Instead, she shrugged. “He is to be my husband in a few short days. Why insist upon formality?”
“Why indeed?”
“Especially when one’s future husband is such a wicked rake,” Criseyde added, grinning unrepentantly. “He has probably already seduced you.”
Her face was scalding.
“Of course he has,” Corliss agreed, chortling. “Only look at how red her cheeks have grown. Oh, Izzy. You must tell us what it was like.”
“It was not like anything,” she denied, frowning at the pair of them. The twins could truly be incorrigible when they wished. “There is noit.There was no seduction.”
“You were notably absent for rather a long time this morning,” Ellie said, a speculative tone entering her voice. “And so was the earl, now that I think upon it. Where were the two of you?”
“I was in the garden,” she said, which was not a lie.
Shehadbeen in the garden.
Until she hadnotbeen in it and instead had allowed Zachary to lead her down an overgrown path that led straight to ruin.
And waterfalls.
Yes, there had been the scenery, which was also glorious. She forced herself to think about the river now, the grasses and rocks strewn along the bank. Anything to keep the telling flush at bay.
“For hours?” Criseyde asked.
“It was not hours,” she denied.
Or had it been? In truth, she had quite lost track of time, for those searing moments with Zachary could have been a lifetime, so much had they moved her.
“It was hours,” Corliss countered smugly.
“And how would you know?” she retorted, wondering why she had joined her sisters for this talk anyway.
She ought to have gone to bed. At least, even if sleep had remained elusive, she would not have been forced to endure her sisters’ knowing looks and pointed suggestions. They knew her far too well, which meant her prevarications were not fooling them.
“If you were indeed doing anything wicked with Lord Anglesey this morning, you would do well to keep Mama from finding out,” Ellie advised in her elder-sister voice.
“It is not as if she and Papa were not being wicked themselves before they were married,” Criseyde offered. “She has always vowed you were born early, Ellie, but everyone knows it is not true.”
Ellie gave a delicate shudder. “I prefer not to think about anything concerning Mama, Papa, and wickedness, if you please. Dinner was delicious, and I have no wish to cast it up all over the floor.”
Corliss laughed. “Excellent point, dearest sister.”
“All I meant to say,” Criseyde interjected, “was that if Izzy was rolling about in the grass with Anglesey all day long, Mama ought not to disdain her when her own past is not nearly as perfect as she would have us believe when it comes to our reputations.”
Rolling about in the grass.
Her sister was perilously close to the truth.
“That is quite enough of speaking about me as if I am not in the chamber,” she burst out, needing to change the subject before they recognized her discomfiture and began to ask more questions.
She was not yet ready to confide these strange new feelings she possessed for Zachary to anyone else. They were too new and unfamiliar, leaving her belly tied in knots and her heart in a perpetual state of uncertainty. Izzy was not inclined to say they were love. However, lust, attraction, respect, perhaps even some tenderness…
“Why are you so determined to speak of something else?” Corliss asked her. “And why are your cheeks growing redder by the moment?”
“Yes, Izzy,” Criseyde added, grinning, “tell us why. Was it that you were indeed rolling about in the grass with Anglesey? I must confess, he seems the type of gentleman who would prefer a bed.”
“Twins,” Ellie chided their younger sisters at last. “Do let poor Izzy alone. She looks ready to flee the chamber at any moment.”
