Free The Spinster and the Rake by Anne Stuart

champagne, then I’m with her.”
    “Done!” cried Felicity, draining her glass with relish. “Just don’t tell poor Liam what depths I’ve sunk to.”
    “No one’s likely to see him except you, idiot!” said her cousin amiably. “Though why you want to get leg-shackled to such a dashed dull stick is beyond my comprehension. Anyone who would accept Uncle Derwent’s decree without making any effort to fight it seems pretty milk pudding to me.” He poured himself and the two ladies more champagne, spilling the wine somewhat.
    “He’s not a dull stick!” Felicity defended her true love. “He simply has very high principles, something you’re completely unacquainted with.”
    “Very amusing. I wonder you can find any man to marry you with a tongue like yours. More champagne, Gilly?” He poured before she could agree, and she cheerfully downed her fourth glass.
    “I do wish you wouldn’t argue on my birthday,” she said plaintively, moving with unsteady grace to the sofa by the banked fire. “I truly hate it. Why can’t everything be pleasant all the time?” she inquired soulfully, stifling a delicate little hiccup.
    “Because life ain’t like that,” Bertie said bluntly, striking his Byronesque pose.
    “Oh, cut line, Bertie,” Felicity snapped. “You do get tremendously tiresome at times.”
    “Well, then, it’s a great deal fortunate that I have no intention of marrying you,” he shot back, affronted.
    “Marrying me?” she scoffed, tossing her head. “That’s a rare jest.”
    “Not if our parents have their way,” Bertie said gloomily. “Your father’s been dropping all sorts of hints since I’ve come to stay, and my parents have been after me since Christmas.”
    Shock made Felicity sink to the sofa beside her aunt. “How simply ghastly. I had no idea.”
    Bertie sat down beside the two of them, sunk in companionable gloom. “Thought you didn’t. But you know what our parents are like when they’ve got a maggot in their brains. I’ve been counting on Gilly to keep ‘em in line, but I’m not sure that she can hold out much longer.”
    Felicity turned her great blue eyes toward her aunt. “Do you think they can make us? We should make a horrid pair, you know. Besides, I love Liam.”
    “And I have no intention of getting married for a good long time,” Bertie added.
    “They may very well try,” Gillian conceded, swirling the dregs of her champagne and slopping just a tiny bit on her green silk skirt. “But I have little doubt you two are more than a match for them. If worse comes to worse you will simply have to elope with your vicar, Felicity.”
    “Gilly, you’re drunk!”
    “Heavens, no, child,” she said sweetly, moving over to the table on skittering feet and pouring herself another glass. “Merely very happy. And right now I think every member of the illustrious Redfern family can go to the devil. Present company excepted, of course. I fail to see why you should sacrifice your happiness on the altar of family duty. One is enough.” She raised her glass. “Cheers.”
    “Oh, Gilly, do you feel you’ve been sacrificed?” Felicity questioned with tearful and champagne-induced sympathy.
    “What else are virgins for?” Gillian inquired with simplicity.
    “I say, Gilly, you ought to watch your language.” Bertie’s shirt points seemed to have grown suddenly tighter. “You never know who might hear you.”
    “No one will hear me,” she said sadly. “Look, even Felicity has gone to sleep.”
    Bertie looked at his cousin’s sleeping form with disgust. “Can’t hold her wine,” he pronounced.
    “Ah, but I can, dearest Bertie,” Gillian announced. “And I think we must be careful not to wake her up. We should leave.”
    “Leave?” Bertie echoed.
    “Absolutely. All this finery shouldn’t be wasted on a nephew. Where can we go?”
    “I have no idea,” he said uneasily, sobering a bit.
    “Where did Derwent and Letty go? We could follow