After all, they woke up tangled naked together this morning and have nothing more than debauchery planned for the opening ball. It’s frankly glorious.
“You should wear blue more,” Gwen says, arranging her skirt so it fans out like a peacock’s tail behind her to press up to Beth’s back.
“You’re wrinkling it,” Beth protests, but she still angles her head to the side so Gwen can press a soft kiss to her neck.
“And you’re beautiful,” Gwen replies, grinning at her. They meet each other’s eyes in the mirror.
“The green is stunning on you,” Beth says, enchanted by the way the deep green silk makes her skin glow and her blond hair seem almost luminous. It only accentuates her stark collarbones and regal neck. “We should go back to bed.”
Gwen snorts and Beth blushes, biting her lip for letting that thought slip through. “I’d love that, but your mother will be up here in ten minutes if we don’t make it down, and then Father after her, and it’ll be a thirty-minute lecture about her nerves and I just can’t.”
Beth laughs and nods, pushing the chair into the vanity so she can spin around without knocking into both the bedpost and vanity in the process. She reaches out as Gwen does, their hands tangling.
“You ready for this?” Beth asks.
Gwen nods, a mischievous look coming over her face. “Albie promised me he’d have a flask, and Bobby has already promised his first three dances to you. It’ll be grand.”
“I love your cousins,” Beth says fondly. “But shouldn’t Bobby be jockeying for a more eligible hand?”
“There’s no such thing,” Gwen says quickly, and Beth laughs. “And probably, but you know how much he hates dealing with the mothers. You’ll ease him in, and then we can both be there for Albie. He’s been a pouting wretch about the whole thing.”
Beth sighs. “Gwen—”
“He wants us to treat him like normal,” Gwen insists.
Beth shakes her head. Viscount Mason passed six months ago, leaving Albie a mountain of debt and estate management catastrophes to sort through. Bobby’s spoken of almost nothingbut the upcoming season every time they’ve written, even though Beth knows he abhors most of it. And while she understands both of them wanting to just get on with things, grief doesn’t go away like that. Even if you did hate your father. She should know.
“Really. He asked me to be a nuisance. Demanded I cheer him up so he’s not pining the whole time.”
And then there’s that. “If I were stuck in the country with morning sickness, would you want to be all the way down here, attending parties?”
Gwen wrinkles her nose. “Stop, I don’t want to feel worse for the poor sod.”
“Feel bad for Meredith then. I know her mother says it’s just a little sickness, but in her last letter she said it’s constant.”
“She wrote again?”
“It came earlier today while you and your father were fencing. I’d,” Beth starts, looking forlornly at her side table. “I can’t get over there in this damn thing. I’ll show you tonight.”
“Tomorrow,” Gwen says firmly. “I have no intention of being sober when we get home.”
Beth laughs and drops one of Gwen’s hands so they can make their way out of the room. “Yes, Mother will love that. And your father too, come to think of it.”
“Oh, posh, he’s not going to be sober all night.”
“If he wants to sleep in their bed tonight he will,” Beth tosses back, thinking of her mother’s glare.
It’s a relief to have it turned on someone else. Though really, they’re all equally liable to provoke her these days. She’d be irritated, but she’s just so glad Mother has the energy to have her moods at this point, she’ll happily take her annoyance.
“There you are.”
Mostly glad, at least. Beth withholds a sigh and Gwen squeezes her hand. They come around the last landing to find Mother waiting in the foyer, looking thunderous.
“We’re going to have to sit in the receiving line for ages now. What takes you girls so long? Two sets of hands for everything, how hard can it be?”
Beth and Gwen descend the stairs as Dashiell comes down the hall from the study. He immediately steps up behind Mother and begins rubbing her shoulders. She scowls, but they can all see the tension leak from her frame.
“Come now, darling. I’m a second set of hands and hardly any help at all.”
