“I should join them,” she said, lifting her face to him, meeting his beautiful hazel eyes. It was only then that she realized how closely he held her, and how the gentle incline of the hill brought her almost eye to eye with him.
One side of his mouth twitched. “Your cheeks are like cherries.”
She tucked her chin into the fur cowl at her neck. “It’s cold,” she said, defensively.
He shook his head. “I am not complaining. I think they’re rather charming. They make you look like a winter nymph.”
“I am hardly nymphlike.”
He lifted a hand and pressed one finger to her raised brow. “You never used to do that. Never used to be so sardonic.”
She pulled away from the warm touch. “I must have learned it from you.”
He looked at her for a long moment, all seriousness, before he leaned close and whispered in her ear, “Nymphs should not be cynical, love.”
Suddenly, it did not seem so cold.
He pulled back, shaking his head. “What a pity.”
“What is?”
He bent his head toward her, nearly touching her forehead with his. “I am almost certain that you are blushing. But the cold makes it impossible to tell.”
Penelope could not help her smile, enjoying the banter, forgetting, for one fleeting moment, that it was not real. “How sad that you shall never know.”
He lifted her hands to his lips, kissing first one set of kidskin-covered knuckles, then the other, and she wished that she were not wearing gloves. “Your ice awaits, my lady. I shall join you presently.”
She looked past him to the crowded lake, where her sisters had joined the revelers in their circles on the lovely, smooth surface, and suddenly standing here with him seemed far more exciting than anything that could happen on the ice. But standing with him was not an option. “So it does.”
Michael saw her down to the lake’s edge, where she pushed off and disappeared into the crowd, soon finding her sisters. Olivia looped one hand through Penelope’s arm, and said, “Bourne is wonderful, Penny. Tell me, are you ecstatic?” She sighed. “I would be ecstatic.”
Penelope looked down at her feet, watching them glide across the ice, peeking out from beneath her dress. “Ecstatic is one way to describe it,” she said. Frustrated and impossibly confused would be another.
Olivia made a show of looking around the lake. “I wonder if he knows any of these unattached lords?”
If he was to be believed, half of them owed The Angel money. “I imagine he does, yes.”
“Excellent!” Olivia added, “Well done, Penny. I think he shall be the brother-in-law worth his salt! And handsome, too, isn’t he? Oh! I see Louisa Holbrooke!”
She waved furiously across the ice and was off to visit with her friend, leaving Penelope to say quietly, “Yes. He’s handsome,” grateful for one moment during which she did not have to lie.
Her gaze moved to the spot on the hill where they’d stood mere moments ago. He stood stock-still, all attention on her. Her hand itched to wave. But that would be silly, wouldn’t it?
It would be.
As she was considering the action, he made the decision unnecessary. He raised one long arm and waved to her.
It would be rude to ignore him.
So she waved back.
He lowered himself to the bench and began to strap on his skates, and Penelope gave a little sigh, forcing herself to turn away before she did something even more foolish.
“Something’s happened.”
For a moment, Penelope thought that Pippa had noticed the strange interactions between Michael and her. Mind racing, she turned to face her younger sister. “What do you mean?”
“Castleton has proposed.”
Penelope’s eyes went wide at the unexpected announcement, and she waited for Pippa to acknowledge the fact that they had spent much of the morning together, and Pippa had only just decided to mention the proposal.
When Pippa said nothing, calmly gliding forward as though they were discussing the weather and not her future, Penelope could not stop herself. “You do not sound very happy about it.”
Pippa kept her head down for a few long minutes. “He’s an earl. He seems friendly enough, he doesn’t mind that I hate dancing, and he has a handsome stable of horseflesh.”
Penelope would have smiled at the simplicity in the words, as though the four character traits were enough to make a satisfactory marriage, if not for the hint of resignation in them.
It occurred to Penelope that Pippa might have chosen her moment to share the proposal because there were so many people around—so many eyes watching and ears listening—too many to allow for a serious conversation.
Nonetheless, Penelope clasped one of her sister’s hands and drew her to a halt there at the center of the lake. She leaned in and said, softly, “You don’t have to say yes.”
“Will it matter if I say no?” Pippa replied, smiling broadly as though they were discussing some amusing event from the morning instead of her future. Her dreams. “Won’t there just be another man around the bend looking to capture my dowry? And another after that? And another? Until my choices disappear. He knows I’m smarter than he is, and he’s willing to let me run his estate. That’s something.” She faced Penelope. “I know what you did.”
Penelope met her sister’s knowing gaze. “What do you mean by that?”
“I was there on St. Stephen’s, Penny. I think I would have noticed Bourne’s return. As would have half the vicarage.”
Penelope nibbled on one lip, wondering what she should say.