“We do not. It is none of our business, Pip. And you know he would not thank you.”
Pip sighed, her heart aching even more than it usually did in Beau's presence. “He wouldn't thank me even if I brought Theo back.”
Beau's little brother Theo. The very best and finest friend Pip had ever had Theo. Lost at the battle of Toulouse Theo, sending Beau into a darkness Pip couldn't seem to pull him from.
“It has been over a year,” Lizzie mused. “You would think his grief would ease, at least a little.”
“Maybe his grief has. His anger hasn't. He hasn't forgiven me for encouraging Theo to join the Dragoons.”
“But Beau bought his colors for him.”
“Only after Theo threatened to take the king's shilling and fight as a common soldier.”
Battling a surge of grief and guilt, Pip briefly looked away. How could she explain how desperate Theo had been to go? How could anybody know that she would have given anything in her life to have been able to go with him? She knew it was absurd, but she had the most persistent feeling that she could have saved him if she'd been there.
Which was why she felt so compelled to keep an eye on Beau, no matter his animosity toward her. He had no one else who loved him as much as Theo had. Just her.
So she watched him when she could, tried to help him when he had no other choice, and mourned the knowledge that he would never realize that what he really needed in his life was her.
She watched him now, smiling down at Perfect Pamela as if she were a peach tart on his tea tray and could have wept. He was so beautiful to her. Tall, lithe, as elegant and graceful as a stallion, usually as severe as the Spanish grandees who lurked in his mother's family line and made their presence known in his curling black hair and midnight eyes. But when Beau smiled, oh, when he smiled. His midnight eyes gleamed, his temples crinkled, his face eased, and his severely beautiful face lit with a sweetness that Pip once thought reserved only for her.
Now, though, she got only the scowls. The impatience and frustration. Now she paid the double cost for loving Beau and losing Theo.
“Pip,” Lizzie said, not moving. “At least dance with someone. You can keep an eye on Beau and help make the evening a success.”
Pip turned finally to see genuine concern in her friend's perfect English blue eyes. She understood, because she had known Lizzie for six rather tumultuous years, that Lizzie truly cared. Tall and regal and elegantly blonde as a duke's daughter should be, Lizzie had been trained away from excessive shows of emotion. One had to look deep. But Pip had long since perfected the talent.
So, she gave her friend a quick, tight hug that made Lizzie instinctively stiffen. “Oh, Lizzie, you don't need me to have a success. You and your mother are the best hostesses in theton. Look at the crowd out there. They're dancing and laughing and eating their way through enough lobster patties to feed Liverpool.”
And indeed, they were. Dozens of them who'd made the trip from London for the duchess's house party; the cream of theton, chattering like a flock of exotic, multicolored birds caught in a marble and gilt cage. Jewels glittered in the light of chandeliers, fiddles scratched out a country dance that sent the birds flapping and jumping, and the air was redolent with the mix of floral scents, patchouli and sweat. Society at its finest.
“But it isn't the same without you,” Lizzie protested, her lovely face scrunched in something approaching misery. “I don't believe you know how much everyone loves you. Why, you're the life of every party.”
A happy talent to have when you constantly find yourself foisted on friends and family while your own is a continent away.
“In a moment. I promise.” Giving Lizzie another hug, Pip tried to gently push her friend back toward the dance floor. “Go. I'll be fine.”
Lizzie sighed, just as Pip thought she would. “You don't mind covering for me later in case anyone asks my whereabouts.”
“Of course not. Although it would be far easier if I knew why.”
Lizzie's smile this time looked more weary than grateful. “You will soon. Just not yet.”
Pip scowled. “All right. By the way. Did I tell you the price for my silence?”
Lizzie froze. “What?”
Pip grinned. “Where did you put up La Smythe-Smithe?”
Lizzie frowned. “Pip….”
“I promise. I shan’t hurt her. But I think it's important.”
Lizzie looked back to where Beau was now bent to Pamela's ear, her elbow in his hand, her breasts all but leaving dents in his waistcoat. “No frogs in her bed,” she demanded.
“No frogs.”
“No ghostly apparitions in the middle of the night.”
