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“We should have been at Eton for summer term, but they had an outbreak of smallpox, and everyone was sent home,” Giles said in his grave voice.

“Thankfully, without pox,” Silvester said. “My mother was terrified that we would end up permanently spotted.”

“How fortunate,” Stella said, giving him a bland smile. “One hates to think that such young noblemen might have suffered such a cruel fate as being permanently spotted.”

After a momentary silence, Silvester let out a bark of laughter. “You’ve made me feel like an ass yet again, Lady Stella.”

Stella grinned at him. “You deserve it. Noblemen with perfect skin should be careful with their aspersions.”

“I find Lady Stella’s freckles to be charming,” Giles stated.

He didn’t mind her spectacles—or her freckles? “Thank you,” Stella said, fighting to look composed rather than surprised.

“As do I,” Silvester said, his tone rather sharp, a look in his eyes that she couldn’t decipher. “I can’t imagine why people dislike them.”

“Fine, clear skin gives assurance of the inherent residence of three admirable graces to beauty: Wholesomeness, Neatness, and Cheerfulness,” Stella informed him, breaking into a laugh at the revolted expression on his face.

“Personally, I would love to have freckles,” Merry said. She wound an arm around Stella’s waist. “We should all have them. Just look at the duke.”

They all looked at Silvester.

“Wouldn’t he look marvelous with a spray of freckles over his nose?” Merry said, giggling.

“My nose is not my most delicate feature,” Silvester said with a chuckle. “Adding decorative flourishes would be a mistake.”

“It is imposing,” Stella said, throwing him a mischievous glance.

“My nose had already grown to this size at the age of eleven, when Giles and I were jaunting around the countryside. My profile resembled your vulture crown, Lady Stella.”

Stella choked with laughter. “Well, my freckles poured over me as a toddler.”

“But your complexion is charming, and my profile was and is not,” Silvester said, his eyes resting on her face, an unmistakable ring of truth in his voice.

“The duke is not exaggerating about the size of his nose,” Giles put in. “We used to call him Beaky at Eton.”

Stella met Silvester’s eyes and mouthed “Beaky,” barely holding back a peal of laughter.

He narrowed his eyes and mouthed back at her: “Specs.”

Chapter Thirteen

After that, the picnic was delightful. By an hour later, Stella had drunk three glasses of champagne and was having trouble controlling the trills of happiness that kept going up her spine.

Silvester was lavishing attention on Yasmin, as he always did. But a few times, when Stella said something that made the group laugh, he would glance at her with approval.

Which shot through her blood like champagne.

She tried to tell herself that it was Giles’s attention that made her happy. For a while, he and Lydia stood on either side of her, like twin cypress trees. She felt sheltered by their height and, after she rubbed the lip salve off on a napkin, sanctioned by Lydia.

Yet truthfully, it was Silvester’s smile that turned the afternoon delightful, made the air feel soft and gold. His amused eyes dusted over Stella’s face on the way to admiring Yasmin’s perfect features.

She’d take what she could get.

She was engaged in a battle of wits with Silvester about the nature of truth—naturally, he thought it was variable and she thought it an absolute—when an earsplitting shriek interrupted their banter.

Stella whirled around to find Lydia was screaming, her eyes rounded with horror. The musicians stopped playing, so Lydia’s voice broke a startled silence.

“Your leg! There’s something crawling up, up your leg, up your leg!” Lydia screamed again, pointing at Stella. “A rat!” She threw herself on a couch and pulled up her feet.