Zeller appeared with a glass for Ambrose, depositing it directly into his suffering fingers and vanishing back into the crowd before he could even be thanked, with Vix spinning around after him in bafflement.
“He’s after the cheese,” Ambrose said to her hair. “And to argue with a footman about how to pronounce Munster.”
“He is a treasure,” she snapped, turning back to him with a raise of her brows. “You ought to be grateful.”
He frowned. “People are always saying that.”
“We were supposed to wait over there,” came a hushed, urgent male voice behind Vix’s back, making her pause.
“Yes, but he jumped right off the platform. It will be fine, comealong, Jonathan,” came the response, all too familiar, even in adulthood.
Vix stilled, raising her eyes to Ambrose’s face to see his own attention drawn to the same conversation, a wary and marked lack of recognition reflected in his features. She smiled.
“Ah, Sir Ambrose!” came Caroline’s trembling soprano. “How very thrilling this has been. We wanted to come thank you personally for inviting us.”
“Oh, ah,” Ambrose said, sending an urgent request for help with just his eyes to Vix, which she declined by simply standing there, watching him with a lazy smile until he turned those panicked eyes of his back onto the approaching interlopers. “Of course. Naturally.”
“My father couldn’t attend because he is still in Canterbury, of course,” she continued, her voice close enough to make gooseflesh erupt on Vix’s neck.
“Oh! Miss Sedgewick,” Ambrose said, relief washing over his face.
Vix’s smile widened.
She could hear the disappointment behind her. “Redwynne, actually,” Caroline corrected. “You remember my husband? He is curate to your father’s chaplain? Set to replace him next year, in fact, when the dear man retires.”
“Erm,” said Ambrose, blinking. “Of course?”
Jonathan Redwynne coughed delicately.
“I apologize if I seem scattered,” Ambrose said, grimacing. “My fiancée sent out the invitations and should be the one you are thanking. My dear,” he said, with a harsh and pointed glance down at Vix, whose back was still to their visiting conversants, “let me introduce you to Miss Sedg—Mrs. Redwynne.”
Vix took a little breath, turning slowly to reveal her face to Caroline, keeping a placid smile firmly in place as she watched the full, glorious theater of surprise, disbelief, doubt, shock, outrage, and embarrassment flicker in rapid tandem across the other woman’s pale features.
“Oh,” said Vix softly, leaning back against Ambrose’s chest. “We are acquainted. Aren’t we, Caroline?”
Ambrose stiffened in surprise, his hand going automatically to her elbow with an intimate little grip, like she was always using him as a support beam.
She blinked, trying not to register that he smelled faintly of cardamom or at how the warmth of his torso felt against the exposed skin at the top of her shoulders. There would be time forthoserevelations later.
“Miss Beck?!” Caroline said shrilly, almost choking as she took a startled step backward. “Victoria! How! I … how lovely! To see you?”
“And Mr. Redwynne,” Vix said softly, raising her eyes to the frozen, pale face of the husband, who, it seemed, also remembered her. “Why, I haven’t seen you since that Christmas I spent in Canterbury as a girl. And you married our Caroline. How sweet!”
“Miss Beck,” he repeated. “Good evening.”
Vix turned her smile up briefly at Ambrose and then back at Caroline. “I am so proud of my husband-to-be. We delayed our wedding by a few weeks so that his knighting could take precedence. We must express our gratitude for you making the effort to attend to represent his parents’ interests tonight. We wanted someone in service of Canterbury present, of course, to remind the crown of his breeding.”
Caroline looked like she’d swallowed a tooth.
“I … how long … when did you …?” Caroline stammered, looking from Vix to Ambrose and back again.
“Oh, darling, I’m afraid we’re needed elsewhere,” Vix said, batting her lashes. “There are peers to speak to, you understand. Enjoy the hors d'oeuvres.”
Before they could reply, she spun on her heel and took Ambrose by the hand, pulling him through the crowd. She walked briskly,her curls bouncing, aiming for the nearest gathering of people in oversized jewels, and weaved Ambrose through them to the rear, where they could vanish into the crowd with plausible inclusion into the conversation.
She stopped a moment later, oddly out of breath, and turned to set her now-warm champagne flute on a passing tray, blinking away the suddenly bleary world around her.
“What,” said Ambrose, using their clasped hands to tug her around to face him, “was that?”
