“I suppose he looked a very interesting picture, emerging from the sea,” Lady Margaret said.
“Very dashing,” Grace admitted.
“And there you were, a regular Queen Boudica, bravely facing the elements to rescue him.”
Grace felt her eyes go a bit wide at that picture. There had not been any particular elements to face and she’d been there with her family. She really could not claim any resemblance to Queen Boudica.
“He told me your eyes were olive-colored, and that it lent a sophistication to your appearance,” Lady Margaret said.
“Did he? Did he say that?”
Lady Margaret nodded.
Just then, the drawing room doors opened. The duke had not kept the gentlemen long at their port. As was his usual habit, her papa had brought the bottle in with him.
“Lady Margaret,” the duke said, “I’ve sent for the brandy decanter. I think you will not be opposed?”
“Gracious no,” Lady Margaret said. “These old bones do need to be greased up on occasion.”
“We ought to get started,” Patience said. “Else Valor gets too tired to play.”
“I am not tired,” Valor said.
“No, but you will be.”
Valor sighed, as if she was much put upon. “It is one of the problems of youth—Idoget sleepy!”
Patience set the piles of blue and yellow tickets on an ottoman and dragged it to the center of the room.
The footman returned and poured a modest amount of brandy into a glass for Lady Margaret. Then he noticed the lady frowning at it and topped it up.
Valor was waving her hand back and forth at the duke.
“All right, all right, Valor is to go first,” the duke said.
“Mr. Stratton,” Valor said, “do you stare at Felicity when she’s sleeping?”
Mr. Stratton seemed not the least bit alarmed to be asked. He nodded, “Only once or twice.”
“Fibber!” Verity cried. “We already talked about it and we are sure it is at least three times.”
Felicity giggled and handed her husband a blue ticket. “In the hole already, my love.”
They moved round the circle to Winsome. “Lord Dashlend, what was the first thing you noticed about our Grace?”
Though Grace had expected the question, or something very like it, it was still painfully embarrassing.
“Oh, well, let us see,” Lord Dashlend said. “I suppose it must have been her eyes.”
“Liar!” Winsome, Verity, Patience and Serenity cried.
“It was her hair,” Winsome said. “Everybody knows it.”
“Well of course, that is very good too,” Lord Dashlend said.
Grace thought she might die of embarrassment. But then, she also could not help but to be flattered by his noticing her eyes. Lady Margaret had said as much.
How funny it should be her eyes. All her life, she’d thought she’d been somehow cheated out of a blue color. She’d thought blue superior. Now she understood that Lord Dashlend did not find blue superior.
