Page 249 of Dukes for Dessert

“You weren’t there,” he answered with fake hauteur. “I was legendary.”

“You are now,” she agreed, peering up at him sideways from her cue stick. “So am I.”

She proceeded to jump her cue ball over the top of the red ball in order to pocket Adam’s.

“How did you…” He floundered wordlessly. “Shouldn’t witchcraft be a foul?”

“Go and make a law against magic,” she teased, and sashayed around the table to take her next shot.

11

Carole did her best to keep her posture perfect as Judith fashioned her hair into a series of interlocking twists.

It wasn’t that she was impatient—although, yes, sometimes she was that. But today she was keeping extra still because Judith had insisted on a complicated hair arrangement, despite spending the first hour of the morning surreptitiously trying to loosen her gnarled fingers.

An uneasy sensation twisted in Carole’s belly. She now suspected that Judith’s recent preoccupation with pins and curling tongs wasn’t because of some feminine standard for lady billiard instructors, but because Judith feared there would not be many more years in which her arthritic fingers could plait hair at all.

Carole gazed in the looking-glass at her maid’s beloved lined face. Hair didn’t matter. Who cared if a spinster’s locks closely resembled a rat’s nest? Judith was irreplaceable. The closest thing to a mother Carole had experienced in fifteen long years. Judith deserved to grow old any deuced way she pleased. Even if that meant curling tongs every morning and stolen moments with the neighbor’s butler every afternoon.

When Azureford had returned to London last autumn, Swinton had stayed behind. When the party had passed and Azureford once again left their village behind, Judith at least would not be brokenhearted. Carole would coax her father to reduce Judith’s working hours, so that she had more time to live her life.

As for Carole… what did her heart have to do with anything? She’d be too busy running the household and taking care of her father to have time to even daydream about anyone else.

She hoped.

“Parcel for you, miss.” Rhoda popped into the room to set a brown-paper parcel on the dressing table.

“I’d wager that’s the geometry tome you’ve been waiting for.” Judith wrinkled her nose and grimaced. “Don’t know how anyone can be more excited about dry old numbers and lines than the pretty fashion plates in La Belle Assemblée.”

Carole eyed the crisp brown rectangle. She’d wager Judith was right. That was definitely the book she’d been dying to possess all year. Yet its charms paled against the pleasures awaiting her next door. Reading could wait. There would be plenty of time for Pythagoras once Adam was gone.

“There.” Judith fluffed Carole’s sleeves. “If he hasn’t stolen a kiss by now, he will today.”

Carole’s cheeks flushed bright red.

“Oh?” Judith wiggled her silver eyebrows, blue eyes crinkling with mischief. “Excellent work.”

“I suppose you’ve been ‘working’ with Swinton?” Carole asked archly.

“Eh? What’s that? These ears aren’t what they used to be.” But a pretty flush covered Judith’s face, too. “Come along, come along. Haven’t you a billiard lesson to teach?”

Grinning, they raced from the bedchamber to the front door.

Mrs. MacDonald stood there waiting, a scrap of paper in her hand. “Miss Quincy, the menu—”

—was always the same, with only minor variations due to the changing seasons. After her mother died, Carole had taken over the role of approving each day’s course, but she’d never had cause to tell the housekeeper no. Whatever was on that paper was perfectly fine. And if it wasn’t, Father was unlikely to notice anyway.

“Whatever you suggest, Mrs. MacDonald.” Carole gave an encouraging smile. “You know the kitchen as well as I do. I trust your judgment.”

And she was in a hurry. Judith was right. There was a billiard lesson to teach.

“Thank you, miss,” the housekeeper stammered in wonderment, and stepped away from the door.

Carole and Judith flew next door to the Duke of Azureford’s summer cottage. Swinton opened the door wide before they were halfway up the front path. Adam stood right beside his butler, neither bothering to hide that they’d been awaiting the ladies’ arrival with just as much anticipation.

“I ought to…” Swinton began, and cleared his throat.

“I can help,” Judith said quickly.