“…THAT YOU can take ill!” Chrystabel sang under her breath.
Stretched out beside her on their bed, Joseph couldn’t hear the words filtering through the thick stone walls. “What’s that, Chrysanthemum?”
“Nothing, darling. I was just talking to myself.” She sipped from her goblet of wine. “I’m so happy that Lily is enjoying herself.”
He drank with one hand while inching his other fingers beneath her night rail. “What are they singing?”
“Oh, I cannot make out the tunes.” He’d die if he knew. Joseph liked to think his daughters were much too ladylike for bawdy fun, and she wouldn’t be the one to disabuse him of the notion. “I’m sure the others are just trying to cheer Lily up. And doing an excellent job, from the sound of it.”
She stifled a laugh as she heard them rhyme five with the supposed-to-be-unspoken swive, and then launch into “This way, that way” again. “It was good of Rose to plan the sleeping party. Thoughtful, don’t you think?”
Setting down his empty goblet, Joseph nodded. “Perhaps Rose has finally grown up.”
“Perhaps she has.” Chrystabel finished her own wine and sighed. “Our children are all growing up.”
“Too fast,” he agreed. His hand on her body stilled as his green eyes turned troubled. He hesitated. “About Lily—”
“I’m concerned, yes. Worried sick, truth be told. Should Rand not find a way out of this, Lily will be left devastated.”
“And perhaps with child,” he added in a rush.
“Oh, Lily isn’t with child.” Turning to face him, she reached to caress one whisker-roughened cheek. “I suppose I should have told you, but it never occurred to me that you would worry.” She always expected him to be oblivious to such things, like other men. But sometimes he surprised her. And he did love his children very much.
That was only one of the many reasons she loved him so very much.
“You’re still convinced they haven’t shared a bed?” He frowned. “How do you know? A mother’s intuition? Because I’ve told you before, my love, you cannot tell these things just by looking—”
She laughed, a sound of amusement mixed with relief. “I know because Lily’s maid told me her courses are upon her.”
“Oh.” He reddened, as he usually did when confronted by womanly things. But she felt his body relax into the mattress.
“I do think, though,” she continued, “that perhaps it isn’t such a good idea, after all, to allow young people such privacy. No matter how perfect they are for each other. If things had gone differently, we might have had a disaster on our hands. I…well, in plotting the best way to match Lily and Rand, I think in this one matter I may have been wrong.”
“Wrong? You were wrong?” His mouth dropped open.
Before he had a chance to close it and elaborate on her innocent miscalculation, she rushed to cover it with a kiss.
To her vast relief—and delight—nothing more was said that night.