Distraction was what she needed. Distraction and distance.
A great deal of both.
Her first stop was a call upon Rosamund, who received her in the drawing room, Megs not far on a perch, presiding over the call like a regal, feathered queen.
“Lady, lady,” chirped Megs. “Landlubber.”
“I didn’t expect you today,” Rosamund said without censure. “I’ve scarcely seen you over the past fortnight. Where have you been?”
Heat crept up her cheeks. She couldn’t precisely say she’d been in the Duke of Brandon’s bed, could she?
“I’ve been quite busy,” she offered brightly instead, hoping her friend couldn’t read the discomfiture that was likely written all over her face.
“Busy?” Rosamund gave her a knowing look. “That sounds rather intriguing. Do tell me what you have been doing whilst I have been dreading my impending nuptials.”
“Dreading, dreading,” said Megs. “Gormless shite.”
“Megs,” Rosamund chastised, giving the African grey a hard look. “No pistachios for you if you’re going to misbehave again.”
“Pistache,” the parrot chirped, then made a trilling sound followed by a whistle, her head cocked. “Megs wants pistache.”
“Then hush,” Rosamund ordered sternly, “and you shall have your pistachios.”
Megs made a kissing sound and ruffled her feathers.
“Perhaps you should tell me why you’re dreading your marriage to Camden first,” Lottie said, not wanting to talk about herself.
“Gormless shite,” Megs repeated.
Rosamund wagged her finger at the bird before sighing. “I suppose it is common enough to have misgivings before such a tremendous undertaking. Is it not?”
“Of course it is, dearest,” she reassured her friend. “Particularly when one is entering a marriage of convenience.”
“Were you nervous before you married Grenfell?” Rosamund asked and then winced. “Forgive me for asking. I shouldn’t have done so.”
“You need not apologize. I don’t mind speaking of it, particularly if it proves helpful to a friend.”
Besides, she was grateful for anything that would keep her mind from Brandon.
Blast it, there she went again, thinking ofhim.
“I was nervous, as I recall,” she added, forcing herself to return to the subject at hand. “I was hopelessly in love and terribly naïve. I didn’t know the first thing about being a wife. Tell me, is it that you fear you’ll prove incompatible with Camden after you marry?”
That had never been a consideration of Lottie’s, and she had suffered for it. Being trapped in a loveless, joyless, hopeless marriage had been its own form of hell.
“Kissing,” Megs declared, making an exaggerated sound that corresponded to the word. “Fucking, fucking. Show me your bubbies, luv.”
“Er, rather the opposite, I fear,” Rosamund confessed, color in her cheeks.
Lottie wouldn’t have been more surprised if Rosamund had announced her intention to leap headfirst from the window. Shereeled for a moment, taking in the implications of what her friend had just revealed.
“So you’re saying that you and the Duke of Camden have…been intimate together?” she asked, uncertain of what, if anything, she should say in such a moment. It had simply never occurred to her that Rosamund and Camden would have been engaged in anything of a scandalous nature.
They didn’t even like each other, for heaven’s sake.
Did they?
Her gaze narrowed on her friend, who was looking suspiciously uncomfortable.
