Page 40 of The Lady Knows Best

She managed a self-deprecating laugh. “I mean to say, what am I going to wear?”

“Oh, let me choose,” Bell exclaimed, sliding down from the bed and hurrying to the dressing room. From there, she called out various suggestions, rejecting each of them before Daphne could offer an opinion.

Eileen leaped back onto the mattress to return to her usual safe and cozy nook. Momentarily startled by Daphne’s continued presence on what she appeared to consider her bed, the cat prowled around her body, conducting a careful inspection before settling in to knead Daphne’s belly.

It was uncomfortable. Her claws snagged the fabric of Daphne’s dress, fortunately only a simply cotton day dress that now had an ink stain on the sleeve. But it was also so clearly intended as a gesture of affection, that Daphne couldn’t bear to push her away. And Eileen, blissfully unaware of any dilemma, didn’t even budge when Daphne’s abdomen rose and fell on a wry laugh.

The cat, like her family, was only doing what came instinctively, even if it caused pain.

The true writers of the family, Cami and Galen, surely would have rejected such a shoddy metaphor for Daphne’s present circumstances. But it was no less true, for all that.

Her siblings had arranged tomorrow’s dinner for her benefit. They wanted to protect her—and perhaps, at least a little, their own reputations. She supposed she oughtn’t to blame them for not considering her feelings or asking her what she wanted.

After all, what would she have answered if they had?

CHAPTER 13

Miles enjoyed good food with much the same relish he Menjoyed many of the various other fleshly pleasures life afforded. But he could not recall a well-prepared meal he had enjoyed less than the one through which he was presently suffering. And that included the wretched betrothal dinner at the Greys’.

Everyone else in attendance was either a Burke or married to one. The lack of other guests was in itself no surprise, first because the family was large enough to make up its own dinner party, and second because the mood was anything but celebratory, despite occasional sallies of wit and bursts of laughter. Miles was reasonably certain he’d attended more cheerful funeral repasts.

In fact, given the occasional hard-eyed stares coming from both Mr. Paris Burke and the Duke of Raynham, he wondered whether he wasn’t attending one at present—just with the meal at the start, rather than the end.

And none of it would have mattered one whit to him, if he were the only victim.

The table had been arranged so that he and Daphne were in the middle, on opposite sides. On either side of her were the duke and her eldest brother. To Miles’s left sat the duchess, and to his right, Bellis. Lord and Lady Ashborough were in their customary places at the head and foot. It made it easy for Raynham and Burke to skewer Miles with occasional dark glances, and impossible for Miles to converse with Daphne through either word or look without drawing the notice of the entire party. For the last quarter of an hour, in fact, Daphne’s eyes had been steadily focused on her plate, though he hadn’t seen her take a bite.

No one had spoken an untoward word, however. The meal proceeded as if they had agreed in advance not to ask what Miles hoped to gain from his attentions to Daphne, nor point out what their sister stood to lose. Well, they probably had—agreed in advance, that was. Neither Lady Ashborough nor the Duke of Raynham struck him as the sort who acted without a plan.

No, everything seemed to be proceeding as someone had laid out: both the topics of discussion and the courses changed with meticulous regularity. Burke asked after the success of the Duchesses’ Garden Party. Someone enquired after Mrs. Paris Burke’s health and received a good report. Miles gathered from the exchange that the lady in question was expecting a child, which made Burke’s presence here tonight all the more noteworthy.

Was Daphne always so silent amid her boisterous family? It seemed unlikely. He knew she could hold her own when it came to conversation, after all, and watching them together, it was easy enough to imagine how such a skill would be honed.

That only made her present silence more unsettling. They spoke over and past one another, even occasionally making a point to include Miles. But they let Daphne disappear. Oh, not literally—she hadn’t yet resorted to sinking low in her chair and sliding beneath the table.

The mental image gave him an idea, however. Stretching out one leg, he prodded her foot with his toe. At least, he hoped it was her foot. If it was Raynham’s, Miles doubted the duke would take kindly to the gesture.

He knew he had hit the mark for which he’d aimed when she started, shifted on her seat, and withdrew her foot. So much for his attempt at surreptitious communication. He started to pull back his own leg when he felt a tentative tap against the side of his toes. Then, though she didn’t lift her gaze to him, she pressed her foot lightly against his, twice, like the reassuring squeeze of fingers.

Was she worried? Nervous? For herself? For him?

She looked pretty enough, in a gown of primrose yellow overlaid with white lace, and great care had obviously been taken with the arrangement of her glossy brown hair. For his part, however, he preferred the blue dress she’d worn to the Estleys’ musicale, the way its steely shade had seemed to imbue her with strength.

Bellis leaned closer to him. “Doesn’t she look lovely?”

“Always,” he said, and surprised himself by meaning it.

At last, Daphne glanced up, though not at him. “It’s her dress,” she explained, with a pointed look at her sister. “She’s fishing for a compliment for herself, not for me.”

And what was he to say to that?

“Well, you each may have one. I see no need to be stinting with my praise. Miss Burke looks lovely indeed, and Miss Bellis has excellent taste.”

That earned him a simpering blush from the youngest Burke, a disapproving scowl from her brother, and the loss of Daphne’s touch beneath the table.

“I heard,” said the Duchess of Raynham, reluctantly drawing his gaze in the opposite direction, “that you know something of plants, Lord Deveraux.”

The duchess was an unusual personality: warm and friendly, most times, but with a perpetual air of vague distraction. She was the least duchess-like lady he’d ever met and, if he dared to make such a claim, the least Burke-like of the Burkes. Or at least, she didn’t vibrate with the same intensity as her two eldest siblings, Lady Ashborough and Mr. Paris Burke, despite her singular red hair. Not having met the other brother, the poet, Miles supposed he should not claim more than that.