“Your niece is a great success, and her popularity hasn’t turned her head.”
“No, she’s a good child, if a little too inclined to mock the wisdom of her elders.”
Amy sent Sally a disgusted look. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“What?” Sally drained her brandy.
“Talk about yourself as if you’ve got one foot in the grave. You’re beautiful, and you’ve got more energy than Morwenna and me combined. If you think society’s gentlemen haven’t noticed, you need spectacles.”
Sally’s lips twitched. “Shortsightedness is a sign of old age.”
“And blind stubbornness is a sign of a closed mind.”
Sally laughed, clearly discounting Amy’s comments. “You’re too kind. Why would anyone look at me when I’m with Meg, who’s so young and vibrant?”
Amy shook her head. “Not every man wants an untried girl, Sally.”
Sally’s eyes sharpened. “Speaking of men who like women with some life experience, when are you going to put Pascal out of his misery?”
Amy’s shoulders tautened, although she knew that this interrogation was inevitable. And also that Sally asked the question to shift the focus away from herself. “He’s courting me.”
“Which he’s done assiduously for the last three weeks. I’ve never seen the man work so hard to win a woman. Usually they’re clamoring after him.”
“That’s part of the problem,” Amy admitted, staring into her glass to avoid Sally’s perceptive gaze. She’d never told her friends that Pascal wanted to marry her. Although since he’d become the perfect escort, he hadn’t mentioned marriage. Quite possibly, he’d dismissed the idea, now Amy proved so much trouble.
“Oh, tosh. None of those women meant a farthing to him.”
A chill ran down her spine. “You seem remarkably well informed,” she said stiffly.
Dear God, had she been too naïve for words? Pascal and Sally were old friends and visibly comfortable together. Had they once been more than friends?
Scorn edged Sally’s snort. “Tuck in your claws. We’ve never been lovers. I was faithful to my husband, and since his death, nobody has tempted me to err.”
“Then why are you pushing me along the primrose path?” Amy said, ashamed of her petty jealousy.
Sally shrugged. “I’m not opposed to taking a lover. Perhaps I’ll look around more seriously, once I’ve got Meg settled.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“I don’t know.” A dreamy light that Amy had never seen before softened Sally’s expression. “It's just that you and Pascal seem…right somehow. Like you fit. To be candid, I expected him to tumble you into bed that night you came in from the Bartletts’ garden, looking like he’d kissed you into next week.”
“Oh.” Heat prickled Amy’s cheeks. “You noticed.”
“I could hardly miss it.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
Sally smiled. “You were doing well without interference. But since then, you’ve turned as prim as a middle-aged governess, and he’s tiptoeing around you as if terrified you’ll shatter at the first touch.”
“I want…I want him to prove he’s genuinely interested.”
Sally rolled her eyes. “He’s so interested, he looks ready to cut his throat unless you show him a drop of kindness. Which would be a sad waste of a very pretty man.”
Amy sent her friend a direct look. “By kindness, you mean let him seduce me.”
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Sally shrugged and refilled her glass. “Or you could seduce him. I hate to see you at odds, when it’s perfectly obvious that you’re both mad for one another.”