Cordelia whooped with delight. “He’sfine! Oh, thank heavens, Hazel, he’s not about to exile you for crimes against millinery!”
Evelyn laughed behind her hand. Matilda sighed in visible relief.
Hazel’s eyes brightened with unmistakable gratitude. “I will buy you the most beautiful hat they have,” she declared solemnly.
Cordelia nearly fell over with excitement. “Yes! Something with feathers!”
Greyson was horrified. “Absolutely not.”
Matilda murmured, “Cordelia, no.”
“I think he would look lovely in blue plumes,” Cordelia insisted.
Hazel burst into a laugh she could no longer contain. It was warm and rich and utterly disarming. Greyson felt something inside him crack open in response, something he had believed long calcified.
He was… amused. His half-drowned hat bobbed pitifully in the water behind him, but for once, he found he did not care. He was enjoying this silliness, this absurdity… thismoment. And it was all because of Hazel.
He couldn’t take his eyes off of her as she stood there, glowing in sunlight, laughing like she had been waiting her whole life for an excuse. That was his wife, who could coax life from the lifeless, warmth from the cold, and a smile, however small, from him.
Greyson cleared his throat, fighting the one still tugging at his mouth. “No feathers,” he said firmly.
Hazel nodded with mock gravity. “No feathers.”
Cordelia pouted dramatically. “This outing promised so much potential.”
Greyson gave her a look that suggested her potential ought to be reined in for the good of society. But Hazel’s laughter bubbled upagain, and everything seemed well worth the sacrifice of a single hat, when a familiar voice carried across the grass.
“Well, well, well. I leave the four of you unsupervised foroneafternoon, and you’ve managed to drown the Duke.”
Greyson closed his eyes. Jasper was all he needed now to witness everything. Hazel nearly choked on a laugh.
Cordelia spun around in delight. “We didn’t drown the Duke, Jasper… we drowned hishat!”
Jasper approached on horseback, draped in careless elegance. When he dismounted, he strode toward them with the swagger of a man who lived for such opportunities.
He stopped beside Greyson, peered into the shallows, and let out a deeply mournful sigh.
“Rest in peace, brave soldier,” Jasper intoned. “You died a hero.”
Greyson glared. “It is a hat.”
“A hat that served you faithfully,” Jasper countered. “Your favorite one, if I recall?—”
“It wasnotmy favorite.”
Hazel bit her lip, fighting laughter.
Jasper clasped a hand dramatically over his heart. “To lose a hat is tragedy enough. But to lose it in public? Devastating.”
Evelyn snorted. Matilda covered her face with her hand, fighting off another onslaught of laughter.
Jasper leaned closer to Greyson with a conspiratorial whisper, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Did Hazel throw it? Or did it leap to its freedom?”
Greyson gritted out. “It was the wind.”
“Entirely the wind,” Hazel added too quickly.
Jasper tilted his head. “Ah. A romantic hat, then. Drawn irresistibly to the water.”
