The Nightingale Girls - By Donna Douglas Page 0,64

Millie embraced her friend. ‘When did it happen?’

‘On Christmas Eve. Oh, Millie, it was so romantic. We were walking on the terrace, and suddenly he just took my hand, and . . .’ She sighed with happiness. ‘I can’t believe it.’

‘Why not? Anyone can see he’s besotted by you.’ And rightly too, she thought. Sophia was every inch the duchess in waiting, so beautiful and graceful and as elegant as her mother. Everything Millie wasn’t, in fact. She also understood her duty and was happy to submit to it in a way that Millie never would.

But it wasn’t just duty with Sophia. She was genuinely in love with David, and probably would have been even if he hadn’t been the son and heir of the Duke of Cleveland.

‘I want you to be a bridesmaid,’ Sophia said, her dark eyes shining with excitement. Millie stared at her.

‘Are you sure? I’m terribly clumsy, you know. I’ll probably trip over your train and ruin everything.’

‘You won’t.’

‘How can you be so certain? Remember the awful hash I made of my presentation?’

‘How could I forget?’ Sophia giggled.

Millie blushed at the memory. It had sounded so simple. Make one curtsey to the King, then rise, step to the side and make another to the Queen. Except somehow she had become entangled in her own train and almost pitched headlong at Her Majesty’s feet.

She didn’t know which infuriated her grandmother more, her dreadful faux-pas or the fact that she’d laughed about it so much afterwards.

They were still laughing when Sophia’s brother Seb joined them.

‘What are you two giggling about, as if I couldn’t guess?’ He was a year older than Sophia, and in his last year at Oxford. He was as good-looking as his sister, but as fair as Sophia was dark. He reminded Millie of a poet, with his fine-boned, sensitive face, long thin nose and clear grey eyes.

‘Your sister has just made the mistake of asking me to be her bridesmaid,’ Millie said. ‘Although now I come to think of it, I think it’s only fair I should ruin your day, since you’re ruining my life,’ she added. ‘You do realise that once news of your engagement gets out, my life won’t be worth living?’ she explained, as Sophia looked puzzled. ‘My grandmother will be completely relentless in her pursuit of a husband for me.’

‘Perhaps we should help her?’ Seb looked around the room. ‘Is there anyone you like the look of?’

‘I don’t know about that, but I have been told to keep my eye on your brother,’ she said.

‘Oh, God, not you too?’ Sophia laughed. ‘Richard is awfully popular, isn’t he?’

‘Undeservedly so,’ Seb said. ‘He’s a frightful bore. But it seems wit and intelligence count for very little compared to a title,’ he sighed. ‘Which is probably why I’m destined to spend the rest of my life on the shelf.’

‘At least you’ll have me for company,’ Millie grinned, taking his arm.

‘Unless Miss Farsley has other ideas,’ Sophia said mischievously. ‘Don’t look now, Seb darling, but she’s just walked in.’

‘Oh God,’ Seb groaned.

Millie followed their gaze to where a tall, raven-haired beauty stood in the doorway surveying the crowd. ‘Who is that?’

‘Georgina Farsley,’ Sophia said. ‘She arrived in England this summer with her family. American, and disgustingly wealthy.’

‘Obscenely,’ said Seb.

‘Her father buys his darling Georgina everything she wants. Except the one thing she really craves, that is.’

‘Which is?’

Sophia looked at her brother. ‘Have a guess.’

‘You mean Seb?’

‘Don’t sound so surprised.’ Seb looked hurt.

‘She’s been pursuing him around Lyford like a hound after a hare for the past two days,’ Sophia said. It’s simply too funny to watch.’

‘The poor girl,’ Millie said.

‘Poor girl? What about poor me?’ Seb said, outraged.

They went in to dinner shortly afterwards, and as she’d hoped, Millie found herself seated beside Sebastian.

‘Are you terribly disappointed?’ he asked. ‘I could arrange for you to sit next to Richard, if you’d prefer?’

‘That’s quite all right. I can make my play for him after dinner. I shall dazzle him with my dancing.’

‘That should be entertaining. Richard is an even worse dancer than you are.’

It was fun, sitting next to Seb. He wasn’t like the usual men one met during the Season, great bellowing bores who talked about nothing but hunting, shooting and fishing, and expected girls to hang on their every word. Seb was intelligent, witty and well read. He rode and loved the outdoors as much as Millie, but not to the point of being tedious. He was also interested in her nursing, something