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Jasper wanted to throttle his friend! Still, he could not avert his gaze and watched as Lord Aberley paused, clearly caught off guard. Lady Edith, too, feigned a look of surprise, pretending to only now become aware of the bit of green above her head.
Everything might have ended there—as there was no reason for Lord Aberley to kiss Lady Edith!—if the singing around the pianoforte had not in that moment come to an end. With their attention no longer focused, people quickly took note of the drama unfolding before them, clapping and cheering, delighted to witness a mistletoe kiss.
Cursing under his breath, Jasper raked a hand through his hair.
“She is not just any woman, is she?” Andrew inquired, his voice surprisingly earnest.
Jasper shook his head. “She is not,” he growled, watching in shock as Lord Aberley moved in for a kiss.
A kiss Lady Edith did not seem to have the slightest interest of preventing! Surely, she could have thought of something if she had wanted to. After all, he had never known anyone to think more quickly on their feet than her.
Yet she did not.
Why?
Anger burned through Jasper, and belatedly, he realized his hands had balled into fists. Quite frankly, he felt an almost desperate need to stride across the room and punch Lord Aberley square in the face! Poor chap or not!
“Don’t,” Andrew whispered beside him. “It is not your place.”
Jasper gritted his teeth as he listened to the guests’ cheers and watched Lord Aberley take a reluctant step toward Lady Edith. A delicate smile lingered on her face as she turned toward the man, and to Jasper, the absence of reluctance upon her face felt like a stab to his heart. What was happening here? Was this not about helping her friend, after all? Was there more to it?
Jasper struggled to remain where he was when Lord Aberley leaned down and placed a kiss upon Lady Edith’s cheek.
It was no more than a peck.
But that did not matter.
It was a kiss too many.
And Jasper felt close to erupting, to doing something utterly foolish in front of numerous witnesses.
Andrew’s hand grasped his shoulder, holding him in place. “Not yet,” his friend murmured, his grip determined.
After their kiss, both Lord Aberley and Lady Edith stepped back, looking a bit flustered as they tried their best to smile. Lord Aberley instantly retreated to his father’s side, a dark glower upon his face, while Lady Edith cast a gracious smile around the room before moving toward the door. She stepped out into the hall but turned to look over her shoulder one last time. Her blue eyes met Jasper’s, and a teasing smile curled up the corners of her lips before she was lost from his sight.
“Now,” Andrew murmured, releasing his grip upon Jasper’s shoulder. It was as though someone had fired a shot.
Without another thought, Jasper shot from the room, determined to catch up to Lady Edith.
Chapter Twelve
THE RIGHT INCENTIVE
Slow steps carried Edith down the hall until she could hear Lord Whickerton following behind her, his thunderous footsteps echoing to her ears. Immediately, she quickened her own steps and then slipped into a small parlor, leaving the door ajar. She could not help the smile that came to her face, nor could she prevent her heart from hammering excitedly inside her chest. She forced a slow breath down her throat, trying to remain calm. She stepped up to the window, keeping her back toward the door…
…and listened.
Truthfully, what had just happened with Lord Aberley had not been her plan. It had merely been an improvisation. Yet it had been necessary to protect Adele, to keep her friend from sealing her fate. To Edith, while not pleasurable, the kiss had meant nothing. To Adele, it would have been like a signature upon a marriage contract. Edith had seen it in her friend’s eyes. She had not only seen despair and misery but also resignation. Adele was willing to sacrifice her own happiness to not disappoint her father, and Edith could not allow that to happen.
And so she had acted on instinct alone. There had been no time to think things through carefully. She had simply rushed to her friend’s side, in that moment uncertain of what would happen next, of what she might do. Yet when she had turned to see Lord Aberley standing before her, Edith had a glimpse of Lord Whickerton.
The look upon his face had decided her next step.
Oh, Edith was not a deceitful person. She preferred honesty over lies and rarely kept things from others. Still, watching her siblings enter into their betrothals and then marriages over the course of the past few years had taught Edith a few things. She had learned that simply because something was the truth; it did not mean people were necessarily aware of it or ready to admit to it. Sometimes, an incentive was necessary.
The right kind of incentive, of course.
Lord Whickerton’s footsteps drew closer until Edith heard him fling open the door in such a way that it thudded off the wall. “What just happened?” His words came out as a bit of a snarl, and Edith smiled, for she knew it was jealousy that fueled his anger.
