The duchess’ suggestion of billiards had been brilliant as far as distractions went. Cori could go stretches of ten or fifteen minutes at a time without thinking about James Westham.
“Ah, so this is where you’re all hiding.” Mr. Atherton, sporting a rather delightful expression, appeared in the doorway with Lucien at his side. "I’ve been looking for something worth watching all afternoon," he said, "and here you all are."
"Come in or stay out." The duchess kept her eyes trained on the table. "But do not hover, my dear boy. I find it distracting."
The gentlemen accepted Her Grace’s invitation in the spirit with which it was offered. Mr. Atherton pulled a chair close to the table and sat while Lucien moved slower and found a seat near the window. He rested his cane across his knees and nodded to Emma, who nodded back. Then they both gave their attention to the billiard table.
"Your Grace," Mr. Atherton began with genuine warmth. "Are you winning?"
"I am instructing," the duchess replied which was not quite an answer.
"Miss Beckett is winning," Lady Upwell said, with the air of someone reporting a weather event.
The affable gentleman’s brow lifted and his eyes twinkled just so as he regarded Cori. "Bermuda produces remarkable women, it seems."
"Bermuda produces competent ones," Cori replied. "Papa believed women who managed property should know how to manage everything on it, billiard tables included."
"A sound philosophy," Lucien said from his spot near the window, watching the table with the removed attention he brought to most things, as though life were a game that he’d decided to observe rather than play.
"He taught all three of us," Cori continued, lining up her next shot. "He said the billiard room kept us out of trouble."
"And did it?" Mr. Atherton asked, sounding truly interested.
"Occasionally," she admitted. “Though probably not as often as he would have liked.” She took her shot and her ball hit the red one in the perfect spot.
"I am genuinely curious about the times it did not," Mr. Atherton said.
Lucien made a sound that resembled a laugh and Cori narrowed her eyes slightly on the captain. “You know too many stories about us, Lucien Gates. I should like to remind you that you are bound to secrecy.”
Before Lucien could respond to that, a footman appeared in the doorway. “My apologies for interrupting, Lady Upwell.”
The lady in question sat forward in her seat. “Yes?”
“Lord Upwell is requesting you attend to him.”
“Is he, indeed?” The countess made a face.
"The earl was quite insistent, my lady."
Lady Upwell set down her sherry with mild annoyance, then she shot the duchess an enigmatic expression. The lady rose, smoothed her skirts into place, and gave the room a quick once over as though she expected to find everything exactly as she had left it upon her return.
After her departure, a small silence followed until Mr. Atherton said, “Poor Upwell,” which earned him another laugh from Lucien.
"She is devoted to him," the duchess said. "She simply has her own way of showing it."
Mr. Atherton caught Cori's eye once more. There was something about the gentleman that she truly enjoyed. He saw the world in such an amusing and uncomplicated way, and he made laughter come easily.
"I should tell you,” he began, settling back in his chair as though he had just remembered something that required an audience, "about a vicar, a horse, and the worst fortnight of my father's life."
The story that followed involved a misidentified animal, a very unfortunate country fair, and a sequence of events that Mr. Atherton described only as "a situation that reflected poorly on everyone present, including the horse." Whether it grew in the telling was impossible to say. What was certain, however, was that by the end of it, even Lucien was almost smiling, and the duchess, who would not have admitted it under any circumstances, had stopped pretending to assess the billiard table.
Cori was laughing, her cue forgotten against the table, when she noticed someone in the doorway.
Linthorpe stood just at the threshold, one hand resting on the doorframe as he glanced over the assembled group.
Their eyes met.
The smile was still on Cori’s face but she did not know quite what to do with it.
