3
A HAPPY FAMILY
Merlin licked Diana’s hand beneath the breakfast table, and she passed him a toast point, looking up from her book only long enough to ensure neither her aunt, sitting across the table, nor her cousin, sitting at the far end of the table, saw.But Lady Tascott was reading the papers and Apollo was face down on the table next to an empty plate.
Merlin inhaled the bread before anyone could stop him.He butted his big, furry head against Diana’s leg.He was going to eat everything off her plate before she had three bites.She ruffled her hand across his head, shaking his ears, and his back leg thumped loudly in the cavernous silence of the breakfast room.
“Stop that!”Lady Tascott shrieked.
Apollo shot upright then fell into the back of his chair with a groan.“Quiet,” he groaned.“Quiet.”
The thumping stopped, and Merlin dropped his heavy head into Diana’s lap.
“That beast should not be in the house,” Lady Tascott said.“Your grandfather is no longer alive to allow the slobbering brute free rein.”
“Merlin hurts no one.”Diana’s hand tightened in the dog’s fur.What would she do without the big old dear?He was the only one ever happy to see her.
“He’s a nuisance.”Lady Tascott folded the paper and placed it beside her plate then picked up her knife and fork.
Usually, Diana didn’t mind the clicking and clacking of cutlery across china, but today it felt like claws screeching across her brain.A side effect of the potion?Or of the unexpected marriage proposal?
More likely of humiliation.She curled down to nuzzle Merlin’s big bony head and hide her red cheeks.She’d love-drugged the wrong man.And now her half-eaten eggs sat heavy and sour in her stomach.
The screech of silver against china stopped.
“Thank God,” Apollo groaned.He’d ingested more potion than Lord Knightly or herself.By leagues.And he was much worse off than Diana.She couldn’t look at him without thinking of his pale backside, of him slamming into his mistress from behind.Her stomach clenched, and she swallowed bile.Thank heavens the potion worked.She would not trade places with his dear Lissy for the world.
“The flowers.”Lady Tascott blinked at her from across the table.At least six feet stretched between them, and six feet between them and Apollo, all of it empty and cold.Her aunt held her fork and knife poised above her plate, and her graying blond hair had been harshly parted in the middle, looped in braids on either side of her head.She wore fashionable mutton sleeves in copper, and her lips were pressed into a thin line.Her blue eyes were pale and worried.“What are we to do about the flowers?The wedding is soon, and while we could purchase real flowers, you know how… gauche they are.”She looked left then right, inspecting the room for eager ears, but the footmen had retreated to the kitchen for a moment.
She looked at her son as if he were dying of consumption, her bottom lip trembling.“Cannot you try once more?A tiny attempt to conjure something.”
“No,” Apollo snapped.“I’ve told you before.I cannot!I’ve been trying since he died and have failed every attempt.”
“Often it takes time?—”
“And sometimes it doesn’t happen at all.”Apollo tugged his hair with skeletal hands.“Grandfather’s glamours have already begun to flicker.They’ll be gone soon, entirely.And everyone will know.”
Lady Tascott dropped backward with a huff.“Perhaps you could.If youreallytried.”
“Grandfather popped off into the afterlife without a single thought for me.Or for what would happen to us when we are found out.”Apollo grabbed a nearby glass of wine and guzzled it.
“Apollo,” Diana ventured, “you should not?—”
“I’ll do as I please.And mother’s right, Di, that dog shouldn’t be in here.”
As if he knew he was under consideration, Merlin withdrew his head from her lap and crawled beneath her chair, his head sticking out one side and his backside out the other.The old dear.She wanted to curl up with him on her bed and fall to sleep.
“If you truly cannot,” Lady Tascott said to her son, “then I cannot see what we are to do.”
Diana offered a small smile.“I am sure real flowers are fine, aunt.We will simply set a new trend.”
“You know nothing, Diana.Nothingof high society.”With a scowl, Lady Tascott returned to her meal.“Icouldcall in a favor or two.I loaned the Duchess of Lovington a huge sum last year.She might ask her husband to—” She sighed.“No.Then they wouldknow.”
“Truly, aunt, real flowers are lovely.And everyone will think Apollo has done such a wonderful job with his glamour that he’s created a scent to go along with it.A miracle!”
Apollo snorted, tried to grin, groaned instead.
His mother gasped.“Flowers that smell?Realflowers in a church?That smacks of”—she leaned over the table and lowered her voice—“witchery.Potions nonsense.Not a single petal will touch your church the day of your wedding, Apollo.Even if there are no flowers at all.”She nodded, decisive.
