“I couldn’t say.” August tilted his head, watching her more closely now. “What mystery are you unraveling, little sister?”
“I’m just curious. You know me.” April looked away briefly.
“I do. And you’re an abysmal liar.”
They were interrupted then by footsteps and voices.
“Oh, he isinsufferable,” came May’s voice, brimming with outrage.
June came laughing behind her. “Lord Stenham again?”
April looked up. “Who is Lord Stenham?”
August stood with a grin. “May’s most loyal admirer.”
“He is not my admirer,” May snapped. “He is a menace. In pink.”
June burst into laughter. “He wore a waistcoat embroidered with roses. Pink roses, April. With sequins.”
“And he talks without drawing breath,” May said. “I sat through a monologue about the proper angle of a cravat forforty minutes.”
“He hasn’t asked her a single question,” June added. “All he talks about is himself—his horse, his tailor, his boots from Paris.”
April was grinning now. “He sounds… overwhelming.”
“Exhausting is the word,” May said. “I would rather talk to a stone wall. At least that does not lecture me about waistcoat buttons.”
August laughed. “You’ll sort it. I must leave you all to your suffering. There are letters from the estate demanding my attention.”
He tipped an imaginary hat and made his escape.
May and June turned to April, eyes gleaming.
“We have news,” they said in unison.
April blinked. “One at a time, or I shall go mad.”
May stepped forward, her voice low with excitement. “The ladies at my charity told me Loretta married Gregory very quickly. No one speaks directly of scandal, but the timing of their first child—it was rather swift.”
June nodded eagerly. “And I heard the Marquess of Linfield had been about to propose to her. Then she married Gregory Roth out of nowhere. No one understood it. Not then.”
“Now it makes sense,” April said, her voice slow. “She might have had no choice. And if Gregory wasn’t her first choice?—”
“She might resent you,” May finished, “for having the life she once hoped for.”
April’s fingers curled against her skirts.
It fits. But it still doesn’t prove that she pushed me.
“I declare this picnic a triumph,” Dorothy said, shading her eyes with one hand and surveying the bustle of Brighton’s pebbled beach. “The sea, the sunshine, the society! It’s practically medicinal.”
“Indeed,” August muttered as May and June tugged at his sleeves from either side.
“When will you marry, August?” May asked, grinning up at him.
“You’re nearly thirty,” June added. “People will begin to think you a hermit.”
“They already do,” May said.
