“It’s been a most unusual Christmas, it has. Loud.”
He almost asked ifsheknew the contents of Jane’s heart. “It will be quiet soon enough.” Once Jane chose a husband.
She beamed. “True enough, Lord Abbington. A mere seven days till Christmas.” Till Jane’s deadline to choose. Everyone knew it, even the servants.
“Be brave, Mrs. Bradley.” He grinned and found his way to Edmund’s study.
Edmund sat behind his desk, his head bowed over an ink-splattered ledger.
“Hi ho, Eddy,” George said as he sailed into the room.
Edmund’s head shot up. “George, old man! Good to see you! I thought you might make an appearance.” No shock in his almost-black eyes. Just the usual merriment made even more pronounced by his habitual grin; an expression that dimpled one cheek.
George sat in a chair near the fire, eager to warm his wind-frozen bones. “I’m not. I mean to spend the holiday with my sister. But”—he rubbed his palms together vigorously before the flames—“you have not answered my letters.”
Edmund joined him near the fire. “Oh yes. I’ve been quite busy. No time for correspondence.” He sank into a seat, scratching through his close-cropped brown locks. “Matters of irrigation keeping me up at night, you know.”
George chuckled. “Liar. You’ve purposefully kept your silence. Why?”
Edmund’s hands fell away from his face, and he lifted a wide-eyed gaze to his friend. “You think I would take such duplicitous actions?” His hand fluttered to his heart. “I’m hurt, my friend.”
George stared at him.
Edmund chuckled. “I may have thought to drive you a bit mad, make you show your face.”
“Why?”
“Half the suitors here for Jane are sent by you. Where you found such an earnest group of good, hard-working men, I’ll never know.”
“They are everywhere if you look. And if you keep your search outside theton. Are the men proving to be good possible candidates?”
“For Jane’s love?”
“No.” Love had nothing to do with it. “For her hand in marriage.”
“No, not particularly. Father thinks the solicitor fellow is a good bet, and Christiana has her eyes set on Viscount Sharpton, her own particular friend who has, for reasons unknown to any of us but likely to do with Jane’s dowry, tossed his hat into the matrimonial ring. Jane’s friend Lillian thinks Lord Devon may still prevail. And Katherine thinks—”
“Katherine?” George frowned. “I do not know her. A cousin? Aunt?”
Edmund frowned, too. “I suppose I must call her an aunt as she’s my stepmother’s sister.” He shivered. “But I dislike thatimmensely. She’s too young to be my aunt.”
“And who does this Katherine favor?”
“Your soapmaker. Thinks a man who makes soap must have capable hands.” Edmund huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Capable hands do not a good marriage make.”
“Then you think Jane should choose a different suitor. Which of them do you support?”
Edmund seemed to swallow a laugh. He turned to the fire and steepled his fingers before him. “An excellent fellow. An earl, and a man Jane has known all her life. He’s only now arrived, though, so it’s too early to say what will happen.”
George startled. He may have stopped breathing for several seconds. He was not slow-witted. He knew what his friend implied. “You support an alliance between your sister and myself?” Impossible to believe.
“And why not?”
A million reasons why not.
Edmund laughed. “I did not know the idea would send you into such a quick decline. ‘Tis merely a joke, I assure you. You should have seen your face, my friend. As if death itself stood before you and laid a boney hand on your shoulder.”
George had felt a bit like death. He shook the gloom off. “Not a funny joke, Eddy. And who does Jane favor?”
