step closer to me so that I was almost encased between his body and his arm. “Shall we go in and take a look?”
This wasn’t my first rodeo. I didn’t have to be a genius to work out that Edward was making a very obvious pass at me. So obvious that I was almost convinced it was for show. And, even though my mind entertained taking him up on it to see his reaction, I was still kind of hung up on my night with Patrick to be serious when I answered him.
“It was quite dark and… isolated when I was there last.”
He was so close to me I felt him smile against my cheek. “Will I guess who you were with? Or shall I–?”
“Edward,” came a very recognisable shrill voice next to us.
Edward turned but didn’t really pull away from me to look at her. “Yes?”
“I just wondered how you and Leah were getting on.”
I was pretty sure she could see just how well we were getting on.
Edward took what looked like a reluctant step away from me as though it was all for propriety’s sake. “Fine, thank you. We’re just catching up on the Whitworths’ renovations.”
“Were you now?” Isabella asked.
She was, outwardly, a beautiful woman. She was almost as tall as me and had a pleasing arrangement of curves to give her an hourglass figure I’d have coveted as a teenager. Her skin was flawless, her eyes a pale, shimmery blue, and her hair was long and thick. It was a shame then that she had the personality of a rabid viper caught up in a wet towel, and that knocked her right down to the bottom of the attractiveness scale.
“We were just discussing the gallery,” I answered.
Isabella looked at me with nothing but loathing condescension in her eyes. “Edward and I were up there the other week when Lydia had us over for dinner.”
I nodded. “Shame I missed seeing it with you. When Lydia mentioned it, I regretted being unavoidably detained that night.”
Obviously assuming that I’d just not been invited to that dinner, and also not realising I’d only been detained by my pyjamas and two bottles of red wine, Isabella was clearly put out.
“A shame indeed. We missed you.”
Of course she did.
“And how have you been?” she continued, but she sounded bored.
“Very well,” I told her, acting like it was my utmost pleasure to be asked about myself by her. “Keeping terribly busy. You know how the season is.”
She nodded. “Indeed.”
“Have you spoken to Cilla yet?” Edward asked. “I didn’t even know she was back in the country.”
Cilla was one of Isabella’s very best frenemies – in fifty or so years, they were going to be the next Mrs Fortescue and Mrs Barry. Cilla was the only person on Earth with whom the power-play rivalry was more important to Isabella than the one she had going with her stepbrother.
“I didn’t either.” Isabella looked around a little too eagerly. “She really should be caught up on my time with Franklin.” She spared Edward a knowing look – a very obvious ‘if you insist upon trivial flirtations, I shall have them, too’ – and swanned off.
“Always a pleasure, your sister,” I told him. My tone heavily implied my words were sincere.
Edward knew better, but also knew better than to overtly respond. “Isn’t it?”
“Oh, shit,” I muttered.
“What?” Edward asked, looking around.
I shook my head. “No. Nothing. What?”
But Edward was anything but a stupid man. He’d seen the very reason for my outburst picking his way gingerly across the grass and between party-goers like contact with anything was going to make him break out in hives.
“Speaking of pleasant,” he said as he took a sip of his glass and I rolled my eyes at him.
“Harris has many…qualities,” I replied rather unbelievably.
My ‘date’ nodded as he got closer to us and Edward’s more confident nod in return went a long way to proving just what Harris was lacking.
“Ah, Leah. There you are. Thought I’d lost you,” Harris said with his weird head-bob and constantly half-laughing tone. “I brought you another bubbles, but – uh – it seems you don’t need it.”
I downed the glass in my hand and smiled at him. “Not at all. Very thoughtful of you, Harris.”
“Hullo, Edward.”
“Harris.” Edward inclined his head.
Edward looked at me like he wanted to be anywhere else on the whole planet, but, to his benefit, he also looked like he’d be prepared to stay if I needed a buffer.
Harris Beaumont was the real-world equivalent