SWNOVELS A Spinster for the Earl: Chapter 19
“You look worse off than Lemondrop,” Adam drawled.
The dog sat on the arm of the chair, staring at Adam relentlessly. The Italian Greyhound was, at this point, old enough to regret having any sense at all. He had lost most of his teeth by now, which left his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. Sort of cute, in a strange way.
“That dog doesn’t like us very much,” Isaac said, collapsing in the leather chair across from his friend.
He took a look at his glass of whiskey and swirled it around. He’d drank too much of it already, and he was no longer feeling light on his feet and invincible. As it turned out, American wine was not wine at all.
“Oh?” Adam glanced at the dog’s thousand-yard stare, then shrugged. “He’s resolved to make sure I don’t get into any trouble.”
“From all the times I’ve been around, he only seems to favor the Duke and Duchess.”
“The fellow’s a brownnoser. What’s new?” Adam poked the dog’s floppy tongue, but the touch didn’t seem to register. “But I meant it. What has got you in a twist? I imagine you are here for a reason.” He seemed to be holding his liquor better, or at the very least, he was good at hiding how lightheaded he was.
Isaac stood up and started pacing back and forth across the room. He couldn’t sit still in the days since his rendezvous with Lucy. He’d given her more than she had bargained for, and still, he wanted more. But he had to strongly consider whether an honorable man could really take her all the way and still sleep comfortably at night. At the end of the day, he had an obligation to do right by a woman who had no experience at all.
But that was really the least of Isaac’s problems. Try as he might, he was starting to think that everyone’s insistence that he loved Lucy might not be so deluded, after all.
“You were right,” he admitted.
This confession required a very specific skill: swallowing one’s pride. Isaac was particularly rotten at that.
“Are you all right?” Adam asked. “You frighten me when you speak like that.”
“About Lucy.”
“Lucy, is it? We’re going by Christian names now?” Adam crossed his arms and shook his head. “Careful, my friend.”
“Careful? You are the one who set up our meeting at the races!”
Adam could be meddlesome without even believing that Isaac and Lucy had a chance.
Isaac pressed his palms to his temples as if a migraine was imminent.
“Okay.” Adam stood up and smoothed the wrinkles out of his waistcoat. “Come with me.”
Isaac watched his friend leave the room. Lemondrop followed as if he knew exactly what Adam had in mind. Begrudgingly, the Earl rose from his seat and followed his friend out into the hallway.
Adam peeked his head into the library. “Rosie!” he called. “Time to best me in Pall-Mall.”
While Rose was hidden from sight, Isaac could hear her squeal in excitement. Within a moment, she ran out of the door. She was surprised to see him in the hallway. They had never played Pall-Mall together. In fact, he didn’t know her very well.
Adam led the group out to the lawn and gathered a bag from a small storage container.
“I, while being a successful businessman, have been doling out advice regarding the Hale sisters for years,” Adam began. He emptied the bag on the grass, and Lemondrop came closer to inspect the pieces. The dog picked up one of the arches in his mouth and sat there, his eyes fixed on a rustling squirrel in the tree line. “My brother was cursed by his affections for the Duchess.”
“Ugh.” Rose sighed. “Cursed is right.”
Adam started placing the hoops on the lawn, pushing them in with a stomp. “And what better way to channel your frustrations than through a game of Pall-Mall?”
“I would much rather be tortured in private,” Isaac muttered, crossing his arms.
“I already know how you feel, Lord Ramsbury.” Rose frowned. “It is awfully transparent. You couldn’t surprise me. And besides, I am her best friend. I would like to think that I am so much better at giving advice.”
Adam laughed, holding a palm out to his sister. “Very funny, Rosie. I will always be the expert. It was over a game of Pall-Mall, on a day much like this one—”
“Colder, actually,” Rose pointed out. “It was colder.”
“On a cold day much unlike this one,” Adam corrected himself. “That I provided our beloved and much-lauded Duke with invaluable advice regarding the most daunting of the Hale sisters. Would you look at him now? Happily married, a father to two beautiful yet irritating children, and no longer a gloomy duck—”
Rose held out a finger to gently stop him. “A gloomy goose is the term you are looking for. Sounds better, don’t you think?”
“Stay out of it, Rosie,” Adam snapped.
Rose offered Isaac a knowing look. Adam was nothing if not overly confident about subjects in which he had no business doling out advice.
Isaac sighed, realizing there was no way out of this game. “Maybe a win will make me feel better.”
“Make no mistake,” Adam said, “Lemondrop will win. Lemondrop always wins.”
The dog dropped the hoop in favor of a yawn that split his maw apart in the most inelegant of manners. Isaac had long known Lemondrop to act nothing like a dog at all.
“My turn,” Rose declared, picking up one of the mallets. She positioned herself just so in front of the boxwood ball.
“You know, Lucy is a lot like family,” Adam continued. “I have known her for many years, and never once has she shown any interest in anyone.”
“Except for Lord Byron,” Rose quipped. With her tongue poking out of her mouth, she smacked the ball, sending it rolling across the grass.
“Lord Byron?” Adam crossed his arms. “I’ve never heard of the fellow! She must not have fancied him at all.”
Isaac scoffed, “She’s always liked mad, bad, and dangerous to know men, but never enough to marry them.”
“Do not give yourself so much credit, My Lord.” Rose looked less than impressed. “Mad is a step too far.”
Just as Isaac was about to take his shot, Lemondrop cut him off with a dirty look and trotted forward, placing his nose against the ball and carefully rolling it across the lawn until he was able to push it under an arch. Triumphantly, he held his nose up in the air.
“Another impossible play by the Hound of Radford.” Adam clapped. Lemondrop trotted off, pleased with his performance. “Lord Byron aside, Lucy has rarely ever been taken by someone. Not for as long as a dance, and certainly never as long as you have managed to captivate her.”
Isaac stared at his mallet, feeling that same dull ache in his chest that plagued him whenever she was near. She was on his mind all the time. Even in his sleep, he couldn’t escape her. She was tormenting him without even trying. Isaac whacked the boxwood ball. It arched through the air and smacked into Rose’s ball and continued on through the hoop.
Lemondrop growled in disapproval at the tie. That dog was nothing but a sore loser.
“As encouraging as that is, that doesn’t change the fact that she refuses to marry, while I must.”
“You are right, Isaac.” Adam, without much thought, took his shot, landing way off course. “But how can you expect her to be honest with you, when you are not honest with her? As of now, you have been promenading all over London with Miss Barrington. Lucy has every right to be confused.”
Isaac crossed his arms. “Yes, let us talk about Miss Barrington. You know she and I will be married by the Season’s end if no better offers come her way.”
Adam narrowed his eyes and pursed his mouth as if he was struggling with a wad of caramel stuck to his teeth. “Good news. Great news. The best, actually.”
“Is it?” Isaac arched an eyebrow.
“Mhm.” Adam nodded, his tongue poking into his cheek. “She’s a great woman. Good eye at the races.”
“We are going to marry,” Isaac repeated.
Adam was playing it close to his chest, but he couldn’t even hide the twitch in his jaw. “Perfect. I will be there. I cannot wait.”
“He has a point, Adam,” Rose interjected tentatively. She looked as cautious as a circus performer wedged between two growling lions. “You are just as pigheaded as Lucy.”
“Rosie, so help me God if you don’t stay out of it!”
“Why should I? You are stubborn, obtuse, and most of all, wrong!”
Lemondrop ran up to their feet and began barking wildly at the arguing siblings.
Isaac’s head began to pound.
“Enough!” he shouted. Both the siblings rubbernecked to look at him. “I will talk to Lucy and tell her how I feel.” He pointed at Adam. “You will stop being stubborn and ask Miss Barrington on a promenade.” Then, he turned toward Rose. She stared at him expectantly. He blinked, unsure of why he’d even called her out. “I suppose you could stop meddling.”
“Fair enough,” she said, crossing her arms.
“And you, Lemondrop, need to stop cheating at Pall-Mall.”
The dog whined.
“Sport is about integrity and honor, of which you have none,” Isaac scolded the dog. Whether Lemondrop understood it or not, he ran across the lawn and sat by the back door, howling for someone to let him back inside.
The three stood there, arms crossed, contemplating yet another eye-opening game of Pall-Mall. It was only logical that if Adam took one hundred shots, he’d have to hit the target at least once. He was right, Isaac had to tell Lucy how he felt, even if it hurt. That was the only way the Earl could move forward with his life.
Adam raised his hands half-heartedly in the air. “Well, looks like I have helped yet again. That’s a zero-two, Rosie. Write that down.”