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Asquith was the only one Lenora could see.
Eliza greeted them both, and then she took Asquith’s hands. “How is Godmama?”
He cleared his throat. “Much recovered.”
“I’m so glad.” Eliza smiled. “Won’t you sit?”
Asquith stared at the empty chairs. “Our visit...” His gaze strayed to Lenora, and he lost his sentence. He recovered with a cough. “Our visit will be brief.”
“Oh no!” Eliza exclaimed. “Do say you’ll stay past the usual quarter hour!”
“Or twenty minutes,” Emily added, “as you are especially close friends.”
Lenora thought Emily was teasing Asquith, but her gaze moved between Nettie and Blackwell.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spied Asquith edging ever nearer. Her attention shifted from Blackwell and Eliza’s weather chat.
“Would you show me your bouquets?” he asked.
I think I am pregnant. And I am terrified. “If you insist.”
“I do.”
She rose on slightly shaky legs and led him to the mantel.
Asquith’s bouquet was large, but not so large as to have a vase that would prevent disaster if she were to cast up her accounts.
Under his breath, he asked, “Were you able to warn Mil?”
Bother him. She nodded. “I said I thought you disliked Willard. I’m not sure my criticism had much effect.” She eyed him obliquely. “She did, however, promise me she and I would live together as happy spinsters.”
His sharp inhale proved her sting had landed.
She did not tell him Millie’s caveat—that they would only live together if Lenora’s dearest hope, marrying Asquith, never came to fruition.
“Is that what you want?” he asked.
No. But she was afraid. Her shoulders dropped. “You’re a decent man, aren’t you?”
He frowned. “I try.”
She placed her hand against the wood beside her bouquet.
“Paperwhites,” he said, with emphasis.
She slanted him a curious glance.
He reached out, moved the container a few degrees, and then dropped his hand. Her card fluttered to the ground.
“My apologies.” He knelt, picked up the card, and then rose. The effort left him flushed. “I have been...clumsy.”
The card he’d dislodged from the bouquet was one of two missives he placed in her glove.
He turned back to the bouquet. Heart beating fast, she slipped the second paper into her sleeve.
He stared at the flowers, penitent, slightly bleak. “Do you like them?”
“Of course,” she replied.
