Page 70 of The Devil's Accidental Duchess
CHAPTER 24
“Did everyone have enough cones?” Selina asked with a nervous laugh upon entering her chambers. Chambers that had been transformed into a dressing room while she had been… enjoying herself in Philip’s study.
Indeed, she was somewhat shocked by the Dowager Duchess’s industriousness.
“I wouldn’t have minded playing a while longer,” Melody said, pushing her spectacles up to the bridge of her nose.
“I was bored out of my mind,” Lizzy replied with a wink at her grandmother.
The Dowager Duchess rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her wrinkled lips. She was clearly no stranger to her granddaughter’s bluntness.
“You were not,” Melody countered. “You were tired of being beaten.”
“Well, the gentlemen were not playing fairly,” Lizzy protested as she reached forward in the armchair by the fireplace and poured tea for everyone.
Selina relaxed, a little more confident that what she had just done was not somehow etched on her face. “How so?”
“They are used to games of that sort,” Lizzy explained. “As such, they ought to have some disadvantage or other—a blindfold or a greater throwing distance.”
Melody sighed. “Iwon against Lord Ramsbury.”
“You did?” Selina clasped her hands together. “Oh, how wonderful. Well done!”
A bright smile, positively giddy, stretched across Melody’s face. “Iwasrather proud of it.”
“He is in want of a wife now, if you were interested?” Selina said with a sly wink of her own.
The next instant, she wished she could take it back, as Melody turned rather pink and dropped her chin to her chest. She fidgeted with the cuffs of her sensible day dress, her spectacles slipping back down her nose.
“I have no interest in such matters,” she muttered. “A husband would be an unwelcome distraction from my studies, if not an outright end to them. You know this.”
Selina grimaced. “Apologies. It was a poor jest at the Marquess’s expense, not yours.”
“Yes… Yes, I can see how that might be amusing,” Melody mumbled. When she raised her head, she was smiling again. “Now, let us concentrate on this wedding dress.”
The Dowager Duchess seemed pleased. “I did not know your taste, Selina, but the modiste sent several options.”
“In nature, the gaudier the better. To attract a mate, one must be the most colorful and diverting.” Melody paused to sip her tea, frowning. “Although in nature it is usually the male trying to fight for the attention of the female. Really, it should be your betrothed wearing something bright.”
The Dowager Duchess chuckled. “I shall bear that in mind when it comes to choosing my grandson’s attire.”
“Wherearethe gowns?” Lizzy asked, half-sprawled across the armchair. “I have been promised fashion, but I see nothing.”
The Dowager Duchess rang a small silver bell, and a moment later, the chamber door opened… to reveal someone who made Selina’s heart drop straight through her chest and into her stomach.
Mary carried in five gowns, the fabric draped over her arms like she was holding a very strange, very flat person.
Philip said you were gone from here.
Obviously, Selina couldn’t very well ask what the maid was still doing at the manor. Not in front of everyone. If she did that, she would have to explain why it was of such… difficulty for her.
Mary didn’t look at her. Eyes down, the beautiful woman turned and hung the gowns on the frame of the bed.
Selina barely registered the dresses.
Had Philip lied? Had he been hiding his… paramour somewhere in the manor to make her thinkthat the issue had been dealt with?
“What do you think, my dear?” the Dowager Duchess asked.
