Page 39 of The Duke I Wished For
Jocelyn smiled at the other girl. “That’s wonderful, Isabelle.”
“I, for one, will be green with envy,” Jane sighed.
Isabelle blinked in surprise. “You wish to visit his library as well?”
Jocelyn laughed at the misunderstanding, but Jane was quick to explain. “No, of course not. I have no use for libraries. I just meant…” She waved a hand between Delilah and Isabelle. “You two will be enjoying long rides in meadows and picnics in a grove of trees, and Jocelyn and I will be left here to rot.”
Jocelyn choked on another laugh. “Are you certain riding is your passion? I do believe you have a talent for melodrama.”
Jane grinned at her teasing. “Perhaps. But you can’t tell me you wouldn’t rather be enjoying a summer in the country than in the odorous squalor that is London this time of year.”
Jocelyn lifted her fan again and made a noncommittal sound, grateful when the conversation turned to Isabelle’s travel arrangements. Truthfully, the only reason Jocelyn was staying in London through July was because she wished to stay. She could very well join her brother and Rose in the country now if she wished. But her brother’s best friend Harlow had agreed to escort her in three weeks’ time. Which would give her just enough time…
Jocelyn had plans of her own this summer, and being in the country, constantly under her brother’s watchful eye, would not do.
But she couldn’t tell Jane that. It would be churlish to admit she was welcome anytime at her family’s estate when Jane’s horrid parents had all but abandoned her here. They seemed to think her too wild and willful for her own good.
Jane’s parents no doubt feared that if Jane joined them in the country, she’d take off on one of her precious horses and never look back.
“Well, despite my excitement over the library,” Isabelle said, giving Jocelyn and Jane a sweet smile, “I do hope I’ll see you both when I return in the autumn.”
“I will undoubtedly still be in exile here,” Jane said with a sigh. But then she grinned suddenly, her demeanor unable to stay maudlin for long. “But knowing you all are returning makes my prison sentence much easier to bear.”
“I do hope you never tell Madame Bellafonte that you consider this place a prison,” Isabelle teased.
Delilah giggled softly as she neatly folded the last of her things.
“Not a prison,” Jane agreed. “But it would be so much nicer if we had a stable. Perhaps I should ask our cousin Aubrey if they might consider adding a stable…”
“Is that what you wished for when we gathered ’round the maypole?” Isabelle asked.
Jane narrowed her eyes teasingly. “I always heard you aren’t supposed to say your wish aloud or it won’t come true.”
“So you did make a wish then,” Jocelyn teased.
“Of course I did!” Jane said.
“I did as well,” Isabelle admitted.
“We all know what you wished for,” Jane said. “Your dreams of opening a library are no secret,” Jane said. “But what about you, Lila? Did you make a wish for your fairy-tale romance?”
Delilah’s smile was wistful. “Something like that. And I hope…” She dipped her head. “I hope I’ll get my wish before long.”
A silence fell, and Jocelyn broke it with a teasing whisper. “So mysterious.”
The others all laughed, including Delilah, who cast her a look of feigned indignation. “Well, my wish is not as scandalous as yours, I suppose. Did you really make your wish for a kiss?”
“Not just any kiss,” Jocelyn shot back, her tone playfully haughty. “The perfect kiss.”
“Oh, the perfect kiss,” Isabelle sighed. “That sounds romantic.”
Jocelyn merely smiled and went back to fanning herself, content to listen to the others laugh and tease.
Delilah shut her valise, and the sound felt ominously loud. Or perhaps it was Delilah’s strange silence as she stood there, shoulders slumped, staring down at her trunks.
“Delilah?” Isabelle said softly.
Delilah turned to face them with a smile, but her eyes were suspiciously wet. “If I don’t return next year…if I’m married by then, or…or have found some other place to live…”
