Mother swallows and blinks at her, her gaze turning far away, truly considering her question. Beth buries her eyes back into her undersalted fish, unable to watch the emotions play across Mother’s face. Maybe it was cruel to ask, no matter what she and Gwen hope could happen—maybe she shouldn’t even dangle the thought into the world.
“I’ve already had my great love,” Mother says a few minutes later.
Beth looks up, startled, and finds Mother regarding her softly. Was it Lord Havenfort? Beth’s afraid to ask.
“You,” Mother says with a little smile.
Beth forces herself to return it, to thank Mother and squeeze her hand. But it breaks her heart, to think her mother can’teven imagine finding love again. Or is it perhaps that she can’t imagine finding it for the first time?
She and Gwen have to succeed. Forget whether Beth marries Lord Montson or not. Her mother deserves to have love at least once in her life. And Beth—Beth will befine.
Chapter Eight
Gwen
“It’s dry.”
“Just eat it.”
“I’m telling you, it’s overbaked.”
“So go in and tell them, then, and get your money back.”
“I cannot go and complain that my scone is overbaked.”
Gwen glares across the table at Albie, who glares right back. “Then at least go and ask for more cream if it bothers you so much,” Gwen says.
“Only if you admit these are as dry as sandpaper.”
Gwen refrains from sticking out her tongue, but only just. They’re supposed to be sitting primly out front of Patisserie Violette, eating little overpriced delights together, demure companions. Instead, they’ve been kicking each other and taking turns hogging the cream for their scones and their tea and generally making a nuisance of themselves.
Father, seated a few tables away, keeps chuckling while pretending to read his paper.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” Gwen decides, slouching just a bit in her seat as Albie snickers. “I bet you’d get more cream for Meredith.”
“’Course I would,” he says immediately. “But she’d say please.”
“Give her a year,” Gwen says, waving off his proud little grin.
He and Meredith have been on nine outings and he’s probably a month away from a proposal. He’s doing Gwen a favor, sitting out with her. Albie doing favors for her instead of her doing favors for him, how the tables have turned.
It rankles.
“Here, eat the rest of this if it’ll stop your pouting,” Albie says, sliding his scone, smothered in cream and jam, across the table.
Gwen takes it without complaint, popping it in her mouth and savoring the cream, even though the dough is horribly dry. This is supposed to be the best patisserie in the city, but Mrs. Gilpe’s scones could dance circles around these pathetic crumbly things.
“I could speak with Grish,” Albie says softly as Gwen slumps back in her seat, the momentary pleasure of sweetness giving way to her melancholy.
“Grish is a drip,” Gwen says immediately.
Albie frowns and glances back toward Father, who’s thoroughly engrossed in his paper now. “He’s not... that terrible.”
“You got to wait until you found someone you actually like. Afford me at least that courtesy,” Gwen says gruffly.
Albie sighs. “I just—I’d like to see you happy,” he says, and she looks over to find his face laid bare, honest.
“I’m fine,” she says, sitting up, prim and proper and pasting on a smile. She can’t let Albie start feeling bad for her now. NotAlbie.
