bottom plate might be slightly smushed,” he said by way of greeting, “but I daresay they’ll taste all right.”
“I thought those were his footsteps,” Margaret hissed triumphantly.
“It’s a carpeted hallway,” Lily said. “You were just as surprised as the rest of us, admit it.”
“It hardly matters. He’s here now, withrefreshments.” Margaret whisper-sang the last word, and Bradford couldn’t help but smiling.
He plucked at the edge of the long tablecloth until someone lifted it. One by one, the plates were whisked away by invisible hands as soon as he lowered them beneath the table. Bradford eased the cork from the champagne with apopthat garnered muffled applause and some murmured squeals of delight from the ladies below.
“You are a paragon of a gentleman,” Rachel proclaimed.
“Careful, Lily might take offense,” Margaret whispered so lowly that Bradford thought he hadn’t been meant to hear. “Ow! Stoppinchingme.”
Bradford couldn’t help the surge of hope that welled within him at the exchange. The insinuation that Lily might haveproprietary feelings toward him, spoken by her sister, no less…it was a heady thing.
“Is there anything else you ladies require?” he asked, careful to keep his tone unaffected.
“If it’s not too much bother, would you speak with Beatrice and let her know where we are?” Lily asked. “I don’t want her feeling left out.”
“Of course.” Bradford had just slipped the champagne under the table and dropped the tablecloth when he heard a rustle behind him.
“Lord Hayes,” a nasal voice said from the hallway. “Whatever are you doing in here?”
Lord Rigsby appeared in the doorway. He and Bradford had been introduced at a ball several weeks ago. Though they’d never spoken, Bradford had been required to resist the urge to punt the man from every ballroom in which he’d stared at Lily.
Which had been all of them. Theirs was an oddly unbalanced relationship, with much acrimony on Bradford’s side.
“My shoe came loose,” Bradford said smoothly, even as he heard a small gasp from beneath the tablecloth. “I was looking for a quiet place to fix it.”
“You don’t need to get me started on the unreliability of the average valet,” the man simpered. “That’s why I simply cannot do without my own Francois. I poached him, you see, from a hotel in Paris.”
Bradford gave a non-committal hum. “Undoubtedly he’s very grateful.”
Or regretting the day he laid eyes on you and saving for his return to France,Bradford thought.
Rigsby stepped into the room and looked around. “I swore I heard voices.”
“That was me,” Bradford said easily, latching on to the first excuse he could think of. “I often practice what I plan to say to a lady while I’m alone.”
Rigsby was still scanning the room as if searching for something. “I thought I heard a lady’s reply, is all.”
