“You should come hunting with us,” Albie adds, drawing Montson in, though Gwen notes Montson’s interest is tepid at best. “The Havenfort lands are wild with game, and Lord Havenfort always stocks his lake to the brim. Has to have the whole village for the open or it never empties.”
“That’s generous of him,” Montson says with a tight smile.
Gwen wonders what hesitation lies under his placid look. Her father’s never been anything but kind to him, even though they do both think he’s boring.
Beth taps her knee and glances toward their parents, both of them flushed and laughing, making rather a spectacle of themselves even. Gwen suddenly wishes she could share in the joke. Wishes she and Beth could simply sit at their own table, pressed up close. Wishes she could spend the afternoon with Beth’sgloveless fingers tangled in her own, cheeks pink, breathless from laughter.
Instead, a stilted tension falls over their table, and Beth pushes biscuits around on her plate. Lord Montson begins describing everything they do on theAshmondestate each summer, and how Beth will adore it.
Gwen’s appetite disappears altogether. She fights the instinct to insist Beth will be too busy visiting her to see much of Lord Montson.
***
Father’s smile lasts the whole evening. He returns from the kitchens with their desserts, chuckling to himself and brushing flour from his jacket, thoroughly engrossed in some private joke. Probably something Lady Demeroven said. Gwen watches as he sits and attacks his cake, still looking pleased as punch—a wholly different man to the acerbic Father she left with this morning, teasing her about Albie and Meredith.
“You look absolutely smitten,” she decides finally, unable to rein it in any longer. He looks like a child.
Father rolls his eyes. “No worse than you do.”
Gwen stills. “Excuse me?”
“You and Miss Demeroven, thick as thieves. I’m surprised Montson got a word in edgewise.”
“He talked the whole time,” Gwen returns, feeling a blush climb up her cheeks for absolutely no reason.
“And yet it was you two sharing sandwiches, and he spent more time making plans with Albie than with Miss Demeroven as we left.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she says, taking a bite of cake to avoid his eyes.
It was all fun and games on the carriage ride home, talking about Montson’s faults, and the jokes Lady Demeroven told, and how lovely Beth looked. But now he has his game face on. Father dearest about to give a life lesson. And for the first time perhaps in her life, Gwen wants to run away.
Because that gnawing feeling in her gut is still there. Has been since the ball. It only got worse as the tea went longer, and even with Beth beside her, she couldn’t quite shake it. Or perhaps because of Beth beside her. She doesn’t want to think about why.
“Be careful, Gwennie, that’s all I ask.”
Gwen feels her brow crease. “Careful with... what?” she asks, hushed, like she’s little again.
Father considers her. She waits, watching him open and close his mouth a few times before he shakes his head.
“What?” she asks, her shoulders coming up. He’s never bashful about his opinions, never shies away from a frank conversation. With no mother at home they’ve had more than one.
“Just remember why you’re both here, that’s all I ask,” he says finally, reaching out to squeeze her hand that’s turned into a fist on the tabletop, her nails digging into her palm.
“Of course,” she says, searching his face. She doesn’t know what he means—or maybe doesn’t quite want to know.
Gwen watches as he considers her for a moment longer before standing. He comes close and bends to kiss her head.
“Why don’t you take these into the kitchen,” he suggests gently, nodding to the dishes. “Mrs. Stelm and Mrs. Gilpe are baking—I’m sure they’d appreciate it.”
He leaves her with a pat to the shoulder. Gwen sits there, rolling his words over in her head. Careful—careful of what? Of wanting her friend close? Of interfering in Beth’s relationship?
Lord Montson might not be good enough for Beth, but she’s not about to upend Beth’s courtship or something ridiculous like that. She might run interference more, find ways to get them apart, save Beth the exhaustion of the courting season as much as she can. But there’s nothing to be careful of.
She stands and clears their plates mechanically. The dishes clatter in her grip. Father’s reading something into this that isn’t there. Something strange and worrying, but that’s just Father, overprotective and—
Gwen swings the door to the kitchen wide and then stops cold, staring at Mrs. Gilpe and Mrs. Stelm, pressed up as they are against the counter, covered in flour and kissing like they’re drinking oxygen from each other’s mouths.
It takes her longer than she wants to unstick her feet and back through the door. It swings closed on Mrs. Stelm giggling as Mrs. Gilpe leans her back over the counter, both of them flushed and grinning.
