Some ghostie or saint or bygone agent of Woden had stepped in and told Tommy to take them away! Oh, thank them all. Many god-fearing thanks to every heretical one of them!
She gathered up her skirts and flew out of the room, eager to make and break her greetings before Freddy could return. Maybe she’d get some breakfast down besides. She didn’t look at any of the mirrors on her path back to the door. Well, she didn’t look at many of them, anyway, and shecertainlydidn’t stop to tuck her hair into place.
“Ah, there she is!” Ember cried from the doorway, raising her hands in a prayer-like clasp to her chin. “Look at that gown!A thiarcais!”
“Ember!” Claire squealed, leaping off the bottom step and into her friend’s arms. “You know I don’t understand when you speak heathen!”
“I know you don’t!” Ember returned, squeezing her tight. “That’s why I do it.”
“It means she’s impressed with your frock,” Abe put in from his conversation with Joe Cresson nearby, raising a tawny brow, “though I agree, her dialect is quite heathen.”
“You would know, wouldn’t you, Alban?” Ember snapped back, grinning. “Oh, look at this place! It’s the size of a whole town, isn’t it?”
“Not a town,” Claire demurred, pride swelling up in her despite the fact that she hadn’t built the place. “Maybe a hamlet.”
“Senhor Cresson!” called Dom Raul, who had just emerged to join the reception.
Claire turned, watching him stride through the reception hall with the long steps of a man who was accustomed to lordship. Patricia trailed a bit behind him, overtly admiring the fine bespoke fit on the suit he wore.
Hehadbeen at the tailor, Claire thought, and it certainly showed.
Mr. Cresson and Dom Raul had fallen into an exchange of rapid Portuguese before they’d even cleared the space between them. The words jumped and danced, colored with enthusiasm and a wealth of inflections evident in Mr. Cresson’s voice that never seemed to be there when he spoke English.
“I keep forgetting he knows how to do that,” Abe said with a frown.
“Aye,” said Ember softly, in an altogether different tone, “so do I.”
“Ubh,”grunted Abe Murphy, seemingly only to needle Ember with his theatrical revulsion.
Claire just watched it happen, a little dazed by the change in this man, who had been so shy and uncertain when she’d first met him, back when she still carried Oliver in her belly. If Mr. Cresson could change so thoroughly, why hadn’t Freddy?
“Where the devil is Freddy?” Ember exclaimed, dropping her hands on her hips and looking around the room like he might be hiding under a bench. “He was just behind me.”
“He’s gone to the dower house,” Claire said without thinking.
“Oh?” Ember returned, batting her lashes. “Has he, now?”
“I … yes,” said Claire with a grimace. “The footman told me.”
Ember grinned. “Which footman?”
Claire only glared at her in response, letting the silence spool out between them until they were joined by Millie and Dot and another flurry of activity, the tide of bodies pulling them in fits and starts toward the salon while luggage was carried in.
She realized later that she should have stayed behind rather than following the pull of social gravity, because in her absence, the footmen did what footmen do.
They took Freddy’s luggage to the master suite.
Her suite.
It wasthe sound of Abra, Tommy’s favorite terrier, yipping in the foyer that gave Claire the advance notice she’d needed toexcuse herself before any unfortunate reunions could be sprung upon her.
She announced a need to “see to matters relating to the wedding,” whatever the dickens that meant, and no one seemed to raise an eyebrow about it, at least no one that she looked at directly, anyway. So Lady Patricia and Dom Raul hadn’t raised an eyebrow.
She yawned behind her hand as she beat her escape, wondering at how much sleep she’d actually gotten last night.
She checked in quickly with the governess, who was keeping Oliver safely sequestered in the library for the day, away from his father, relieved to see that nothing had gone amiss with this portion of her carefully laid plan, at the very least.
She had told Oliver last night, actually, about Freddy.
