“’M sure ye will,” Rory retorted, a knowing amusement in her tone. She caught Davina about the waist when she reached the door and dragged her into the hall.
I was left alone with overly tight trousers to consider obscure taxation laws until they loosened.
Supper began as a stilted affair,with Mrs. Reed and Gibbs casting curious gazes at Rory and Alfie between courses.
Alfie, as usual, was blissfully unaware of any subtext occurring around him and had a roasted chicken leg in each hand. Why one was any different from the other was anyone’s guess.
Originally the housekeeper had set Davina and me at opposite ends of the long table. I wasn’t interested in that at alland moved my seat beside her when I arrived a few minutes after everyone else.
When both Mrs. Reed and the butler had left the room for a moment, Davina whispered, “Where are the footmen?”
“There’s hardly anyone in the stables,” Alfie added, moving to the potatoes, fortunately with a fork. “Just a groom.”
I had a rising suspicion of what was happening here, but I didn’t want to believe it. Not until I reviewed the documents anyway. My gut twisted uncomfortably at the thought. Truth be told, I’d studiously avoided it since we had arrived. Because it would mean that I was no better than Hugh. And I prided myself in being a better man than my sister’s husband in all things.
Gibbs returned with a new bottle of wine, gifting me with a more natural excuse for a change of subject. “How long do you suppose until we reach our destination?” I asked Rory. Alfie was too distracted snatching at his new glass of wine.
Rory plucked the glass right out of his hand and swapped it with her water goblet. “With the carriage in the stables? And fresh horses? It’ll depend on whether ye want to stop for the night. Can manage in a bit over two days, if we dinnae stop. Three’s more reasonable though.”
Three days… three days to convince Davina to abandon her lifetime determination to never wed and marry me in spite of herself. It wasn’t enough time, not nearly enough.
If I were being honest with myself, I knew I’d be unlikely to succeed if I had a hundred years. Davina’s gaze caught mine, something unreadable in her chestnut eyes. I wanted to believe she was sharing my sentiments. But that was the delusion of a man half in love with a woman he had no business touching.
Gibbs still lingered, not particularly surreptitiously, beside the door. His expression shifted seamlessly between derision at Alfie’s table manners and intrigue as he searched Davina and me for evidence of… I didn’t know what. If I were being generous,both were more than fair. If Davina were my wife, if we were to take up the earldom and settle into a life here, our relationship would set the tone of the house. But since we were not and would not, the interest mostly chafed. And Alfie’s table manners were truly appalling. I’d missed it when we were at Lizzie’s house, distracted by her brood.
Rory, apparently also having had enough, slammed her fork to her plate. “For fuck’s sake, lad. Chew yer damned food.”
At the curse, Gibbs dropped the serving spoons he was pretending to study, jaw hanging low on his face.
I could do little more than drag an exhausted hand across my face. My life was a farce, a beautiful, ridiculous farce.
At my side, Davina let out an unladylike snort into her plate and I felt a chuckle brewing in my chest.
When she recovered, Davina called out to the scandalized butler, “That will be all for now, Gibbs. Thank you.”
The man started to reply a few times, never getting further than a syllable before he finally left.
“So,” Alfie mumbled between bites. “I hear you’re wed again. Why did you not invite me to the wedding?”
“We’re not actually wed, Alfie,” I said.
“Oh, then why were ye kissing her in the study?”
I gestured over to Davina to handle that one. “It was a ruse.”
“Was it a ruse in the bedroom too?” Rory looked positively tickled by the situation, speared a potato, and bit into it with an amused grin.
“No,” Davina replied. “That was Kit refusing to blow the grounsils.”
I choked on the bite of chicken I’d managed to scrounge from Alfie’s gaping maw while Rory cackled in delight.
Alfie’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Of course he would. The bed’s right there. It’s much more comfortable. They dinnae call it a feather-bed jig for nothing.”
“Alfie…” Rory sighed. “We dinnae need a list of euphemisms.”
“What’s a euphemism?”
“A more… delicate alternative to what ye mean.”
