Chapter Thirteen
Ditty looked out across the tens, no, the hundreds of champagne flutes, and sighed.
‘Don’t despair!’ said Charles cheerfully.
She glanced over and tried not to smile.
In many ways, he and his brother were very different, but there was something deep within that was very similar.
Their ability to look at a problem and just see the possibilities for solutions was second to none.
Their ability to get people on side, to see the best in people.
She certainly did not share his enthusiasm.
‘It’s a lot of work,’ Ditty said helplessly.
‘And I have complete faith in you, though now I come to think of it, I need to head back to the law office,’ said Charles, glancing at his watch. ‘What a shame.’
What a shame indeed. Ditty would never have agreed to doing this if she had known she would be doing it alone.
On the dining table of Charles Paisley’s house, every single surface was covered in champagne flutes. Every. Single. Inch. It was a good thing Miss Yorke had decided to extend her trip, Charles had explained. His fiancée wasn’t going to be impressed by the state of his home.
‘How many did you say there were, again?’ Ditty asked weakly, her head spinning.
‘Oh, at least three hundred, but to be honest I cannot remember ever bothering to count them,’ said her client nonchalantly. ‘Whenever we needed more for larger events, the Valentine’s Day Festival, other things, I just bought more, and—’
‘Here we are,’ completed Ditty.
Well, it was her own fault, in a way. She had included in his proposal plan that after he had successfully completed his proposal, the townsfolk would come out and celebrate with them.
That had made a lot more sense when the proposal was going to be held at Reg’s, of course. He had his own glassware.
‘I like the pink ribbon, very fine,’ said Charles approvingly.
Ditty perked up a bit. She didn’t think of herself as a particularly proud woman, but it was nice to be appreciated for one’s hard work. ‘You really like it?’
‘Miss Yorke’s favourite colour,’ he said confidently. ‘She’ll love it.’
A warm glow flickered in Ditty’s stomach. And that’s why I do this, she reminded herself. Even when it was hard, even when fireworks still weren’t delivered, even when people wrote untrue things about her in the newspaper.
It was for moments like this—or at least, the moment it would be once Miss Yorke realised how much her new betrothed cared about her.
‘And you have been practicing your speech?’ she said, leaning against the back of a chair.
For some unknown reason, Charles was suddenly unable to catch her eye. ‘Speech?’
‘Your proposal speech,’ Ditty said severely. Surely he had not forgotten! ‘I sent you the template, you should have filled it in by now. To be honest, I was expecting you to show it to me for approval.’
As Charles stammered, trying to tell her he had been very busy at the office, Ditty felt…strange.
She had said those words before. I sent you the template, you should have filled it in by now. Had often said them; men were not often very good at considering how they would like to tell the love of their life precisely how much they cared about them.
But somehow it felt…wrong. As though she was a school-teacher scolding her class. As though she was holding rigidly to a rule that didn’t really work.
Ditty shook her head, brushing that thought away.
Honestly! She had a system, and it worked. Why would she want to deviate from that?
‘Well, I’d better go—’
‘Charles, wait,’ Ditty started.
But it was too late. Her client had slipped out of his own dining room, strode across his hall in what sounded like two steps, and—there was the sound of the front door closing.
Ditty sighed, shoulders drooping. Charles had servants, but they were all otherwise engaged, she had inquired the moment she had arrived.
That meant she had around three hundred champagne flutes before her, a large roll of ribbon and a pair of scissors.
All she had to do was cut off a length of ribbon about ten inches, wrap it around the champagne flute stem so it was completely covered in ribbon, then tie it with a bow.
Over, and over, and over again…
Well, there was no point complaining about it, Ditty thought as she rolled up her sleeves. This was part of the matchmaking life. It wasn’t all exciting colour coding and time schedule mapping.
Sometimes, you had to be a little bored.
And it was boring. The dull repetition of measuring out the ribbon, cutting it carefully on a diagonal to prevent fraying, and the slow delicate winding of the ribbon around the champagne flutes was, in truth, rather hypnotising.
Ditty wasn’t sure how long she had been at it before she heard a noise, but it made her head jerk up—and the source of the noise made her mouth fall open.
‘Well,’ said Henry slowly, a broad smile on his face. ‘You’re robbing my brother’s house, fine…but decorating first?’
Ditty had to laugh. ‘Me, a burglar?’
‘Yes, I didn’t have you down as someone who would be so blatant,’ he said, shrugging off his greatcoat and throwing it to the floor.
He hadn’t been raised to be a duke, Ditty reminded herself. In many ways, he was just like her. They would have been equals—
But not anymore.
‘You were the one who accused me of being, what was it, a charlatan? Trying to steal money from your brother?’
A flicker of excitement rushed through Ditty’s chest as she saw Henry bring a hand to his heart and mimic being wounded.
Why was it she felt so—so alive whenever she was with this man?
‘I would have thought I’d be the one offended!’ she teased, finishing off a ribbon bow on a champagne glass. ‘I’m the one whose character has been besmirched!’
‘Well, I was wrong,’ Henry said simply, stepping toward her. ‘What are you doing?’
But Ditty couldn’t reply to the innocent question. She was too astonished. ‘Did you just apologise to me?’
Henry’s forehead wrinkled into a frown as he stood on the opposite side of the dining table. ‘No.’
‘Yes, you—well, you admitted you were wrong,’ Ditty pointed out.
Was that why her heart was beating so fast? Was that why she couldn’t stop looking at Henry? At the way the whole room seemed to soften now he was in it?
Do not think about that kiss, do not feel hot, do not feel your knees quiver—
He shrugged, and she tried not to notice just how broad his shoulders were. ‘I suppose that’s a compromise. I won’t apologise, for I thought what I was doing was right, but I was wrong.’
Ditty looked at him, and he looked back, frown gone and smile dancing on his lips. Her stomach lurched, but it was not an unpleasant sensation.
The champagne flute slipped from her fingers.
‘Careful!’ Henry lunged across the table and caught the precious glass-ware, placing it delicately down as Ditty’s heart pounded.
‘Thank you, that could have been— I am not a burglar,’ Ditty said in a rush.
It was astonishing; that single moment of panic, when she thought she would be handing over hundreds of pounds to pay for the replacement of the champagne flutes—she was certain Charles would want a matching set—did not seem to have disappeared.
Quite to the contrary. Her heart was still beating wildly, a strange fluttering moving down her chest and across her back, right to her fingertips.
Ditty swallowed. She needed to say something. It was, after all, strange to be found in someone’s house with their glass-ware all over the place.
‘Champagne flutes,’ she said helplessly.
Henry’s lips quirked into a smile. ‘Yes, I can see that. Finally getting into the Brexley spirit and helping out with the Valentine’s Day Festival?’
Ditty’s stomach twisted. She wouldn’t be here for the festival. ‘No, I’ll be gone by then.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Henry said nonchalantly, as though he’d completely forgotten.
How had she managed to forget?
‘So what are all these for?’
‘For the proposal. Charles’s proposal, your brother’s proposal.’
For some reason Henry looked surprised. ‘Oh… I see. How many people are you expecting at this thing?’
Ditty could not understand why he did not look excited. It was in a week exactly, after all! ‘Well, your brother said something about the whole town—’
‘And…you trusted him to invite people?’ Henry said cautiously.
Ditty opened her mouth, hesitated, then closed it.
Well, yes, she did. She had. Charles was the client, he was the one who had lived in Brexley almost all his life. He was the one who knew everyone, who might wish to avoid inviting certain people over others.
Was it not entirely natural for her to leave it to him?
But just one glance at Henry’s face told her in unequivocal terms, she had made a mistake. Another one to add to the list…
Ditty groaned. ‘No one has been invited, have they?’
‘Well, I certainly haven’t,’ said Henry with a broad grin. ‘You’d think I’d be the first to know, would you not?’
Ditty raised a hand to her face. ‘You’re jesting with me!’
‘I’m afraid I am not!’ For some reason the man looked too cheerful. ‘But I wouldn’t worry about it.’
Dropping her hand, she looked at him as though he was delusional. ‘Don’t worry—I have less than a week, still no food to serve at this proposal, the fireworks aren’t here and now hundreds of invitations—’
‘Leave the invitations to me, I know everyone in this town,’ said Henry smoothly.
Ditty blinked.
It was odd, to allow part of the planning to leave her hands, but she could not deny Henry was right. He did know everyone, far better than she did. He could arrange it all without much fuss, without getting Miss Yorke suspicious. If she started to suspect…
‘You’re sure about this?’ she asked slowly. ‘I, well, I would have thought you had enough to be getting on with, at the Lodge.’
There it was again. The same odd expression she had noticed the last time they had spoken, in his study—the same panic, and then repression of that panic. What was going on?