“Bertha and Dan,” Agnes said, “are my very favorite literary characters.”
Sophia laughed gleefully. “You have very unsophisticated tastes, Agnes. Have you painted the daffodils yet? You said you were going to.”
“I have,” Agnes told her. “But they were very resistant to being captured in paint.”
“Agnes has been in the dismals for that very reason, I think,” Dora said. “But I have seen the finished painting and it is remarkably lovely.”
Agnes smiled fondly at her. “You say that about all my paintings, Dora. You are quite indiscriminately biased.”
“As all sisters ought to be,” Lady Harper said. “I always wanted a sister.”
And then, just when it was almost time to get up and take their leave, the others arrived home and came into the drawing room in a noisy body, bringing the outside world in with them, or so it seemed.
Tab, Sophia’s cat, who had been curled at Dora’s side, rose to his feet, arched his back, hissed at Lord Darleigh’s dog, and settled back to dozing; Lord Darleigh smiled about him, just as though he could see them all; Sir Benedict Harper commented on the fact that he would not have believed the new racetrack was five miles long if he had not just propelled himself along almost a third of the length of it in his chair; the Duke of Stanbrook bowed to the newcomers and bade them a good afternoon; Lady Barclay accepted a cup of tea from Sophia’s hands and sat down to converse with Dora; Lord Trentham set an arm briefly about his wife’s waist and pecked her on the lips before frowning ferociously as if he hoped no one had noticed; the Earl of Berwick helped himself to an iced cake from the tea tray and made sounds of appreciation as he bit into it; and Viscount Ponsonby stood just inside the door, looking sleepy.
And Agnes hated him. No, she hatedherself. For she was aware of no one else even half as much as she was of him.
“I believe we have all walked our feet down to stumps,” the earl remarked. “We tried to bribe Ben out of his chair, but he was selfish and obstinate as always and would not budge.” He winked at Lady Harper.
“Is that your newest book, Lady Darleigh?” the duke asked. “May we be permitted to see it?”
“It is brilliant,” Lord Darleigh said as he felt the seat of his chair by the fireplace before lowering himself into it. “See for yourselves.”
“Author, violinist, harpist, pianist,” Lord Trentham said. “There will soon be no living with the lad.”
“But only Sophie is called upon to do it,” Lord Darleigh said, smiling sweetly.
“The illustrations are so very clever, Lady Darleigh,” Lady Barclay said as she looked at them over the duke’s shoulder. “I wonder who had the silly notion that children’s books are not also for adults.”
“There is a child in all of us, is there not, Imogen?” the earl asked.
“Yes, precisely, Ralph,” she said, glancing up at him with a look of such raw longing in her eyes that Agnes felt jolted.
Viscount Ponsonby was the only one of them who had said nothing.
After a few minutes Dora got to her feet, and Agnes followed her lead.
“We must take our leave, Lady Darleigh,” Dora said. “Thank you for inviting us. It has been delightful.”
“It has,” Agnes agreed. “Thank you, Sophia.”
Lord Ponsonby was still standing squarely in the doorway, she noticed.
“I will give myself the pleasure of escorting you home, if I may,” the Duke of Stanbrook said.
Dora looked at him in some surprise. “After your long walk, Your Grace?”
“It will be like dessert to a banquet,” he assured her. “And the dessert is always the best part.”
But he spoke with a twinkle in his eye and no suggestion of flirtatiousness. Dora, who was terrified of his titled magnificence, actually laughed.
“I’ll come with you, George,” Viscount Ponsonby announced in that languid way he had, almost as if he spoke on a sigh.
Inevitably, when they set off, they divided into two couples, and since the duke had offered Dora his arm even before they left the house, Agnes had little choice but to take Lord Ponsonby’s.
“This was unnecessary,” she said after a minute or so of silence. Dora and the duke, striding along and deep in conversation, had already outdistanced them.
“You are being ungracious, Mrs. K-Keeping,” he said.
