Two Little Lies by Liz Carlyle

Author:Liz Carlyle [Carlyle, Liz]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Romance, Adult, Historical
ISBN: 9781416530695
Publisher: Pocket Star
Published: 2005-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

Ten

The Magic Ring.

A t a quarter past five the following afternoon, Quin found himself standing at his sister’s door and listening to the soft murmurings beyond. Inside, if he knew Alice, there was a beehive of feminine activity, with discarded dinner gowns flung into a heap upon her bed and a rainbow of shoes strewn across the carpet. But surely she was at least halfway dressed by now?

Softly, he rapped on the door with the back of his hand. Alice opened it herself, her hair still down and her feet still bare. “Quin!” she said brightly. “Oh, how handsome you look! I so rarely see you in dinner dress.”

He smiled wryly as she motioned him in. “Don’t be silly, Allie,” he said. “You see me every night at dinner.”

“Well, not looking like that,” said Alice, returning to the bench before her dressing table. “I do not think I’ve such crisply starched linen in my life—and is that a new frock coat?”

Quin did not answer. No one had ever accused him of being even remotely foppish, but tonight he had exerted perhaps a little more effort in his toilette than was his custom. Yes, he had wished to look his best. He would just as soon not consider why. Behind him, Lily, Alice’s maid, was plucking gowns from the pile on the bed, and shaking out the wrinkles as she returned them to the dressing room.

“Do sit down, Quin,” said his sister, leaning nearer the mirror to dash a little powder on her forehead. “You make me nervous looming about. Has Mamma already come down? Am I late?”

“Not yet, no.” Quin grinned, and took the dainty chair Alice offered. “It is just that I am early.”

Alice looked up from her powder box and grinned. “Nervous?”

Quin did not find the question humorous. “Do not be ridiculous,” he said. “Tell me, Allie, is Herndon coming tonight?”

Her chin came up a notch and was energetically dusted with powder. “Good Lord, Quin. How should I know?”

“I think you do,” he said quietly.

Coyly, Alice smiled. “I know he was invited, along with every other gentleman and near gentleman in the village,” she said, picking up a plate of cheese and sliced apples from her dressing table. “Uncle Ches is as much an egalitarian as Mamma is a snob. I sometimes wonder if they were really born into the same family. Here, will you have a little bite? It is Mrs. Chandler’s best.”

“Good Lord, Allie,” he said, surveying the near-empty plate. “We’re to dine at eight, and you’ve eaten a half pound of farmhouse cheese?”

Alice’s expression turned defensive. “Only the tiniest bit!” she said. “I was perishing of hunger. I hadn’t any breakfast this morning.”

“You are going to plump up on us, old thing, if you don’t have a care,” Quin chided. “That dress you are wearing could stand to be let out a notch or two as it is.”

“Perhaps I have gained a half a stone. What of it?” Alice made a moue with her mouth and dotted it with something she scooped from a little pot on the dressing table.

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