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“What do you plan to wear tomorrow?” Giulia called over her shoulder. “Please tell me you will wear your mother’s garnets. I have been longing to see them on you since you showed them to me.”
“Garnets seem a mite fancy, do they not?”
“Are you trying to say that my ball is not reason enough to rig yourself out in your best gown?”
“When you use lowborn cant like that, Giulia, I cannot understand a word you say.”
Giulia laughed. “No excuses, darling. Your father is a sailor. You perfectly understood me. Besides, do you not have a suitor to impress?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Giulia laughed harder as she directed her horse across the open field toward the Green’s barn where they were meant to meet up with Amelia and Hattie. Dismounting from their horses, Mabel and Giulia led them inside and stabled them.
She glanced to the long ladder which would take them up to the loft where the foursome met weekly, and her throat grew tight. Stepping on a rotten plank and falling to the hard-packed dirt below was how Mabel had broken her leg in the first place. Returning here had never caused her much distress before, but her leg hadn’t pained her in this manner in some years. Not since the original injury had taken place, if she thought about it.
“Is something troubling you?” Giulia asked, her dark eyebrows drawn.
Mabel shook her head, leaving her horse in the stall. “It looks like we are the first to arrive. Shall we?”
Giulia agreed, but the concern didn’t leave her face.
Fourteen painful rungs later, Mabel made it to the top. “What are you planning to wear to the ball?” she asked.
“Mabel? Giulia?” a soft voice called from below before Giulia had a chance to answer.
“We are up here.” Mabel glanced over the loft edge, waving to Hattie.
“Oh, Mae, it has been absolute ages since I’ve seen you!” Hattie called. She quickly stabled her horse and then climbed the ladder. “I want to hear everything. Giulia tells us that you have three handsome men at your house. Three. Is this why you’ve been absent so much of late?” She dusted out her skirts before crossing the floor and pulling Mabel into an embrace. “Oh how I’ve missed you.”
“I saw you in the churchyard just a few days past.”
Hattie pouted. “And you hardly said three words.” She plopped onto one of the sofas, leaning her head against the back of the cushion. “Please, I want to hear about these men. Are they all very handsome and eligible? Who do you find most attractive?”
Mabel’s mind’s eye brought forth an image of Mac standing beside Mr. Wright, Mr. Pemberton languidly resting behind them. There was no comparison; Mac was certainly the best looking.
“Who is it?” Hattie’s eyes were bright, sitting up as Mabel came to sit beside her, Giulia taking a seat across from them on the other sofa. Amelia climbed the ladder then and their little group was complete.
“Who are we speaking about?”
“The handsome men staying at Mabel’s house,” Hattie said.
Amelia’s red eyebrows lifted, striking on her pale skin against the black, high-necked gown she wore. She had buried three husbands in her short life and had vowed to never again wed. Her severe wardrobe was a manifestation of this promise.
“If you do not wish to share your knowledge, I am certain we can convince Giulia to.”
“By all means,” Mabel said, lifting a hand toward her friend. “I should like to hear your opinions after all.”
Giulia straightened. “Very well.”
Amelia sat beside her, her delicate posture nearly rigid.
“There is a lieutenant from Captain Sheffield’s ship,” Giulia began. “He is called Mr. Wright now that he’s sold out, and while his face is worn from the sun and the sea, he looks as though he’d make a nice husband. But perhaps not as preferable when compared to a Mr. Pemberton, who spends his days discussing sport and sipping drinks. He is never fully lucid, as far as I can tell.”
Mabel sat back. Never fully lucid? Did she mean to imply that Mr. Pemberton was always in his cups? If that was the case, wouldn’t Mabel have noticed it?
“And then there is Captain Sheffield’s other lieutenant, who also sold out of the navy and has been traveling with Charles’s party. He looks like a brute of a man, but it is my belief that he has the heart of a lamb.”
“Intriguing,” Hattie said, tapping her chin with one finger. “Will they all attend the ball?”
