Christmas Ladies by Grace Burrowes

Author:Grace Burrowes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2014-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

Ten

“This is a disaster.”

“Don’t clench your teeth, dearest.” Jenny’s pencil paused in its movement across the page. “What is a disaster?”

Louisa stomped into Jenny’s drawing room—it really was a drawing room, not a withdrawing room—and tossed herself onto the sofa beside her sister.

“I’m to be married tomorrow. What is the worst, most indelicate, inconvenient thing that could befall a woman as her wedding night approaches?”

Maggie, arrived to Town for the wedding, took a pair of reading glasses off her elegant nose. “Somebody put stewed prunes on the menu for the wedding breakfast?”

Louisa couldn’t help but smile at her oldest sister’s question. Since childhood, stewed prunes had had a predictable effect on Louisa’s digestion. “Eve made sure that wasn’t the case.”

“We’re to have chocolate,” Eve said, “lots and lots of chocolate. I put everybody’s favorites on the menu too, and Her Grace didn’t argue with any of them.” She was on a hassock near the windows, embroidering some piece of white silk. Maggie had the rocking chair near the fireplace, where a cheery blaze was throwing out enough heat to keep the small room cozy.

“It’s your monthly, isn’t it?” Sophie leaned forward from the hearth rug and lifted the teapot. “The same thing happened to me after the baby was born. Sindal looked like he wanted to cry when I told him. I was finally healed up after the birth, and the dear man had such plans for the evening.”

An admission like that from prim, proper Sophie could not go unremarked. “You told him?” Louisa accepted the cup of tea and studied her sister’s slight smile.

“Have the last cake.” Maggie pushed the tray closer to Louisa. “If you don’t tell him, then it becomes a matter of your lady’s maid telling his gentleman’s gentleman that you’re indisposed, and then your husband comes nosing about, making sure you’re not truly ill, and you have to tell him anyway.”

Louisa looked from Maggie to Sophie. Maggie was the tallest of the five sisters, and the oldest, with flame-red hair and a dignity that suited the Countess of Hazelton well. Sophie was a curvy brunette who nonetheless carried a certain reserve with her everywhere, as befit the Baroness Sindal.

They were married, and they spoke to their husbands about… things.

“Why can’t a husband just understand that indisposed is one thing and ill is another?” Louisa thought her question perfectly logical.

Sophie and Maggie exchanged a look, but it wasn’t a superior, “we’re married and we understand these things” look, or even an older-sister look. It was more of a “how does one say this?” look.

“Sindal and I share a bed,” Sophie said. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to discuss certain matters when the candles are blown out and your husband has just taken you in his arms.”

They shared a bed, the implication being they shared a bed every night. Jenny’s head bent a little closer to her sketch pad, and over by the window, Eve practically had the embroidery hoop against the end of her nose.

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