“Hello, big brother.” She kissed his cheek.
“I thought I was coming to see you?” He gripped her shoulders.
“You think I would wait another day to meet your fiancée?”
She was shorter than he, and slender, but he stared into his eyes when he looked at her. Her hair was a shade darker, but there was little doubting she was his sister.
“Hello, Harry.”
“Toby, Jamie!”
He released her, and she hugged his friends.
“Now, I want to meet your fiancée,” Harriet demanded.
Anthony met Jamie’s eyes, and he shook his head to indicate Harriet did not know, like his aunts, about his engagement being fake. He then took his sister to where Evangeline stood with her family. She was nervous, he could see it in her face, but smiling as they approached.
After the introductions, Harriet took Evie’s hands in hers.
“Hello. I’m so very pleased to meet the woman my brother is finally marrying,” Harriet said. “I don’t envy you the task, and I will add, good luck?”
“Thank you, and I love you too, sister dear,” Anthony drawled.
“Be quiet. I wish to talk to my future sister-in-law,” Harriet said dismissing him.
The look on Evangeline’s face told him Harriet’s words surprised her.
“My sister does not fear me, Evangeline, like others.”
“Ah, I did wonder,” she said with a small smile.
“She really is the perfect woman for you,” Jamie said minutes later as they made their way back to the house and afternoon tea.
“And why is that?”
“She will not allow you to have your way and is not intimidated by your reputation.”
“There is that.”
Jamie was quiet for a few seconds and then said, “Which means what?”
“Which means mind your business, or I shall start my aunts on a hunt for your future bride.”
He heard Jamie’s teeth snap together and laughed, something he’d done a great deal of since Evie had arrived at the house party.
They spent the day eating and drinking in the sun, while his sister and aunts talked with Evangeline and Prudence. Anthony stole Harriet away for a walk before she and their aunts were to leave.
“I hear I am to be an uncle,” he said wandering beside her, away from the other guests. “Congratulations, Harry, I could not be happier for you and Simon. Is he excited?”
“Ridiculously so,” she said pink-cheeked. “He would have come but had estate business to attend to today.”
“I will call in and see him when I leave,” Anthony said.
“She has changed you,” Harry said, slipping her arm through his. “You have lost that cynical air you brought home from Blackwood Hall all those years ago.”
Anthony wasn’t sure what to say to that.
“I never knew what happened to you there, as no one would tell me, but I saw the change in you, Anthony—”
