Fight or Flight(47)

I answered honestly. “Your lack of please and thank yous don’t bother me anymore.”

Caleb rolled his eyes and sat back in his chair. “You and your manners. You’re as bad as my sisters.”

Sisters?

Plural?

“You have sisters?”

Caleb nodded. “Two sisters.”

“Really?” Patrice suddenly cut into our conversation. “I didn’t know that. Duncan never mentioned it. And where do you sit? Youngest, oldest, in the middle?”

“I’m the oldest.”

Which raised the question: what age was he? As if he read the question in my eyes, he offered, “I’m thirty-five.”

Five years older than me. I’d suspected he was around that age. It made me wonder why some sexy Scottish woman hadn’t snapped him up already. Or was Caleb Scott the permanent-bachelor type?

“Thirty-five. Then it’s definitely time for settling down.” Patrice’s gaze flew to me. “So have you two been spending much time together?”

Caleb smirked. “Ava has been very accommodating with her time.”

Do not blush, do not blush. I tried for a serene smile.

“Oh? Have you been showing our guest around Boston? Where have you taken him?”

For a moment, my brain went blank as I tried to think of a reply. I didn’t want to lie to Patrice. Thankfully, Caleb extricated me from the decision. “Neither of us have really had time for sightseeing. But Ava’s kept me company in the evening. For dinner.”

“Oh, well, I’d thank you, darling, for the sacrifice”—she grinned at me—“but having dinner with a handsome Scotsman can hardly be called one.”

I could practically feel Caleb’s smug smile on my skin. “Well, you’d be surprised, Patrice. Mr. Scott is a challenging individual sometimes. For example, he often forgets his manners,” I teased.

Danby laughed outright, but Patrice’s eyes grew round with apprehension—I assumed because she considered my comment rude.

“It’s true,” Caleb told Patrice as he locked gazes with me. “But Miss Breevort here has such fine manners. I’ve heard so many pleas from her lips they’ve got stuck in my head.”

I was going to kill him. “Please and thank yous,” I said. “You mean please and thank yous.”

Laughter twinkled attractively in his eyes, but he didn’t agree.

Thankfully, Patrice either didn’t pick up on his innuendo or was choosing to be polite and ignore it. Not so thankfully, she began to wax poetical about me. “Yes, Ava is very refined. I said that to Danby after the first time I met her, didn’t I, Danby?”

I blushed, uncomfortable with the sudden focused attention.

Her husband gave me a kind smile as if sensing my discomfort. “She did.”

Instantly engaged in her subject, Patrice leaned across the table to Caleb. “I said to Danby, that girl is a breath of fresh air. All the refinement of a society girl and none of the haughty, catty, spoiled brattishness. Not that all ladies of society are that way—” She gestured to herself. “I have some lovely friends, very generous, kind friends. But on a whole one must agree that being born into privilege can have its negative effects on a person’s perspective.”

“True enough,” Caleb agreed.

“And Ava was born into money, weren’t you, darling. Not society kind of money,” she continued before I could reply or, you know, slide off my chair and hide under the table in mortification. “But a very comfortable upbringing as far as material wealth goes. As far as parental guidance goes, that is an entirely different topic, and knowing what I know of Ava’s questionable emotional upbringing it is even more of a credit to her how spectacularly she turned out.”

Dear God, I was regretting that one afternoon Patrice and I had shared too much champagne over a lunch meeting and she’d probed about my life until I’d spilled like a split bag of M& M’s.

Aware of Caleb’s gaze on me, I opened my mouth to stop Patrice, but she forged on. “And let’s not get started on those so-called best friends of hers. It amazes me that she has faith in anyone after what she’s been through. But she is the kindest—”

“Patrice,” I exclaimed, attempting to draw her to a halt.

She blinked like an owl at me and I fumbled for a way to make her stop without upsetting her. I knew she meant no harm, but frankly this was the one time I couldn’t accept her lack of boundaries. However, I also couldn’t be impertinent to her. I scrambled for an excuse. “I forgot to mention that Harper has created a new dessert for Canterbury. You told me to tell you when she updates her menu and I thought I better mention it before I forget again.”

“Oh. Well, fabulous.” She turned to Danby, who shot me a sympathetic smile. “We’ll have to book at Canterbury soon, then, darling.” She turned to Caleb. “Have you met Harper?”

“Actually, I have. She seems … interesting.”

I scowled. What did that mean?

“Oh, very. You’ll know the story of how she and Ava met, then?”

“Actually,” I butted in, “I haven’t told Caleb that story.”

“Why ever not? It’s a wonderful story. Tell him. I want to hear it again.”