The Day of the Duchess (Scandal & Scoundrel #3)(57)

“You don’t know what you’re on about,” she said, turning away and clapping her hands, marching to the place where the small white ball lay happily in lush green grass. “Which team shall go first?”

The way he looks at you.

He didn’t look at her. He didn’t want her. He never had. And if she didn’t look at him, that was because she had barely seen him since they arrived. Not because she didn’t want to see him looking at her.

How did he look at her?

No. Nonsense. Caleb didn’t know a damn thing about looking.

Thankfully, one could always trust Sesily to distract. “As we won the last round . . .” She paused triumphantly—the words punctuated by a collection of cheers from Sera’s sisters, laughing jeers from the four candidates for duchess, and barks from the hounds at the sideline. “We shall go first! Prepare to be bowled over!”

Several of the mothers harrumphed at Sesily’s brash performance, but as they had quickly learned that complaining about the presence of the Talbot sisters wrought nothing but Sera’s irritation and the sisters’ increased impropriety, they remained tight-lipped.

It did not help, she imagined, that their daughters seemed to like the Soiled S’s. Lady Lilith and Lady Felicity Faircloth—no one seemed to be able to refer to her as anything but her full name—appeared to more than like them, even. They appeared to be influenced by them. Sesily bent to fetch a heavy blue lawn bowl, and Lady Lilith called out, “I, for one, am already bowled over by that frock, Lady Sesily.”

Sesily stood and canted one hip in the gown that might have been called too tight by some, and was certainly called such by the older women assembled. “I am happy to recommend you to my seamstress, Lady Lilith.”

“Perhaps for your trousseau!” Sophie teased.

“Now, now,” Sesily said, after the laughter died down. “Everyone knows Haven has an affinity for women who can command a bowl course.”

“Is that true?” Miss Mary said, concern in the words.

“Very,” Sesily said. “Ask Sera. She knows all about his interest in . . . orbs.”

A septet of women laughed on a spectrum ranging from choke to guffaw. Caleb made it worse when he tipped his hat to Sesily and said, “I’m right. You are trouble.”

Sesily winked. “Only the very best kind, American.”

He laughed, full and welcome, and Sera couldn’t help but join him, forgetting, for a moment, the true reason for their assembly.

Until Mrs. Mayhew reminded them all, slapping her fan shut and rapping it against her thigh. “Really! This is too unacceptable!”

Sesily blinked wide-eyed innocence at the older woman. “I don’t know what you think I am referring to, Mrs. Mayhew. Haven likes bowls.” She looked to Sera. “Doesn’t he?”

“Very much, as a matter of fact,” she said, rather proud of her ability to steel her expression. Sesily Talbot did not simply live up to the expectations for the Talbot sisters—she exceeded them. And Sera had always adored her for it.

Perhaps they could grow old together, partners in ruinous sisterhood.

“And what of the fact that she’s a wicked flirt?” Mrs. Mayhew prodded in ear-piercing outrage.

“I see no reason why that should impede a game of lawn bowls,” Sera said with a shrug.

“Excellent!” Sesily said. “It’s decided, then! If I win, I get the American.”

“And if someone else wins?” Caleb said with a laugh, “Not that I do not expect you to trounce them, Lady Sesily.”

Sesily smiled wide. “Of course you do, future husband. I don’t know . . . if someone else wins, they can have Haven. Isn’t that what they’re all here for?”

Sera’s sisters laughed, as did Lady Lilith and Lady Felicity Faircloth, while Mrs. Mayhew and her poor daughter looked as though they might be sick. Lady Emily did not respond at all. Sera had just decided to step in and stop her sister’s performance when Sesily set her eyes on a point beyond Sera’s shoulder, and she smiled wide. “Don’t you think it a capital idea, Your Grace?”

“It certainly would make things easier.” He stopped behind her, his warmth all she could feel. “Good afternoon, ladies.” The suitesses dropped into curtsies in a bloc, and Haven added, “I feel as though I should apologize for my distance since you arrived. An estate of this size requires more than a little attention when I return from town.”

It was a proper lie. Haven had the best land steward in Britain working for him—an older gentleman with immense skill and virtual sovereignty over the land. Haven cared about nothing but the architecture. Sera had never seen a man so proud as when he spoke of the unique rooms of the main house, of the dower house, of the folly that stood in the eastern pastures.

“At any rate, I should enjoy spending a bit of idyll with you. Lawn bowls sound lovely.” He was close to her—far too close considering he was speaking to an assembly of a dozen. And then he turned to her, the question he asked brushing over her skin like a caress. “Is the duchess playing?”

Sesily’s eyes lit up. “Would you like her to?”

Sesily thinks I want you back.

None of this business. She stepped away from Haven, taking her place behind the ball Lady Emily had thrown, doing her best to pretend he was not there, no doubt looking poised and perfect. “I am not,” she said. “I am the referee.”