“Not for a while yet,” Grace said. “Aunt Emma is insistingupon a midwinter wedding, and a proper engagement. And she usually gets her way.”
“They’re rather young,” Henry said. “And wasn’t it only weeks ago that Danny had to be prodded into asking Hannah to dance?”
“They are young,” Grace acknowledged. “But they’ve known each other half of their lives. Hannah has loved him for years, and Danny has loved her just the same. But he was so afraid, I think, to ruin his most treasured friendship with love that he let himself forget something terribly important for a while.”
“Which is?”
“You can have both.” Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “The one doesn’t ruin the other; it enhances it. Really, they’re very lucky, to have sorted out their feelings for one another so swiftly.”
“Yes,” he said. “I suppose they are.”
“You’ve four minutes left.”
His head swiveled toward her. “How can you tell?”
“Because half of my family has located their pocket watches, and Mercy’s just held up four fingers to show me. Will you waste the rest in small talk?”
“No,” he said, ducking his head. “It’s…difficult to speak of certain things when one has got an audience. Anyone could be listening.”
“Oh, they are,” she assured him. “My family is unbearably nosy. Everyone’s in everyone else’s business all the time.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You sound as if you enjoy it.”
“I love it. They care. All of them, genuinely.” And Uncle Chris would not have placed her in this position if he hadn’t thought it would be to her benefit, she reminded herself. Those five minutes he’d asked of her—they hadn’t truly been for Henry.
They’d been forher.
Grace folded her hands in her lap. “Attacking Latimer was not well done of you,” she said. “You must’ve known it would reflect poorly upon you.”
“It did,” he said. “I suspect I’ll not be welcome within any number of households for a good long while. Although,” he added, “in the coming days, most likely I’ll be considered unsuitable as a guest anyway.”
So he truly didn’t know, then. “You’ve not spoken with your mother lately, have you?”
His brows pinched into a quizzical frown. “I haven’t much had the time,” he admitted. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason.” He’d find out soon enough anyway, she supposed. “Whydidyou attack Latimer?”
He turned his face away, directing his gaze to his knees. “He said…certain things of you,” he offered hesitantly. “Things I’d rather not repeat in your hearing.”
“What is the difference? I’ve heard them all anyway.” But it warmed her heart, just a little, that he’d thought to defend her honor.
“But I don’t want to say them. I don’t want anyone else to say them of you.” His knuckles flexed, as if the very thought made him want to dive straight back into a brawl.
“Two minutes,” she said lightly, and lifted her hand to gesture for another glass of champagne.
“Hell,” Henry muttered. “I can’t say everything I’ve got to say in two minutes.” A moment passed in utter silence, time ticking away from him as he braced his hands upon his knees and straightened his shoulders. “I couldn’t have done it in five, even if I hadn’t wasted three. So instead—instead I will challenge you to a game of cards.”
Chapter Twenty Four
Awave of murmurs slid across the room, emanating from those closest—who had plainly been eavesdropping—to those furthest way.
Then, the laughter. Incredulous at first, swiftly growing riotous as it accelerated through the room. Even Grace snickered, swiping at her eyes as though the suggestion had been the most amusing thing she’d heard in recent memory.
“Oh, Henry,” she sighed, with a shake of her head. “You can’t win. You do know that, don’t you?”
“You taught me sleight of hand,” he said. “Perhaps I’m not a master—”
“You’re a novice at best. Your false shuffle is only passable. And I cheat.”
