Her mother blinked. “Oh well, there should be… good food. Everyone will expect to eat well and to be refreshed. Pleasant beverages.”
“And dancing,” Lizzy added.
“A competition might be entertaining,” Melody suggested.
“Yes, competitions!” Lizzy nodded effusively. “Competitions and games.”
“There will have to be at least one competition that the ladies can participate in,” Melody said. “At these house parties, the competitions always seem to be designed for the gentlemen. We should set an example that we ladies are entitled to amusements too.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” the Dowager Duchess said.
As the women talked across her, eagerly chattering about plans and possibilities, Selina’s mind drifted back to Philip and the press of his body against hers.
What might have happened last night if they hadn’t been interrupted by Mary?
Would life have been easier if I had married the Marquess instead?
She discreetly glanced down the table at him. He was smiling amiably, deep in conversation with another man that Selina did not know. His brother, perhaps.
There was nothing exciting about the Marquess, but he was polite and courteous and reasonably handsome and generous in character and kindness. Her father liked him enough to consider him as a son-in-law. A good choice, probably, to avoid too many disappointments in life. Unless never feeling anything at all could be counted as a disappointment.
Is that the price for excitement?
More to the point, was it a price she was willing to pay?
After all, if what Philip said about not caring about children was true, then there was no reason to explore that side of their marriage. If she kept him at arm’s length, then the unexpected hurt she had felt last night need never be repeated.
He could do whatever he liked with whomever he liked, and she could just live as she wished, reading her books and finding fulfilment with her friends.
But she no longer knew if that would be enough.
“Is there a reason you invited my betrothed’s ex-fiancé?” Philip whispered to his sister at the dining table that evening. “Do you secretly hate her?”
Lizzy twisted her napkin, her eyes trained on the empty chair where Selina should have been. Philip, too, had been watching for its occupant.
“It was an oversight,” she replied. “I did it so your match would be more… valid. I don’t know.”
Philip nodded, once again despairing of her. “Is that perhaps why Selina isn’t here?”
And not just not here, either. Selina had been absent for most of the day. Absent from him, at least. He knew she had spent a few hours with his grandmother, her mother, and her friends, but after that, it appeared she had gone to her room and stayed there.
“She is just tired,” Lizzy said tersely. “It’s to be expected that she might not have the strength to entertain at all hours of the day and night. She must get her rest.”
He narrowed his eyes. “And I must have the strength?”
He had already spent half an hour making polite conversation with the Marquess of Ramsbury and an hour before that talking to Melody’s odd family.
People he did not know and did not care to know, but he was trying to prove that he hadadjusted to society again. To whom, that remained uncertain, since Zachary would not arrive until tomorrow.
“You are the man,” Lizzy said, as if that answered everything.
“You might have asked for my opinion before inviting half of the country,” he muttered.
Lizzy rolled her eyes. “There are no more than twenty people attending, Brother. Thirty, at most. You will survive.”
“Will your friend? My betrothed?” he replied sharply. “If she is absent from a dinner because of your antics, what else might she absent herself from?”
For a moment, a shadow of fear moved across Lizzy’s face. She paled, her jaw slack, no doubt realizing what he meant… and the part that she might play in it.
“No, she wouldn’t,” she insisted, recovering. “She means to go through with the wedding and be my sister-in-law.”
“A lot can change in two weeks, Sister, especially under great strain,” he pointed out. “You have put too much pressure on her, and you shall have to hope it does not break her.”
Lizzy stared down at the green soup before her, brow deeply furrowed. Maybe this entire thing would teach her someresponsibility, if nothing else. Although Philip would not hold his breath.
