She looked at him across the room—at the line of his shoulders, easier now, at the hand that had steadied around the teacup—and felt the warmth spread through her again. This time, she did not try to tame it, or set it aside, or instruct it toward anything more manageable. She simply felt it and looked at him.
He said something to Edward that made him laugh. His profile in the afternoon light was clean and certain, the jaw she had cataloged since the shore, the green eyes she had been trying not to think of since approximately the first morning. He had not looked at her since he sat down.
She was still looking at him when Beatrice appeared at her elbow.
“More tea?” Beatrice asked, in a tone that meant something entirely different from tea.
“Yes,” Cecily answered breathily. “Please.”
Beatrice poured without hurry. The small smile she wore—the one she had been wearing, Cecily now realized, since approximately the first ten minutes of the afternoon—told Cecily that her sister had seen all of it and had arrived, some considerable time before she had, at the same place.
Cecily opened her mouth.
“It’s alright,” Beatrice said pleasantly, and handed her the cup.
Cecily closed her mouth with a small frown. She looked back across the room.
Eloise, restored to general goodwill, had reclaimed her position on William’s knee. She was leaning against his arm with her thumb in her mouth, her eyes going soft and heavy.
William had noticed—she could see it in the slight, unconscious adjustment of his arm, making the angle easier for her without interrupting his conversation with Edward, without drawing attention to the gesture.
Cecily watched his face. He was talking about land reform. He was also, without appearing to, holding a three-year-old upright with one arm while she fell asleep against him, and he made no more of it than he would have made of anything else that was simply his to do.
The warmth in her chest tripled.
CHAPTER 14
“Pall Mall,” Beatrice said.
Everyone looked at her.
She raised her eyebrow like she had just made a decision and was simply waiting for the room to catch up. “It’s not yet three, the light is still good, and we have been sitting in this drawing room for two hours, behaving ourselves.” She looked at Edward. “Get the mallets.”
“I’m not sure Cecily is ready to lose again because–” Edward began.
“The mallets, Duke.” Cecily stood up with a smile.
Edward got up to ring a footman.
The garden was long and south-facing, with well-kept grounds. Someone had set up the course already—hoops placed with the spaced precision of a household that did this regularly—and the late afternoon light was doing something generous across the lawn, the kind of light that made everything look slightly better than it was.
William had played Pall Mall perhaps a hundred times in his life and had never once found it particularly interesting. He revised this assessment within approximately four minutes.
“I’ll go first,” Cecily declared, taking the mallet from the footman with one brisk, decided motion. She looked at the mallet she chose with intense focus.
“Guests go first,” Beatrice agreed pleasantly.
“I’m not a guest,” Cecily said. “I’m family, and I’m here to set the record straight.” She looked at the first hoop, lined up, adjusted her grip once, and hit the ball with a clean, decisiveclackthat sent it through cleanly and rolling to the perfect position for the second hoop.
A brief silence ensued.
“Right,” Edward drawled. “I see how this is going to be.”
William took his position and played, and the game began in earnest.
“Absolutely not,” Cecily huffed after a while. “That was out.”
“It was not out,” Edward protested. “It cleared the hoop by a considerable margin.”
