Page 183 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

Lord and Lady Needham had orchestrated a magnificent wedding breakfast. True to form the seating defied convention and Andrew found himself between Mrs. Nora Walker and Kathryn.

“Congratulations, my lord,” Mrs. Walker said, her beautiful face shining with a sort of serenity that seemed strange to him, given that she was at the family home of her former lover’s wife.

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said.

“They are a lovely family.” Her gaze flickered over the Bellamy sisters and lingered on Lady Crewe. “I did not want to come here for Christmas.”

Andrew leaned closer to whisper, “Me neither.”

They both laughed.

“Why did you?” he asked now that she had raised the subject.

“Because Aurelia convinced me. She pointed out that Guustin would not come here without me, and that Crewe would miss his son at Christmas.” She shrugged. “It seemed selfish to say no.”

“Are you glad you came?”

“Very. I did not have a large family, so this has been lovely.”

Chatham, who was on her other side, asked her something and she excused herself.

Andrew took a deep breath and turned to Kathryn.

She was waiting for him. Andrew had not spent any time alone with her since before the priest hole incident. She looked tired and there were dark smudges beneath her brilliant eyes.

The smile she gave him was tentative—un-Kathryn-like, in other words—and Andrew sighed. “I might as well say it, as I’ve been thinking it for days. Thank you.”

Her eyes bulged.

Andrew chuckled at her reaction. “What?” he taunted. “You do not think me a big enough man to admit when somebody else is right and I am wrong?”

“Not when that somebody is a girl,” she shot back, showing some spirit.

“A woman,” he corrected. “You are no girl, Kathryn. You are…formidable.”

She looked cheered by that description. “I did not choose Stacia capriciously, you know. Mrs. Leary mentioned more than once how she’d felt dreadful stealing your attention when so many other women would have genuinely liked it. She mentioned Stacia specifically.”

Andrew hated hearing that. He hated yet more confirmation that he’d forgotten her. Over and over again.

“You know that you forget things, Andrew.”

Andrew waited for the surge of rage he’d felt when she had poked at him in the past. But it didn’t come.

“I know,” he finally said.

“Are you afraid?”

He looked up from his mostly untouched soup. “What do you think?”

She nodded, sympathy in her eyes.

“What happened to you at your aunt’s house?” he asked.

Her eyes, so open a moment earlier, shuttered. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Yes, she did. But it was Andrew’s wedding day and the last thing he wanted to do was rub salt in her wound—and there was a wound, of that he was sure.

And so he said, “What do you think the chances are that Chatham can make your sister ride the entire way to London in the coach?”

Kathryn snorted. “I’ll not take that wager, thank you.”

Andrew laughed.