“Mama also told you to stay off the trellis, remember? Something about it being meant for roses and not a means of escape for a young girl who should know better?” Hands on her hips, Serendipity stared down at Grace, then pointed at the door. “Everyone into the sitting room. This area is entirely too small for a proper discussion into whatever you have done this time that could bring all our reputations down around our ears.”
Pushing herself up from the floor, Grace shot a meaningful yet subtle look at Joy, silently imploring her to keep mum. “Come, Gastric.” She clicked her fingers at her devoted hound, who immediately fell in step beside her. Sensing more than seeing her sisters follow along, she toyed with the idea ofconfessing fully, as she had done before about her first meeting with the duke, or trying to dance around the facts so that no one but Joy knew what had happened. But was Joy the only one who knew? How much had the others overheard?
Serendipity seemed suspiciously horrified, and Merry and Felicity appeared to be enraptured. Knowing those two, they wanted every detail about the kiss. Joy would be disappointed by a full confession because, once again, she would be disarmed and wouldn’t have any secrets to use in the future.
“Up on the settee, Gastric. I need your protection.” Grace patted the cushion beside her, and after three valiant, short-legged hops, the dog launched his weightiness up onto the sofa and settled down beside her. She gave Serendipity a regal nod. “Proceed with the interrogation, sister.”
Serendipity’s delicate features hardened, and her eyes narrowed. She folded her arms across her chest and ambled back and forth in front of Grace, never once breaking eye contact. “What happened in the garden?”
“What makes you think anything happened in the garden?”
Serendipity tipped her head in the direction of the other three sisters. “Joy is jiggling her foot. A sure sign she knows something she believes no one else knows. Merry’s cheeks have gone too red, and Felicity has chewed on her bottom lip so much, it has noticeably plumped.” She closed the distance between them and gave Grace a curt nod. “Your hem is torn. You are clinging to Gastric even more than usual, and Isawyou slip out into the garden. Upon mentioning that to Chance, he informed me that the Duke of Wolfebourne also briefly stepped outside for some air, claiming the cigar smoke troubled him. He said the man was absent from the library for quite some time. Whether your trip outside and the duke’s have anything in common remains to be seen, but from what little I overheard, I strongly believe that it does.”
“There was no cigar smoke in the ladies’ parlor. That is not why I left.” Grace knew full well that Serendipity held the advantage in this conversation. Try as she might, she simply could not think of a plausible way to explain all that her sister had not only overheard but believed she already knew. “I left the parlor because I had enjoyed the dinner party for as long as I could stand it. You know my penchant for the trellis. Unfortunately, due to its age, this time it broke, and that route was no longer viable.”
Serendipity stared at her with such fierce intensity that Grace couldn’t help but squirm. She finally threw up her hands. “I swear you should work for the Crown interrogating prisoners,” she told her sister. “Wolfebourne caught me as I fell. His Grace saved me from possible injury.”
Serendipity still didn’t speak, just narrowed her eyes further.
“What?” Grace demanded. “Have you trained tiny birds to hide in the dressing room and eavesdrop on us, then fly back to you and repeat everything we have said?”
“I distinctly overheard the wordskissandrake.”
“You must have the hearing of an owl.” Grace stifled a groan. She was well and truly snared. “Wolfebourne and I found ourselves overcome by my nearly perilous fall from the trellis and the moonlight. He kissed me, and I informed him that while I might be unconventional, I am not a lightskirt, and since he belonged to another, he should go back inside and leave me alone.”
“And he said?”
“He apologized for his abominable behavior.”
With her arms still primly folded across her chest, Serendipity slowly paced back and forth in front of Grace as if determined to examine her from every angle. “You smiled at each other at dinner. During the first course.”
“I smiled because the man seemed to loathe pea soup as much as I do. I can’t possibly fathom why he smiled back at me. Probably just to be polite.” Good heavens, how on earth had Serendipity noticed such a fleeting moment? Unless she had purposely been watching. “How did I become such an object of interest when, as the eldest and the hostess, you should have focused your attention on our guests?”
“Because of your initial encounter with the Duke of Wolfebourne, and his throwing down of the gauntlet—or should I saybuckskins?” Serendipity lunged in so close that Gastric rumbled with a rare growl, warning that while he was a good-natured sort, he would not hesitate to protect his mistress. Serendipity frowned down at him. “Oh, stop, Gastric. You know I would never harm our Gracie.”
The hound positioned himself more firmly between Grace and her sister, determined to shield her no matter what Serendipity said.
“Do you love him?” Serendipity asked quietly.
“Love him?” Grace hugged Gastric closer. “Who?”
All the sisters groaned and shook their heads.
“Now who is thick?” Joy asked, impatiently tapping her toe so quickly that her skirts shook.
“I just met the man. How could I possibly love him?” And yet a disturbing rush of heat swept across Grace, and those infernal birds in her middle started batting their wings again. But that wasn’t love—that was because she had very much enjoyed his kisses. “I do not love him. Besides, even if I did happen to harbor any feelings for him, what good would it do? He is betrothed to Lady Margaret.”
“Oh, Gracie.” Serendipity sank into a nearby chair and propped her head in her hand.
Joy, Merry, and Felicity all stared at Grace with the same sympathetic looks they always gave her whenever one of her beloved animals passed.
“What?” Grace asked so sharply that Gastric perked his ears andwoofed.
“You may not love him yet,” Merry said, “but the seeds are sown and sprouting. Remember what Mama said about relationships being like a garden?”
A soft knock on the sitting room door made them all turn and stare at it.
“Lady Serendipity?” Mrs. Flackney, the housekeeper, quietly called as she barely opened it a crack. “Forgive the intrusion at this late hour, but I have a note for Lady Grace. Nellie mentioned she might already be abed, but I saw the light under this door and heard voices, so I thought I would ask.”
