Lady Guinevere and the Rogue with a Brogue - Julie Johnstone Page 0,35

with Guinevere and the other with Vivian, who had just alighted the conveyance. “Mother, may we—”

“Yes,” the countess interrupted with a laugh and a shooing gesture. “Go exchange your secrets, but I’ll remind all three of you to take a nap and take a care to freshen for supper with securing a husband in mind. Especially the two of you, Guinevere and Lilias.”

“Gracious, yes!” Guinevere’s mother added, to which the mothers gave each other approving nods.

“The rest of the guests are to arrive later this afternoon in time for supper,” Lilias’s mother finished.

With their arms linked, Lilias, Guinevere, and Vivian made their way through the house, rushing as well as they could while maintaining ladylike gaits. The minute the door closed on Lilias’s bedchamber, they all burst out laughing and fell in a heap onto Lilias’s four-poster bed. Guinevere rolled to her side, while Lilias sat up between Guinevere and Vivian.

“Not that I’m complaining, mind you, to come to a house party at your home—I’m truly overjoyed,” Guinevere started, “but what prompted your mother to return from Bath? I thought she went there to take another restorative cure.”

“Yes, well, apparently Lady Portsmith arrived there and conveyed the gossip to Mother that Carrington had returned to London and properly taken up his role as duke.”

“Asher?” Guinevere accidentally let his intimate name slip while she scrambled to sit up. She nearly toppled Lilias off the bed in her haste. She grabbed her friend by the arm and helped her to right herself, while on the other side of her, Vivian also came to a sitting position. Once Lilias was steadied, Guinevere continued. “You cannot mean to say that your mother intends to try to match you to Carrington? And that she has invited him here?”

Guinevere wanted to be calm—truly, she did—but her heart galloped like a thoroughbred off the start at Ascot on opening day. She did not want to feel as if she would expire on the spot if her best friend were to end up wed to Asher, but that was absolutely how she felt. It was one thing to move on with her life despite the fact that he had broken her heart; it was quite another to be faced with the possibility that he would be her best friend’s husband. Again.

“Calm yourself,” Lilias said soothingly.

“I’m calm!” Guinevere winced at her high-pitched voice. Lilias and Vivian exchanged a rather obvious look, to which Guinevere took a deep breath. “I am calm now,” she added. Or as calm as possible, given the situation. “Did your mother invite Carrington to this house party with the intention that you catch his eye?”

Lilias nodded, and Guinevere’s heart plummeted. It was too much to endure to watch the man she had once loved fall in love with her best friend, and have the inverse be likely, as well.

“I see,” Guinevere said with a sniff.

“Guinnie.” Lilias slid her arm around Guinevere’s shoulder and hugged her. “Even if I could catch Carrington’s eye, which seems highly unlikely given the way his gaze was stuck upon you at the Antwerp ball, I would never do such a thing to you.”

“I hardly care if you wish to pursue him,” Guinevere lied, plucking at a nonexistent thread on the lilac counterpane.

“You are a horrid liar,” Lilias scolded, to which Vivian grunted her agreement.

Incensed, Guinevere glared between the two women on either side of her. “I am an excellent liar.”

“You are quite acceptable, unless Carrington is involved,” Vivian said with a cheeky air and a wink. “Your voice gives you away. It gets all breathless.”

“I daresay her face reveals her, as well.” Lilias eyed Guinevere. “She turns pink in the cheeks and chest.”

“I do no such thing!” Guinevere protested, barely resisting the urge to fan away the heat scalding her face and chest.

“Let us test it, shall we?” Lilias challenged.

Worry shot through Guinevere. Was it true?

“I’ve a megrim,” she announced. She was overwrought at the moment, and it was all Asher’s fault. If only he had not kissed her in the library and stirred her passion. If only she had not had any passion remaining to stir. If only she had not been persuaded to ask him to kiss her. If only, if only, if only. It was horrifying the way he could induce her senses to flee her head. And he was here! Or he would be.

She started to scramble off the bed, but Lilias caught her by one wrist and Vivian secured her by the other. “No, you