“Hollis, you look dazzling,” he said, and took her hand and brought it to his lips.
“Thank you!”
“I made it for her!” Caroline appeared, too, and smiled with delight as she examined Hollis’s gown. “Is it not beautiful? Isshenot beautiful?”
“She is,” Leopold agreed.
“Well, now I’m blushing,” Hollis said. “Thankyou. I rather worried I’d not be able to wear it at all since you refused to let it out so much as a smidge.”
“Wear a corset,” Caroline said. She couldn’t help herself—she reached up and straightened one of the bows, and then Hollis’s necklace. “What do you think, Leopold? I think I’ve outdone myself this time,” she said proudly. “I wish Percy were here to see you.”
The mention of her late husband thudded into Hollis’s gut, landing in a vat of guilt. She hadn’t thought of Percy much at all in recent weeks, other than she was ready to let him slide into fond memories.
“What are you drinking?” Leopold asked, looking at the glass Hollis held.
“Beck’s footman said it was Christmas punch, a gift from Lord Douglas. It’s horrid, really.”
“Horrid? Or Potent?” Leopold asked, and put his hand under her glass and lifted it to his nose. He sniffed. “Potent,” he said. “This punch, darling, is generously mixed withla fée verte,a French spirit that will give you nightmares if you drink too much of it. It is also called absinthe.”
Hollis and Caroline gaped at him. Leopold shrugged. “I spent a bit of time in Paris.”
“Well, now I must try it,” Caroline said. “I would never recommend drinking from any bowl that Douglas has brought, but then again, he was always very diverting, wasn’t he?”
“Toodiverting,” Hollis reminded her. “He locked you in a closet.”
“We were children,” she said with a wave of her hand.
“You were seventeen.”
“Nevertheless, I shall try his drink in the spirit of the season,” Caroline said, and turned to her husband. “Shall we?”
“Please,” he said, and nodded in the direction of the sideboard, where very large silver serving bowls held the absinthe punch, and two footmen worked furiously to fill cups.
“Perfect,” Caroline said. “I had hoped for an opportunity to walk through this great throng so that everyone who still speaks ill of me can see my dress.” She winked at Hollis.
Leopold held out his arm to Hollis, but she didn’t move.
“What? Aren’t you coming?”
“I mean to find Lord Douglas and extend my warm wishes.” Which meant, more precisely, that she was going to look for Mr. Brendan.
“Ha!” Caroline countered. She paused and put a hand on Hollis’s arm. “Don’t start a war with Mr. Shoreham. I told Beck he was asking for trouble with that one.”
“What do you mean? I would never!” Hollis said. Not without a bit of punch in her, she wouldn’t.
She moved on, sipping the drink. She found the second sip wasn’t as foul as the first, and the third even better. It traced a lovely warm path down the middle of her body.
She reached the end of the room in her search for Mr. Brendan and took a spot by a wall near the tree. She was leaning to her right, trying to see farther behind the thing, when someone tapped on her shoulder. She spun around, certain she’d find Mr. Brendan.
It was not Mr. Brendan.
Alas, it was William Douglas, the Marquess of Douglas, the future Duke of Hamilton. It never failed to amuse her that the boy she’d known would be a duke, as he seemed more suited for roughhousing in the stables. He still had that look about him in spite of his tailored clothing—he was tall, with dark hair carelessly tousled, and a sparkle in his gray eyes that made one think he was a scoundrel.
“Fortune smiles on me today, does it no’, for here is the lovely Hollis Tricklebank, as I live and breathe.”
“Honeycutt,” she corrected him, the rotten bounder. He knew very well her last name.
“Ah, yes, you married the fellow, didn’t you?”
