Amelia Dart had been in love for almost five years, but it was time to give it up. Lord Andrew Bromley, the oblivious object of her pitiful desire, would never notice, no matter what the three women staring at her over the pub table heavy with tankards said.
All of them Lord Andrew’s sisters-in-law, and all of them of the same mind—Amelia should confess her feelings.
Oh, yes, she’d do just that as soon as Scotland’s weather turned perennially sunny.
Amelia took a careful sip of her ale, watching the women over the rim of her tankard—a brunette, a blond, and a redhead, who would be beautiful in their own ways even if they weren’t shining with the beauty of being loved by the men they loved. They’d all insisted Amelia use their Christian names. She’d thought it odd at first. Now she knew why. They thought she would join their ranks.
How wrong they were.
“How did you know?” Amelia carefully hid the shock and horror from her voice. Careful. She always was. How had they figured it out? She must know so she could put a stop to whatever had given her away.
Fiona, Lord Lysander’s wife, gave a little hop, making the blond curls framing her face bounce. “Are you angry with us? It’s hard to tell. You don’t”—she waved her hand at Amelia’s face—“show emotion very well.”
She showed it as well as she wished to, which was not at all at the moment. Precisely why she remained flummoxed.
“How did you know?” she demanded once more.
Lady Cordelia, the morning’s bride, offered only a sly smile.
The Marchioness of Waneborough, Matilda, shrugged. “It seems clear. The way you look at him.”
“For me,” Cordelia added, tapping the glass of her mug, “it was the first time we met, how you kept to his side. And what Tilda says. How you look at him.”
Amelia raised a brow, a slight gesture that usually sent people scurrying. “And how do I look at him?”
These women did not scurry. They leaned closer.
“Like you love him.” Fiona grinned, hiccuped.
“Oh dear.” Cordelia wrapped an arm around her sister-in-law’s shoulders. “Fee can’t hold her drink.”
“She’s hadone,” Amelia said.
“It’s ’cause I’m small.” Fiona held up her thumb and her forefinger very close together and squinted her eyes at them. Then she sighed and finished off her drink.
“Another?” a barmaid asked.
“Yes, please,” Fiona answered before turning to Amelia once more. “Not going to drink it. Just want to make Zander think I did.”
“And why would you do that?” Amelia asked.
“Because he’s adorable and overprotective when he thinks I’ve over-imbibed, and he’ll whisk me off to bed, which is right where I want to be.”
Amelia rapped her knuckles on the table. “That’s what being in love looks like. And that apple at your elbow, Matilda, that’slove.” Her husband, the marquess, had brought it to her when she’d entered the pub, kissed its skin, kissed her lips, then flipped the fruit through the air to her with a wink. Matilda had not taken a bite of it yet, but she’d kept it close. “That man over there is in love.” She pointed to Lord Theodore sitting alone in a chair in the corner. He’d retreated there after hunting down Cordelia, who’d been, apparently, just about to start an attack on Amelia she did not want to miss. She’d shrugged her husband off, but he still kept watch, stony-faced, arms crossed, watching.
Lady Cordelia waggled her fingers at him, and that stone broke into a mobile grin as he waggled his fingers right back.
Yes, that was love.
“Mere looking means nothing,” Amelia finished.
The women stared at her.
She stared back.
Curses. This could go on all night.
“Do speak up,” she said. “Say what you’re thinking.”
