The Sum Of All Kisses Part 24

"I can't play tonight, Daisy," Sarah said, with a slow, horrified shake of her head.

Daisy's lips pinched. "Your mother said you would."

"My mother-"

"What Lady Sarah means to say," Hugh cut in smoothly, "is that she has already promised her evening to me."

It seemed he was developing a taste for playing the hero. Even to ladies who were not eleven years old and infatuated with unicorns.

Daisy looked at him as if he were speaking another language. "I don't understand."

From the expression on Sarah's face, she didn't either. Hugh offered his blandest smile and said, "I, too, cannot dance. Lady Sarah has offered to sit with me throughout the evening."

"But-"

"I am sure that Lord Winstead has made arrangements for tonight's music," Hugh continued.

"But-"

"And I so rarely have someone to keep me company on nights such as these."

"But-"

Good G.o.d the girl was persistent. "I am afraid I simply cannot allow her to break her promise to me," Hugh said.

"Oh, I could never do that," Sarah said, finally playing her role. She gave Daisy a helpless shrug. "It's a promise."

Daisy positively rooted herself to the floor, her face twitching as it began to sink in that she had been thoroughly thwarted. "Iris . . . ," she began.

"I will not play the pianoforte," Iris practically cried.

"How did you know what I was going to ask you?" Daisy asked with a petulant frown.

"You have been my sister since you were born," Iris replied testily. "Of course I knew what you were going to ask me."

"We all had to learn how to play," Daisy whined.

"And then we all stopped taking lessons when we took up strings."

"What Iris is trying to say," Sarah said, with a little glance toward Hugh before turning firmly to Daisy, "is that her skills on the pianoforte could never match yours on the violin."

Iris let out a noise that sounded suspiciously like a choke, but by the time Hugh looked at her, she was saying, "It's true, Daisy. You know it's true. I would only embarra.s.s myself."

"Very well." Daisy finally capitulated. "I suppose I could just perform something by myself."

"No!" both Sarah and Iris shouted at once.

And it really was a shout. Enough people turned in their direction that Sarah was forced to plaster her face with an embarra.s.sed smile and say, "So sorry."

"Whyever not?" Daisy asked. "I'm happy to do so, and there is no shortage of violin solos from which to choose."

"It is very difficult to dance to the music of a single violin," Iris quickly said.

Hugh had no idea if this was true, but he certainly wasn't going to question it.

"I suppose you're right," Daisy said. "It is really too bad. This is a family wedding, after all, and it would be so much more special to have family playing the music."

It wasn't just that it was the only unselfish thing she had said; it was that it was completely unselfish, and when Hugh chanced a glance at Sarah and Iris, they both wore somewhat abashed expressions on their faces.

"There will be other opportunities," Sarah said, although she did not go so far as to offer any specifics.

"Perhaps tomorrow," Daisy said with a little sigh.

Neither Sarah nor Iris said a word. Hugh wasn't even sure they breathed.

The bell sounded for dinner, and Daisy departed. As Hugh rose to his feet, Sarah said, "You should walk in with Iris. Daniel said he would carry me. I must say I'm grateful." Her nose wrinkled. "It's very strange having the footman do it."

Hugh started to say that they would wait until Daniel arrived, but the man of the hour had his usual impeccable timing, and Hugh had barely offered Iris his arm before Daniel was pulling Sarah into his and carrying her off to the dining room.

"If they weren't cousins," Iris said in that dry tone Hugh was coming to realize was uniquely hers, "that would have been very romantic."

Hugh looked at her.

"I said if they weren't cousins," she protested. "Anyway, he's so desperately in love with Miss Wynter he would not notice if an entire naked harem fell from the ceiling."

"Oh, he'd notice," Hugh said, since he was quite sure that Iris was trying to be provoking. "He just wouldn't do anything about it."

As Hugh walked into the dining room with the wrong woman on his arm, it occurred to him that he, too, wouldn't do anything about it.

If a naked harem fell from the ceiling.

Later that night After supper "You realize," Sarah said to Hugh, "that you're stuck with me now for the duration of the evening."

They were sitting on the lawn, under torches that somehow managed to make the air warm enough to remain outside as long as one had a coat. And a blanket.

They weren't the only ones who had taken advantage of the fine evening. A dozen chairs and lounges had been set up on the gra.s.s outside the ballroom, and at any given time about half of them were filled. Sarah and Hugh were the only people who had taken up permanent residence, though.

"If you so much as leave my side," Sarah continued, "Daisy will find me and drag me to the pianoforte."

"And would that be so very dreadful?" he asked.

She gave him a steady look, then said, "I shall make certain you are sent an invitation to our next musicale."

"I look forward to it."

"No," she said, "you don't."

"This all feels very mysterious," he said, leaning back comfortably in his chair. "It has been my experience that most young ladies are eager to demonstrate their skill at the pianoforte."

"We," she said, pausing to give the p.r.o.noun just the right amount of emphasis, "are uncommonly dreadful."

"You can't be that bad," he insisted. "If you were, you wouldn't be staging annual musicales."

"That presupposes logic." She grimaced. "And taste." There seemed no reason not to offer the unvarnished truth. He'd learn soon enough, if he ever found himself in London at the wrong time of year.

Hugh chuckled, and Sarah tipped her head toward the sky, not wis.h.i.+ng to waste another thought on her family's infamous musicales. The night was far too lovely for that. "So many stars," she murmured.

"Do you enjoy astronomy?"

"Not really," she admitted, "but I do like looking at the stars on a clear night."

"That's Andromeda right there," he said, pointing toward a collection of stars that Sarah privately thought resembled a tipsy pitchfork more than anything else.

"What about that one?" she asked, gesturing toward a squiggle that looked like the letter W.

"Ca.s.siopeia."

She moved her finger a bit to the left. "And that one?"

"Nothing that I'm aware of," he admitted.

"Have you ever counted them all?" she asked.

"The stars?"

"You count everything else," she teased.

"The stars are infinite. Even I can't count that high."

"Of course you can," she said, feeling lovely and mischievous, all rolled together. "It couldn't be simpler. Infinity minus one, infinity, infinity plus one."

He looked over at her with an expression that told her he knew that she knew she was being ridiculous. But still he said, "It doesn't work that way."

"It should."

"But it doesn't. Infinity plus one is still infinity."

"Well, that makes no sense." She sighed happily, pulling her blanket more tightly around her. She loved to dance, but truly, she could not imagine why anyone would choose to remain in the ballroom when they could be out on the lawn, celebrating the heavens.

"Sarah! And Hugh! What a delightful surprise!"

Sarah and Hugh exchanged a glance as Daniel made his way over to them, his fiancee laughingly trailing behind. Sarah still had not quite adapted to Miss Wynter's impending change of position-from her sisters' governess to Countess of Winstead and their soon-to-be cousin. It wasn't that Sarah was being a sn.o.b about it, or at least she didn't think she was. She hoped she wasn't. She liked Anne. And she liked how happy Daniel was when he was with her.

It was just all very strange.

"Where is Lady Danbury when we need her?" Hugh said.

Sarah turned to him with a curious smile. "Lady Danbury?"

"Surely we are meant to say something about this not being a surprise at all."

"Oh, I don't know," Sarah said with an arch smile. "As far as I know, no one here is my great-grandnephew."

"Have you been out here all evening?" Daniel asked once he and Anne were near.

"Indeed we have," Hugh confirmed.

"You're not too cold?" Anne inquired.

"We are well blanketed," Sarah said. "And truly, if I cannot dance, I'm delighted to be out here in the fresh air."

"You two make quite a pair this evening," Daniel said.

"I believe this is the cripples' corner," Hugh put in dryly.

"Stop saying that," Sarah scolded.

"Oh, sorry." Hugh looked over at Daniel and Anne. "She will heal, of course, so she cannot be allowed in our ranks."

Sarah sat forward. "That's not what I meant. Well, it is, but not entirely." Then, because Daniel and Anne were regarding them with confusion, she explained, "This is the third-no, the fourth time he has said that."

"Cripples' corner?" Hugh repeated, and even in the torchlight she could see that he was amused.

"If you do not stop saying that, I swear I'm leaving."

Hugh quirked a brow. "Didn't you just say that I'm stuck with you for the rest of the evening?"

"You shouldn't call yourself a cripple," Sarah returned. Her voice was growing too pa.s.sionate, but she was completely unable to temper it. "It's a terrible word."

Hugh, predictably, was matter-of-fact. "It applies."

"No. It does not."

He chuckled. "Are you going to compare me to a horse again?"

"This is far more interesting than anything going on inside," Daniel said to Anne.

"No," she said firmly, "it's not. And it's certainly not any of our business." She tugged on his arm, but he was gazing longingly at Sarah and Hugh.

"It could be our business," he said.

Anne sighed and rolled her eyes. "You are such a gossip." Then she said something to him Sarah could not hear, and Daniel reluctantly allowed her to drag him away.

Sarah watched them go, somewhat confused by Anne's obvious desire to leave-did she think they needed privacy? How odd. Still, she was not done with this conversation, so she turned back to Hugh and said, "If you must, you may call yourself lame," she said, "but I forbid you to call yourself a cripple."

He drew back in surprise. And, perhaps, amus.e.m.e.nt. "You forbid me?"

"Yes. I do." She swallowed, uncomfortable by the rush of emotion within her. For the first time that evening, they were completely alone on the lawn, and she knew that if she allowed her voice to drop to its quietest register, he would still hear her. "I still don't like lame, but at least it's an adjective. If you call yourself a cripple, it's as if that's all you are."