“Sit anywhere,” Matthew Everly said as he hopped easily between the furniture to find his place behind the desk. “There’s plenty of room.”
“Oh, Matthew,” Vix said with a disapproving little frown.
Ambrose tightened his jaw against his throbbing toe and picked his way around a pair of wicker stools to take the nearest leather offering, handing the envelope over the melee to his bride-to-be, who accepted it without commentary.
He looked back at the vicar with a newfound curiosity.
How exactly did one become a seating enthusiast? A chair collector? A stool sav—
“Four weeks,” Vix said briskly, from his left. “That is perfect, actually. It will give time for your banns to be read in Canterburywhile we prepare for the knighting here, and the wedding can take place the following week.”
“Oh,” he said, blinking at her. “All right.”
The vicar was hoisting open a big, dusty tome full to the brim with slanted, inky entries in a variety of blue and black ink hues. “Do you want to choose a date now?” he asked, licking his finger and thumbing through the pages to find what he was looking for.
“No,” she said. “I will let you know soon, though. Let’s just register the banns. Once I have a list of invitees, we can settle a date.”
“Am I invited?” Reed asked from the rear of the room.
“No,” she said, then paused and turned back. “Of course you are.”
Ambrose frowned.
“Excellent,” said Reed, grinning. “I’ve never been to a knighting.”
Vix rolled her eyes, and Ambrose wondered if perhaps something in his eye might burst from sheer annoyance.
“That does actually make me think,” she said, glancing back over the summons, “are you allowed your own list of personal attendants at such a thing? I shall find out.”
“Personal attendants?” he asked, wrinkling his brow. “Other than you, you mean?”
She nodded, a worrying little smirk working its way onto her generous mouth as she reread the words on the heavy linen page once more. “Yes, people affiliated with your family, I might think. Stewards, for example.”
Ambrose blinked. “My father’s steward, you mean? Mr. Sedgwick?”
“I knew his daughter, in fact,” Vix said, blinking at him. “At school. She is here in London this Season. It might be nice to have some representation from the duchy in the room when you are elevated.”
He grimaced. “If you say so.”
“I do.”
Matthew was suddenly watching Vix with his brow a bit lower than it had been before, hooding over his eyes. “Caroline Sedgewick,” he recited. “Wasn’t it?”
“Oh, itwas,” she replied, batting her lashes at him. “How wonderful that you actually read my letters all those years ago, Matthew.”
“Hm,” he said, and lowered his eyes back to the ledger. “Here we are. I’ll just require your signatures, if you please.”
Vix stood and took half a step forward before looking back at Ambrose with a lift of her dark brows. “Well, Mr. Aster,” she said. “Ambrose. Last chance to change your mind.”
“Mine?” he answered, his heart thundering as he came to his feet, so light-headed he thought the ridiculous hat might be the only thing keeping him from toppling over. “Or yours?”
She gave him that little ghost of a smile again and gestured to the desk, where the quill awaited him.
It was an odd feeling, he thought. Panic, nausea, something like giddy anticipation. It was more than he’d felt in a very, very long time. And while it wasn’t exactly pleasant, it was a damnsight better than feeling nothing at all, even if it did impact the elegance of his signature in that big, dusty book.
She removed her glove, one finger at a time, as she watched the path the quill tip took over the paper in the passage of his name, and tossed it delicately onto the desk next to the book as soon as he lifted the thing away.
When he handed the quill to her, their fingers brushed. Warm. Vital. Terrifying.
