“You’re wearing the gown Fee loaned you.” Matilda’s gaze dropped to the pretty frock Amelia had donned that morning for the wedding, more lace than she’d ever worn before in her practical life.
She traced a scalloped edge of her sleeve with her fingertips. “What of it? I had nothing appropriate for a wedding. As you well know, Matilda, since I wore gray to yours and Fiona’s.”
Fiona shrugged. “The gray gowns were more than appropriate.”
“I would not have cared,” Cordelia added.
“I offered the gown only because you seemed to admire it. And I wanted you to enjoy yourself.”
Amelia smoothed the skirts, her gaze catching on the gown’s low bodice with the velvet trim. “It’s quite beautiful.” She hadn’t planned to wear it, even when Fiona had brought it to her. She’d put on her serviceable gray silk. But the pink had beckoned, sosoft laid across the bed. And when she’d held it up to her figure, her cheeks had blushed a pretty shade, and she’d thought… She’d hoped…
She’d been a fool. A pitiful fool.
“You look lovely in it,” Matilda offered.
“I knew it would suit you.” Fiona reached a hand across the table toward Amelia. What did she want? A handshake? A pat?
Amelia stared at the hand until Fiona pulled it back.
“I apologize.” Amelia swallowed a swig of her ale. “I am unused to speaking like this with other women.” With anyone.
Fiona waved the apology away. “I particularly like your necklace. Quite a devastatingly lovely design.”
The silverwork flowers that sat heavy and warm around her neck glinted with what she hoped were paste diamonds and emeralds.
Cordelia bumped her shoulder into Fiona’s. “Complimenting your own designs?”
“Naturally.” Fiona preened.
“Fiona should compliment her own designs,” Matilda said, “and we should focus. You, Amelia Dart, should tellhimhow you feel.”
And embarrass herself? And lose her position as his secretary? “No. I cannot. Thank you, all, for your concern and your well-meaning advice, but it would be impossible.”
“No, you’re wrong.” Matilda’s smile was soft and the shake of her head the tiniest thing. “Love makes things possible.”
“I do not believe in magic.”
“Not magic,” Matilda reassured her. “The tooth-and-claw determination of two humans who will do anything for one another. That is what makes it all possible.”
Amelia studied the small bubbles on the top of her ale. They floated and popped in a time and dance that did not exist outside the glass. And the life she led with Lord Andrew—also aprecious, fragile thing. It should not exist, yet it did. She should not be happy. But she was. Most days. And if she told him… and if he did not… she’d have to leave. The happiness gone, the bubble burst.
“I’ve had enough waiting, wife.” Lord Theodore stood above them, staring down at his new bride. “Come along or I’ll throw you over my shoulder.”
Cordelia winked at her husband. “Promise?”
Lord Theodore turned red as a slash of paint across a canvas.
Matilda and Fiona chuckled.
Cordelia rose from her seat to take Lord Theodore’s arm. “Excuse me, ladies. My husband demands my presence.” She peered up at him and patted the back of his hand. “Why am I so terribly pleased I can still make you blush?”
His mouth set into a hard line, an attempt to tame a smile that failed almost immediately. “Come along, wife,” he muttered into her curls as he kissed the top of her head.
Then there were two, and they studied Amelia as if she were an exhibit in the London Tower.
“Where are you from?” Fiona asked.
“Why does it matter?” Amelia countered.
