Page 124 of If the Slipper Fits
“The girl doesn’t know?” came the earl’s hushed query.
“Horace, It’s safe to say she does not,” Lady Lillian answered in a low, censorious voice.
“Know what?” she demanded of the room, her eyes scanning all the faces.
Everyone—save Lady Wentworth—wore some degree of the same piteous expression. A sense of inescapable doom filled her. Like watching a carriage accident unfold but being unable to look away or stop it. She’d known something terrible was coming.
“We’ve strayed from the point,” Lady Wentworth said in her most imperious tone.
“Which is?” Zeke demanded.
Anna wanted to scream. She wanted answers, not this deflection.
“Why, that on the road to Derbyshire, Anna and Caden spent the night in an inn. Together. In the same chamber.”
A deafening silence followed her pronouncement, broken after a beat by the tap-tap-tap of Zeke’s finger on his bicep. “Lady Wentworth, are you, by any chance, implying that my brother and the lady should marry?”
“I’m more than implying. I’m insisting. His honor demands it.”
Anna should’ve wanted to crawl under the carpets and disappear. Instead, morbid curiosity outweighed even her mortification. She would not leave until she grasped Lady Wentworth’s stake in all this.
Zeke eyed the ceiling. “Here we go again.”
“I beg your pardon?” The older woman sputtered.
Zeke started to reply, but Caden stayed him, holding up one long finger.
“Lady Wentworth,” he drawled. “You are, unfortunately—or fortunately depending on one’s take—a hair slow on the draw.” He bestowed on her his most devastating smile. “Anna and I are already engaged to be married.”
The corners of her lips curved up slightly, and some of the rigidity went out of her posture. “I see. That’s fine, then.”
“So glad you approve,” he said, dryly.
“Enough of this.” Anna exclaimed. “I ask again. Know what? What does every other person in this room seem to understand that I do not?”
Caden grasped her shoulders in a gentle grip and shifted her to face him. Compassion filled his eyes. “Lady Wentworth is—I believe—your grandmother.”
“My grandmother? What? No.” She choked out a half laugh, which died on her lips when Lady Wentworth averted her gaze.
“Should we…perhaps…” Lady Kitty’s words grew hushed as she neared the doorway, through which she ushered the others—save Caden who remained, rooted beside her.
He laid a hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Do you wish for me to stay?”
She considered a long moment, hearing his words from earlier.We’ll hear her out, together.Finally, she shook her head.
With obvious reluctance, his withdrew his hand. “Call out if you need me.”
Seconds later she heard the soft click of the door as it closed leaving she and Lady Wentworth—her grandmother?—in a lock-eyed stare.
Anna felt like a fool. Now that she knew, she could not help but label herself a blind, idiot. How had she missed the obvious signs? Their similar frames, height, expressions, down to the stubborn sets of their jaws. She recalled noting their feet had a particular likeness. High arches, skinny ankles, and crooked pinkie toes—much like Anna’s mother’s feet.
Her feet?She was thinking of feet in light of the momentous revelation leveling her?
“May we sit?” Lady Wentworth sounded, for once, uncertain.
Wordlessly, Anna indicated the nearby sofa.
They each took a corner, angling their bodies to face each other. Two cups of now-cold tea sat on the polished table before them, and Anna caught the sweet scent of bergamot in the air. What she wouldn’t give for a bracing cup of steaming hot tea about now.
