Her happiness faltered. She would have to remain the Nora she presented to the world, rather than the artist she was in private. The Grenvilles were the last people she could confess her secret identity to, particularly since all of them were sworn enemies of the caricaturist.
Yet she yearned to belong more than anything. She wished she could have moments like this, a tribe like this, a life likethis. Her stomach churned. She hated that she could not tell them the truth and still be welcome at the table.
“What do you think?” asked Dahlia as the latest storm of playing cards rained down about them. “Should we do it?”
“Absolutely.” Camellia beamed at Nora. “It’s time.”
Nora’s heart skipped. “Time for what?”
“Time to make it official,” Heath said gruffly. “No escaping now.”
Her pulse thrummed. “Make what official?”
Dahlia climbed up on her chair and affected a regal stance. “Miss Eleanora Winfield, known to her friends and family—”
“And us,” whispered Bryony.
“She’s getting there,” Camellia hissed back.
“—andusas Nora,” Dahlia continued from high atop her makeshift throne. “I now pronounce you—”
Camellia and Bryony quickly gathered the loose cards from the table top.
“—an honorary Grenville!” Dahlia finished with a crescendo.
Bryony and Camellia baptized Nora with a deluge of fluttering cards. “An honorary Grenville!”
The garbled sound in Nora’s throat was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. Her pulse pounded in her ears. She turned wide eyes toward Heath in question.
He lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a warm kiss to the back of her fingers. “You’ve been sworn in. Like it or not, you’re one of us now.”
The backs of Nora’s eyes stung. She stared back at all of them speechlessly.
“Don’t think you’re special,” Bryony teased. “You’re the fourth.”
Nora feltincrediblyspecial. She gave a wobbly smile. Nothing could lessen this moment. “Who was first?”
“Faith Digby,” Heath answered. “Dahlia’s partner in crime.”
“In charity,” Dahlia corrected him. “Faith has been my bosom friend since we were small. Now we run a boarding school together.”
“Very Grenville of her,” Camellia agreed.
Nora could only imagine. “And the second?”
“Simon Spaulding,” everyone but Dahlia answered in a singsong voice.
Though she didn’t speak a word, the bright red of her cheeks spoke volumes.
“Oh, and Lord Wainwright, of course,” Bryony said. “Everyone needs a Lord of Pleasure in the family.”
Camellia’s cheeks pinkened in mortification.
Nora suddenly wanted to sink through the floor.
“Thus, it was past time for my turn.” Heath gazed at her warmly. “Welcome to the family, Nora.”
Her breaths were shallow as she forced herself to smile back.
