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And then the desire to laugh quite left her. Adam was approaching, Olivia clinging to his arm. ‘Miss Channing! Lord Weston, how do you do?’ Decima hastily performed the introductions.
‘We were just going in to supper,’ Olivia murmured shyly. ‘Would you join us?’
Decima was expecting a resumption of the morning’s tension between the two men. Instead, Adam was looking as though a pleasant idea had just struck him, and Henry was staring at Olivia as though he had seen a ghost. He saw Decima watching him and the look vanished, to be replaced by one of polite interest.
‘Yes, do run along, dears.’ Lady Freshford was gathering up her fan and reticule. ‘I can see Augusta Wimpole over there. We can have supper together and a good gossip. Caro is there already with some young friends.’
Adam led the way to a table in the refreshment room and settled Olivia beside Decima, before departing with Henry to raid the buffet on their behalf.
‘What a lovely dress,’ Olivia said shyly. ‘Mama would never let me wear such a pretty colour.’
‘I am sure it would not suit you as well as the gown you are wearing. It looks quite exquisite with your colouring. Besides,’ Decima confided, lowering her voice, ‘I am regretting this neckline—I have never felt so exposed in my life.’
‘It is a little bit daring, but you do have such nice shoulders,’ Olivia said.
She is sweet, Decima thought, smiling at the compliment. Would she make Adam a good wife? She would be sure to try and do her duty. How chilly that sounded.
‘Is Sir Henry—?’ Olivia broke off, blushing. ‘Do you and he have an understanding?’
‘Goodness, no!’ Decima laughed, then saw Adam turn to look at her as the sound cut through the babble of conversation. ‘No, indeed not,’ she added, lowering her voice. ‘We are just very good friends. He is one of the nicest people I know.’
‘Oh.’ Olivia dropped her gaze to her hands and fell silent, only rousing herself when the men returned with plates full of delicacies.
‘Lemonade, Miss Channing?’ Henry asked, bending over Olivia solicitously. No one had asked Decima what she would like, but when the men returned Adam placed a champagne flute in front of her. Startled, she looked from one man to the other, but Henry was chatting easily to Olivia and all Adam did was to raise one dark brow.
‘Do you prefer lemonade?’
‘Not really, if I am to be honest.’ Decima picked it up and took a sip, loving the way the bubbles fizzed up her nose. And the way her blood fizzed in her veins. Adam was so close she could feel the heat of him where his arm rested on the table next to hers.
‘Oh, let us be honest at all costs,’ he agreed softly, his eyes resting on their companions. ‘Tell me Decima, is Freshford…entangled with anyone?’
‘No. Not that I know of.’ She was startled into answering without thinking. ‘And it would be no business of mine if he were—I am certainly not going to answer personal questions about my friends!’
‘Just curious.’ The champagne swirled in his glass. Decima found herself watching it, watching the long, strong fingers holding the fragile stem and remembering them on her body.
Adam seemed to snap out of his abstraction and shifted in his seat, reaching for a fork. ‘These patties look good.’
Decima agreed, nibbling at a corner. Where had her appetite gone? She took another sip of champagne.
‘Am I forgiven yet?’ Adam had speared an asparagus roll, but his gaze was resting on the swell o
f her breasts in the low-cut gown.
Decima fought the instinct to hunch her shoulders and managed not to enquire coldly what exactly he meant. ‘Of course. We discussed that this morning. I have quite put it from my mind.’
‘I wish I had. I suspect I was somewhat…prickly this morning.’ One dark brow slanted upwards. Decima could not decide whether he was being satirical.
‘You were, certainly. Why?’
It really was hopeless trying to disconcert him with direct questions. He did at least have the grace to lower his voice as he answered, ‘Because I assumed that you and Freshford were attached.’
Decima glanced at Henry and Olivia, but they were happily engrossed in an animated conversation. Olivia was pleasingly flushed and was waving her hands around in a way that seemed quite out of character while she described something. ‘Well, we are not,’ she snapped. ‘We are very good friends. And anyway, whatever concern is it of yours?’
‘I can see you are not, now I see him on foot,’ Adam commented, low voiced. ‘After all, he only comes up to your…’ He waved a hand graphically at her upper-chest level.
‘If I loved him, height would not be an issue,’ Decima retorted stiffly. ‘And I repeat, what business is it of yours?’
‘Why, I am jealous, of course.’ He said it in exactly the tone he might have used to comment on the weather.
