And Then She Fell(67)
“Melinda!”
They both turned to see Mrs. Wentworth beckoning Melinda to join her, clearly preparing to depart.
“Coming, Mama.” Melinda wound her arm in Henrietta’s, and together they followed Mrs. Wentworth, Celia, and Louise as the three ladies headed for the door. “Remember,” Melinda whispered, her gaze on her mother’s back, “you must pretend that I haven’t told you anything about my pending engagement, or, for that matter, the murder. Mama was even more insistent that I keep my mouth closed over that. Well . . .” Melinda blew out a breath. “A horrible murder just next door—mere yards away from where I sleep.” She shivered again.
Henrietta patted Melinda’s hand absentmindedly; in something of a stunned daze, she went through the motions of farewelling the Wentworths, thanking her aunt Celia for hosting the event, and climbing into her mother’s carriage for the journey back to Upper Brook Street.
With a contented sigh, Louise settled back against the squabs. “That went well, I thought.”
Mary, seated opposite Louise and already engaged in looking out at those strolling the pavements, made a sound of agreement.
“Hmm.” Seated alongside her mother, Henrietta stared unseeing at the empty seat opposite while her mind raced, juggling possibilities . . .
By the time the carriage halted outside her parents’ house, she’d worked out enough to realize she needed to speak with James as soon as she possibly could.
Much to Henrietta’s disgust, what with the demands of her day and, apparently, his, she and James didn’t manage to meet until she walked into the front hall of St. Ives House that evening and found him waiting.
Smiling with his customary charm, debonair and, to her at least, riveting in his evening clothes, he lifted her cloak from her shoulders and handed it to Webster, Devil’s butler, then, capturing her hand, raising it to his lips and trapping her gaze, James pressed a kiss she felt to the tips of her toes on the backs of her fingers.
Then he smiled into her eyes. “My butler told me you’d sent a footman with a message while I was out. What did you want to see me about?”
She’d lectured herself that maintaining an appropriate façade throughout the evening, and allowing herself to genuinely enjoy the informal family dinner party Honoria and the others had arranged to celebrate their betrothal, was essential, but every time she thought of what Melinda had told her, maintaining her smile and her air of pleased delight required significant effort . . . and once she told James what she’d learned, she had little doubt that he would find enjoying the evening appropriately while concealing his reactions near impossible. So she smiled back and murmured, “Not now. I’ll tell you later.”
He studied her eyes, trying to decide if he should push.
She arched a brow, then, sliding her hand into his arm, she turned to the archway leading to the drawing room. “Come along—it’s our moment to face the family.”
He humphed, but obliged, and walked by her side into the drawing room, into the waiting storm of congratulations and felicitations, smiles and good-natured laughter.
The evening went well, a comfortable, relaxed gathering of the immediate Cynster family, all those presently in London coming together to do what they most enjoyed doing—celebrating another alliance, another, as Devil put it in his toast, twining of branches on two old family trees that would, in the fullness of time, lead to new buds and more branches in the future.
The company drank to their health. Several times.
James was entirely at ease in this milieu. It helped that, just as he was Simon’s oldest and closest friend, other members of his family, both male and female, were longtime friends with their Cynster peers; the Glossups and the Cynsters numbered among the oldest families in the ton, so the connections were many, and solid and sound.
He had no difficulty navigating these waters; in many ways, he felt more at home among the socially active Cynsters than in his own family, who had largely retreated from the wider ton.
After due discussions with Lord Arthur, and subsequent meetings with both James’s and the Cynsters’ men-of-business, the settlements had been decided on, and after a day James deemed well-spent, he and Lord Arthur could join with Louise and Henrietta to announce to the assembled company the date for their official engagement ball, which, in keeping with Cynster tradition, would be held in the ballroom of St. Ives House.
Seated around the long table, the family cheered and applauded, then cheered even more when Lord Arthur added that the wedding would follow on the thirtieth of May, two days before James’s grandaunt Emily’s deadline.