Chapter Seven
“OH MY GOODNESS,” Eloise said as she helped Lila out of her dress later that afternoon. “I can barely breathe.”
“I understand,” Lila said, trying to help. “I have felt just the same for the last three hours!”
Lila could have asked Katherine for help, but was too humiliated to admit what she’d done.
So while taking lunch at Burns he does not even appear as brooding as I initially thought he did. And the way he looks at me as though I alone hold every bit of his attention . . . and the way he smiles with half his mouth.” Remembering it sent a shiver through her.
“I am a failure in this design, Eloise.”
“Perhaps you should simply be at ease with this, then,” Eloise suggested. “Maybe he is not a demon set to beguile you away from Neville, but is here to show you a better place for your affections.”
“The idea of not loving Neville makes me feel cut in half,” Lila said, crossing her arms. “But playing this game with Mr. Luthford is beginning to feel exactly the same way. I don’t know what to do.”
Eloise gave her a sympathetic smile. “Perhaps it is times like this that we give ourselves up to fate and simply let be whatever will be. It is never a good idea to ignore the stirrings of one’s heart.”
Lila let out a sigh, but with it went a great deal of fear and reservation.
Give up the plan she had made to thwart Mr. Luthford’s attention and simply be herself?
Be free to ask questions about his time abroad and enjoy his company with her whole heart?
The idea was so overwhelmingly appealing she knew she could take no other course.
But it was not a course without risk. “What if he falls in love with me after all?”
“I beg your pardon, Lila,” Eloise said with a raised eyebrow. “But I think you need to give equal consideration to what will happen if you fall in love with him.”