“I’d rather she didn’t in my drive,” Claire said politely, blinking at Ambrose.
“Yes, Aster, get a grip,” Freddy put in, grinning. “It isn’t as though everyone here other than my wife was desperate for a public strop.”
“Was that not a tantrum?” Hannah asked softly, her hand cupping her own cheek. “It seemed one to me.”
“Yes, I agree,” said Claire, frowning. “I very much agree.”
“Shall we move to the ballroom?” Millie Murphy suggested, not bothering to hide her own entertainment with the scene that had unfolded. “It is awfully hot out here.”
“Yes, let us do that,” Vix said, brightening. “I haven’t seen it yet.”
She fell in behind the others, Ambrose at her side, as they shuffled back into the house. Her heart was oddly steady in her chest, thumping at a regular cadence, even if it felt a bit liquid around the edges.
In her mind, she could hear her husband’s voice, once and again, echoing through the recesses of her thoughts, speaking on her behalf.
Have a care how you speak to your betters.
She reached out for his arm, taking it tightly in her hands.
Ambrose, she said in her mind.Ambrose, I am in love with you, too.
She opened her mouth.
She meant to say it.
But it would not come.
Instead, he met her eye, raising a brow in question, and all she could do was give him a queasy little smile in response.
He put his hand over hers and squeezed it. “You were incredible,” he assured her. “You were triumphant.”
“I know,” she whispered back, aching that he had misunderstood the tumult within her, but unable to correct it. “Thank you for coming with me.”
“Of course,” he said with a wink. “Always.”
“Always,” she echoed, soft as a breath.
Incredibly, she believed it.
CHAPTER 22
“There is still charcoal on your hands!” Vix tutted, reaching for Ambrose’s thumb with her kerchief, her dark brows drawn together over with the strength of her fretting. “How many times do you have to wash them?”
He chuckled, catching her hand through the lacy fabric and turning the sooty bit of his knuckle into it to be wiped clean. “Well, you see, the trouble is that I would wash them, and then Bear would turn his head just so again, and I’d need to take up the sketchpad to capture it before the moment was lost. It is just the way of things, my love.”
“It is the way ofyou, Sir Ambrose,” she returned with a click of her tongue. “There, clean again. I trust you did not smuggle a nub of coal into the ball with you?”
“I might have,” he said, leaning closer. “Do you want to search me?”
She gave him a twist of her lips, very clearly a begrudging one that she was attempting to keep under control. “No,” she lied,blinking at him and releasing the kerchief into his grip. “Behave yourself.”
“I shan’t,” he told her, warming at the way she released a huffing titter despite herself. “Has your headmistress arrived yet?”
She nodded, stepping closer and snatching the handkerchief out of his grip to tuck it into his waistcoat pocket. “There, by the hydrangeas,” she said, giving a delicate little quirk of her head to indicate where he should look. “She is wearing black. Shealwayswears black.”
“Oh, very dour, very mysterious,” he said, nodding along as his eyes found the lady, gray-haired and severe, squinting at the blooms with abject suspicion. “She doesn’t like the flowers.”
“She is very devoted to her botanical pursuits,” Vix said, frowning at the scene. “To be fair, whoever buried the aluminum with those flowers did so incorrectly. You can see that the blue is not distributed evenly. They probably used copper. Common mistake.”
