Free Elizabeth Kidd by My Lady Mischief Page B

hear him even over the slight murmur of voices penetrating the closed doors around them.
    “I don’t know…. I just don’t know.”
    “But-but had you no inkling that something was wrong?”
    “No. I can only guess….”
    Antonia stepped closer to her brother and put her arm around his shoulder. “What, dearest?”
    “I can only suppose that she did not really love me…at least, not as much as I love her, and she has decided that a clean break will spare my feelings. I always knew she was too good for me, but I had hoped that—”
    “Do not say that!” Antonia exclaimed, stepping back and addressing him forcefully. “I know that I am your sister and therefore partial, but I have never denied your little foibles. Never say you are not worthy of anyone you choose to bestow your affections on. You are worthy, Carey, and any girl would be foolish to deny it. Indeed, Elena does not deny it!”
    She handed the letter back to him. “See here—she says she loves you, and why should she not? There is something else wrong, and we must simply find out what it is and fix it.”
    “Fix what?” said Kedrington’s voice from behind her. “What’s broken?”
    “Carey’s engagement,” Antonia said, handing her husband Elena’s letter. “But it is only a stupid misunderstanding which we will resolve in an instant as soon as we speak to Elena.”
    “She wouldn’t see me,” Carey said, only slightly less gloomily.
    “Well, she will see me ,” Antonia said with determination. She looked to her husband as if for confirmation and found him gazing at her in admiration.
    “Won’t she?”
    “How could she resist?” he asked rhetorically. “Ah—in the meanwhile, my love, what would you like me to tell our guests? Not to mention that their dinner is getting cold.”
    Antonia considered this for mere seconds. “Fortunately, no one but ourselves knows that an announcement was to be made—except Hester, I suppose, and I will take her aside to explain. Simply tell them that we have just received word that the guest we were still awaiting has been taken ill suddenly and have Trotter announce dinner at once. Come, Carey, let us go upstairs and compose ourselves for a moment. Then there is no reason why we may not enjoy our dinner. Tomorrow is time enough to think about solving this riddle.”
    Antonia knew she continued talking in this manner more to convince herself than her brother, but Carey seemed willing enough to believe her—at least for the time being—and Kedrington obligingly carried out her instructions and returned to their guests, his customary sangfroid revealing no hint that anything was amiss.
    If Carey was unusually subdued at dinner, this went nearly unnoticed in the general feeling of camaraderie over a repast of such succulence that it was talked about for a week afterward. Antonia subdued the occasional flashes of self-blame—she should not have asked Elena to face so many strangers, she should have limited the guest list after all, she should not have had the dinner party so soon in the first place—which dimmed her usual smile only momentarily. And Kedrington saw to it that the wines served during and after the meal were of a quality that would not only confirm his generosity as a host but cause his guests to forget any slight irregularities that might show between the cracks in his wife’s or brother-in-law’s demeanor so as to around comment. He was confident that there would be no comment but praise about this occasion.
    Yet when the party finally drew to a close, all their guests had departed, and Carey had taken himself, dispirited but calmer, to bed, Antonia found herself gazing once again at the flowers in the silver bowl by the library window, wondering that they were still so fresh and untouched by the emotional turmoil that had filled the air around them all evening.
    She reached out to stroke the petal of a pink rose, but just then her husband came up beside her and covered her