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She hadn’t worn the glove in years—only out in public. She’d decided it was far too bothersome—and too often stained—after Jacob was born. And then the twins came, and there was no going back. Their lives were far too full for her to bother with constantly pulling the dratted glove on and off.
Sloane pointed with her right forefinger to a spot on the chart. “So well done, Vicky. It’s perfect—and I never would have thought to seat Lady Harring next to Lady Thorew, but that is brilliant. Those two will feed off each other in a splendid way. You do have a knack for seeing how personalities play off one another.”
Vicky beamed. She was looking more and more like her mother every day. “Thank you. Those two were the most difficult—what with how many people Lady Harring dislikes, and how Lady Thorew likes to talk endlessly about bee pollination.”
Sloane’s finger moved about the paper. “I just have one small change I would like to make. If we could maybe scoot Lord Apton to this location?”
Vicky’s dark eyebrows lifted. “By Torrie?”
A mischievous smile curled onto Sloane’s lips and she nodded.
“She’s sat through a number of these dinners in the comfort of kind old dowagers cradling her. I think it is time she expand her conversation circle.”
“But with Lord Apton?” Vicky asked.
“Yes. Lord Apton is harmless.”
Reiner coughed a snort.
Sloane glanced back at him, shaking her head. She turned back to Vicky. “He’s a very kind gentleman, quick witted, and he has a wide breadth of knowledge. He’s older, but that has made him compassionate—he’s no longer in the throes of the pomposity of youth. If any male can draw Torrie into conversation, it will be him.”
Reiner heard the footsteps before Torrie walked into the room. The slight odd cadence of her boots on the floor. Torrie stepped into the library.
As he was the only one that noticed her arrival, Reiner cleared his throat pointedly, covering his wife’s last words.
Sloane spun around, caught.
Torrie looked at Sloane’s guilty face and her gaze went to Reiner, looking for the truth, as she knew she wouldn’t get it from her cousin. “What did I interrupt?”
For all that Torrie was still bitter, still mad at the world, Reiner liked Torrie immensely. In the year she’d come to live with them at Wolfbridge, he could see how happy her presence made Sloane. They were as sisters, as Sloane had always said, and having Torrie back in her life had completed Sloane in a way he never could have imagined.
Anything—anyone—that made his wife happy, made him happy.
“Just your cousin’s plotting for the upcoming house party,” Reiner said as he wrapped an arm around Jacob’s waist, tickling him. His boy squealed, giggling, falling away from Reiner on the cushions.
“Ah.” Torrie looked to Sloane. “Matchmaking are we again? After your coup last time with Miss Dainers and Lord Newrun you are feeling confident?”
Sloane chuckled. “Something akin to that.”
Torrie stepped to the settee, her hands ruffling Jacob’s hair. “I was looking for this younger cousin of mine—he promised me he was going to take me to find the giant anthill he found in the woods.”
“Ants, eh?” Reiner leaned over, getting one last tickle in before Jacob bolted. “Well then, you best get to it.”
“I will come as well,” Vicky said from across the library, jumping up from her chair at the table.
Still trying to avoid her Italian lesson, the scamp.
Sloane didn’t remind her of the lesson. Conspirator.
Jacob already tugging on her right hand, Torrie held out her left fingers to Vicky. She ran across the room before Reiner could remind her of her lesson with Miss Gregory. For one second, Reiner thought to remind his niece of her lesson, but then he kept his mouth closed. Ants were important. Aside from the fact that not a one in the library would have backed him on the need for the lesson. Including his wife.
Always outnumbered.
A smile crept onto his face.
And that was a wonderful feeling. Exactly as it should be.
He was a lucky, lucky man.
