Melody began to chuckle. “Why on earth were you using ‘plangent’ in a sentence?”
“Grandmama was singing, and my goodness, she is a depressing soprano!” Lizzy exploded with laughter, joined by her friends. “I asked her… if she was preparing… to sing at a funeral!” she cried between bursts of laughter.
“You didn’t!” Selina choked out, her hand on her belly as giddy tears filled her eyes.
“I did!” Lizzy snorted. “I thought she was going to launch… her teapot at… me. She called me an imp!”
They were so busy howling with laughter that they did not hear the gate swing open, nor the grandmother in question hobbling toward the lawn.
“What is the jest?” the Dowager Duchess asked.
At once, the three young women ceased their rowdiness, their laughter spluttering to a halt.
“Nothing, Grandmama,” Lizzy said sweetly, though a subtle glance at her friends almost had Selina buckling into a fresh bout of hilarity. Melody, her hand over her mouth, seemed to be struggling too.
“Well, if it is nothing you are doing, then you must come and help me,” the Dowager Duchess urged. She lowered her voice to a hiss as she added, “The Dowager Countess of Connington has just arrived, and she is already judging my flower arrangements! Not only that, but the witch has brought hergrandsonwith her! I suppose she thinks she can find him a bride atmygrandson’s wedding—the wretched harpy.”
At that, the three young women dissolved into laughter once more. And though the Dowager Duchess pretended to purse her lips in disapproval, there was a flicker of amusement in her eyes too.
By the following afternoon, Selina wished she could snatch back her insistence that she was not at all stressed by the wedding and ball preparations. The wedding was troubling her less, for it was further away, but the ball… she feared she would be too exhausted to even attend by the time evening came.
The manor was filled to bursting with guests, and needing a moment to herself before she started to get ready for the night’s revels, she had stolen away to the gallery. According to Lizzy, no one bothered to go there because there was nothing worth seeing.
I don’t know what she was talking about. These are beautiful.
She wandered among the displays of expertly realized country landscapes, striking depictions of towering mountains, and a few stern portraits of ancestors.
One painting was covered with a black cloth, piquing her curiosity. Before she could investigate, however, another portrait caught her eye: a painting of a much younger Lizzy, perhaps seven or eight years old.
Even then, there had been that mischief in her eyes.
“What an adorable creature,” Selina chuckled, wishing her friend were there to be teased.
“If that is what you want to call me, I won’t argue,” a voice replied, nearly startling her out of her skin.
She whipped around, gasping, and found her betrothed leaning in the doorway of the gallery. A smirk lifted his lips. Lips she had thought about kissing almost constantly since she had left him after their encounter in the gardens.
Was it really possible that that was almost two days ago?
They had seen each other at breakfast and dinner, but always at opposite ends of the table, unable to do anything but steal glances at one another. Aside from that, Selina had been inundated with wedding things, and Philip had vanished. Probably into the seclusion of his study, where he could avoid being asked a thousand questions about flowers and menus and cakes and linens.
“You scared me!” she scolded.
He pushed off the doorframe and walked toward her.
Like the first time he had ever approached her, her skin began to warm, her heart beating a hard rhythm. If she were the swooning kind, she would have done so right then.
“Apologies.” He smiled. “I couldn’t resist watching you for a while.”
“I am surprised to see you out in the open,” she teased, recovering. “You have been hiding.”
“Not hiding,” he countered, “just… staying out of the way.”
She raised an eyebrow. “A likely story. I know a shirker when I see one.”
“Me? A shirker?” He laughed. “Adorableanda shirker. This is certainly a day for new nicknames.”
She couldn’t resist a chuckle of her own. “I was, of course, referring to your sister.” She gestured to the portrait. “She looks so sweet and innocent here.”
