She nodded again.
“If, at the end of the week, I determine that he is good enough to marry my sister, you will do so. Immediately.”
“You’re certain you can judge the measure of a man’s character in one week?”
“It rarely takes longer,” Anthony stated. “And if I’m unsure, we’ll merely wait another sennight.”
“Sir Phillip might not care to marry me,” Eloise felt compelled to point out.
Anthony leveled a hard stare at her face. “He hasn’t that option.”
Eloise gulped.
One of Anthony’s brows rose into an arrogant arch. “Do we understand each other?”
She nodded. His plan seemed reasonable—more reasonable, in fact, than most older brothers would have allowed—and if something went horribly wrong, if she decided that she couldn’t possibly marry Sir Phillip Crane, well then, she had a week to figure out how to get out of it. A lot could happen in a week.
Just look at the last one.
“Shall we return to the dining room?” Anthony queried. “I imagine you’re hungry, and if we tarry much longer, Colin is sure to have eaten our host out of house and home.”
Eloise nodded. “Either that, or they’ve all killed him by now.”
Anthony paused to consider that. “It would save me the expense of a wedding.”
“Anthony!”
“It’s a joke, Eloise,” he said, giving his head a weary shake. “Come along, now. Let’s make sure your Sir Phillip still resides among the ranks of the living.”
“And then,” Benedict was saying as Anthony and Eloise reentered the dining room, “the tavern wench arrived and she had thebiggest—”
“Benedict!” Eloise exclaimed.
Benedict looked over at his sister with a supremely guilty expression, yanked back his hands, which were demonstrating the size of what was clearly an impossibly endowed female, and muttered, “Sorry.”
“You’re married,” Eloise scolded.
“But not blind,” Colin said with a grin.
“You’re married, too!” she accused.
“But not blind,” he said again.
“Eloise,” Gregory said with what was quite possibly the most annoying use of condescension she’d ever had cause to hear, “there are some things that are impossible not to see. Especially,” he added, “when you’re a man.”
“It’s true,” admitted Anthony. “I saw it myself.”
Eloise gasped as she looked from brother to brother, looking for some sane spot in this cesspool of madness. Her eyes fell on Phillip, who, by the looks of him, not to mention his slightly inebriated state, had formed a lifelong bond with her brothers during the short time she’d been closeted away with Anthony.
“Sir Phillip?” she asked, waiting for him to say something acceptable.
But he just offered her a loopy grin. “I know who they’re talking about,” he said. “Been to that inn any number of times. Lucy’s quite famous in these parts.”
“Even I’ve heard of her,” Benedict said, with a knowing nod. “I’m only an hour away on horseback. Less, if you push hard.”
Gregory leaned toward Phillip, his blue eyes gleaming with interest as he asked, “So, did you? Ever?”
“Gregory!” Eloise practically yelled. This was really too much. Her brothers should never have been talking about such things in front of her, but even more, the last thing she wanted to know was whether Sir Phillip had tupped a tavern wench with bosoms the size of soup tureens.
