Page 89 of The Lady Knows Best

“It would seem your grandmother is still awake,” Daphne said, looking up at the gleaming windows of the winter parlor. “But it must be nearly midnight.”

“Well, as I understand it, she and Miss Palmer had just begun a new book, something they borrowed from your sister.”

Daphne giggled, grateful to discover she could laugh at anything to do with Bell’s copy of The Highwayman’s Hostage, given everything that had followed on the heels of her offer to lend it.

Frost opened the door and bowed them into the house, neither surprised by their late arrival nor discombobulated by the sudden influx of guests. “Lady Deveraux is in the winter parlor, my lord.”

“Yes, thank you. We saw her light.” Taking Daphne’s hand in his, he led her upstairs and called out as they crossed the threshold, “Happy birthday, Grandmama! I have a surprise for you.”

As it turned out, however, Lady Deveraux was not listening to Miss Palmer read breathlessly from one of Robin Ratliff’s adventures. She was playing piquet with Gabriel . . . and, from all appearances, she was winning.

She shushed Miles with a flutter of her fingers. “One moment, boy.” And then she snapped down her final card. “Ah ha! Three games in a row. You owe me a shilling.”

With a self-satisfied smile, Gabriel began to rake in the cards with a practiced hand. “I do indeed, ma’am.”

“But . . . how?” asked Miles, looking from the deck to his grandmother’s near-sightless eyes.

“Lord Ash said he knew of a way to mark the cards with pinpricks, both number and suit—an old sharper’s trick, in reverse,” Lady Deveraux explained. “I can feel the cards in my hand.” She lifted one to show him, running a fingertip over the face of the card, then turning it over. “But the pattern on the back makes it impossible for my opponent to identify them.”

“Brilliant,” declared Miles, with a look of genuine gratitude at Gabriel.

“It would be a shame if all my time at the tables couldn’t be put to some good use,” he replied, taking the last cards from Lady Deveraux’s hand.

“Now,” she said, turning toward her grandson, “you said something about a birthday surprise?”

“Two, actually. First, there’s to be a celebration in your honor on the village green tomorrow afternoon, and everyone at Lyneham is invited,” he said, sweeping his gaze around the roomful of pleased faces, and settling finally on Daphne beside him. “And then, first thing Monday morning, Miss Burke and I are to be married.”

Miss Palmer squealed and so did Bell. Lady Deveraux’s face split into a smile as she reached for Daphne’s free hand and squeezed. “I couldn’t be happier for you both,” she said, and then tilted her head in Miles’s direction, “but your being head over heels for Miss Burke hardly qualifies as a surprise, my boy.”

Everyone laughed good naturedly except for Cami, who had come to stand near her husband and still regarded Miles with suspicion. “The wedding date is certainly unexpected,” she said. “I thought—”

Gabriel looked up at her, and though Daphne could no longer see his face, his expression did something to melt away at least some of Cami’s lingering reservations about the match. “Sometimes,” he explained, with a knowing glance at Miles, whose fingers were still tangled with Daphne’s, “a fellow loses a trifling wager deliberately, to be sure of winning the hand that really matters.”

* * *

Monday morning found Miles once more pacing the transept of the small stone church, this time out of eagerness rather than nerves. Even Mrs. Yearsley did not scold him.

Instead of a private ceremony, guests now dotted the pews: Grandmama; Lord and Lady Ashborough; Bellis, soon to be the sole remaining Miss Burke; the Stalbridges; the Palmers. Alistair stood patiently at the rail, ready to witness the momentous occasion of that devil, Deveraux pledging himself to love and cherish one woman for the rest of his life.

Nothing had ever seemed so easy to Miles in his life.

Because there she was, at the end of the aisle, clad in that shimmering steely blue gown he admired so much, now softened slightly by the addition of his grandmother’s lace veil, pinned to Daphne’s brown locks with a circlet of dewy roses plucked that morning from Lyneham Park’s garden.

She stepped forward, smiling a trifle uncertainly, still unaccustomed to being the center of attention, the focus of everyone’s gaze. But when she locked eyes with him, that hint of nervousness fled . . . or perhaps made its way to her feet, which hurried her onward with almost indecorous haste.

Side by side, they faced the vicar, who nodded first at them, and then at the assembly. “Dearly beloved,” he intoned.

And then Daphne tipped up her chin beneath the veil and said, “Wait.”

Miles’s pulse, which had been cantering along at a steady enough pace, ticked up to a gallop.

Daphne smiled up at him reassuringly, then turned to face their family and friends. “Before we begin, I have something I wish to say.”

“This is most irregular,” declared Mr. Yearsley.

Miles heard Alistair murmur behind him, “Get used to it.”

When she began to unfold a familiar slip of paper tucked into her palm, he finally understood. His first impulse was to stay her, to tell her it was unnecessary. But he had already vowed that any decisions about her writing would be hers.