“I assure you it is the heat,” Ester said crossly, painfully aware of how her heart pounded.
Ellie sighed. “You promise me you will make this right with Edmond. Though he is my brother-in-law and accepts me happily into the family, there are times he seems rather cold…and unapproachable. I do not know him well, but I have gathered from the whisperings around their gambling den that he is not a man to be trifled with, and you have trifled with him most alarmingly.”
Ester made no promises, and Emma joined them before she could say so. The three sisters sat on the stone bench, and Ester noted the excited air about Ellie. Suspecting the news on her sister’s mind, she deftly changed the conversation from her misadventure. “You have something to tell us,” Ester softly said.
“I am with child!”
Ester did not have the heart to reveal they’d known. She hugged her sister, stunned to realize she was laughing and crying.
“I am so happy, Ellie,” she whispered. “You will make a wonderful mother.”
“Yes, she will,” Emma said, wrapping her arms around them.
“I meant to announce it at the dinner Sunday, but I could no longer wait. I never knew I could be this happy,” Ellie murmured. “It is a miracle I am not truly floating on clouds.”
They laughed and chatted for a long time in the gardens before joining the rest of the family indoors. Julia, Penny, Phoebe, and James were inside the drawing room playing charades.
“James,” Ester cried, rushing over to hug her brother. “You have been gone an age! When did you return to town?”
He enfolded her in his embrace, laughing when Emma and Ellie joined in hugging him. “Hello, my three hellions,” James murmured. “I arrived only this morning and made my way here immediately. I have presents for everyone.”
Their brother had been in Penporth these last several months and traveled to town too infrequently.
“Are you staying in town this time?” Emma asked.
“Yes. Our estate in Penporth is quite fine, and renovations are underway. I shall be in town to monitor you girls’ shenanigans for the next few months.”
They laughed, and Julia jumped to her feet and tugged him away, coaxing him back into the game of charades. Ester, Ellie and Emma joined in their fun, and for long hours, the drawing room rang with joy and laughter.
CHAPTER5
Edmond Glendevon studied Ester as if she were an insect he would crush beneath his polished boot heel. She snorted into her glass of champagne, admitting she was perhaps a bit too violent in her thoughts. Still, it was an inescapable truth that he stared at her in a manner many would deem outrageously scandalous. And they were at a ball! Had the man no sense of propriety. Not that she and her family were any authority on the matter, but surely they were not so…so….! Fighting to keep the flush from her cheeks, Ester valiantly refused to look any more in his direction.
“Do you think he will approach you?” Emma asked, nudging her shoulder against Ester’s.
Ester groaned. A miserable sound indeed. “Why would he? He seems to be content with rudely staring. Or is he glowering?”
Emma rolled her eyes. “There is no mistake that man has it out for you. I have never seen such an icily indifferent look in a gentleman’s stare aimed your way. Men are normallybesotted. I daresay whatever flirtations you indulged in with him had no impact.”
“It is good that he appears indifferent,” Ester said brightly, unsure if she had been wise to confide everything to Emma. “I neither wish for Edmond Glendevon to like or admire me.”
She tried her best to ignore that telling pinch in the vicinity of her heart and quite deliberately turned her back to him and watched the dancing couples on the dancefloor. Their brother, Nicholas, danced with his wife, Lady Cressida, who stared up at him with such love that it set Ester’s heart racing. Everywhere she turned, this envious love seemed to be peering at her, mocking her assurances that somehow she was content with her lot.
I want that…I do!And that she did, frightened her more than she would like to admit. That several of her siblings have found love thus far did not mean it was in the cards for her, and as Lady Celdon often bemoaned, at two and twenty, Ester was getting long in the tooth.
“Oh, dear,” Emma whispered. “Mr. Glendevon has moved. I was beginning to think the man a statue.”
A warning skirted down Ester’s spine. “Does he approach me?”
“Yes. I believe this is my cue to join Phoebe by the refreshment line.”
Ester gasped. “Don’t you dare leave, Emma!”
Her sister’s soft chuckle as she walked away was filled with too much glee.
Oh, God, I am going to get you, Emma!
Ester’s mind whirled with searing anxiety, but she carefully composed her face into a neutral mask. She swore she felt the heat of his presence before he spoke.