“On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…twelve drummers drumming.”
Katherine had a hard time getting close to her husband. Eliza completely monopolized every minute of his time, hanging on his every word. It was ridiculous.
“So Isabelle, how does Eliza know Sebastian?” She cornered her near the tree.
“Probably at a ball or some other frivolous affair,” she said, avoiding direct eye contact. Of course she did not mention her son probably had a frivolous affair with the chit. However if Katherine kept up her incessant badgering she might slip. On the verge of doing just that, she gave Grayson a look, trying to get him to save her.
“I have a splendid idea,” Grayson said, catching Isabelle’s look.
“What do you have in mind, Grayson?” Sebastian pried Eliza’s fingers off his jacket.
“I think we should take the sleigh over to Hawthorne and meet up with Devlin for a spell.”
“That’s sound positively brilliant,” Isabelle nearly yelled, cutting off another barrage of questions from Katherine. She was getting a headache.
“I say, that is a splendid idea,” Sebastian piped in.
“Who is Devlin?” asked Eliza, looking around the at all the eager faces in the room.
“He is a very handsome young man Eliza; you may want to go and fix your hair dear, before we depart,” said Isabelle, swallowing back some vomit even as she said it. She almost felt bad dumping the chit off on her former husband. He had changed but she had to do what was in her own best interest, and unloading Eliza was definitely in her own best interest. Besides, Devlin owed her; he could very well take one for the team.
“Handsome, you say?” she asked, suddenly alert. Sebastian was boring her to tears with all his talk of steam engines traversing the countryside. Marriage had apparently changed him and now he sounded like a doddering windbag, much like her father. She patted her hair. “Is something wrong with my hair?” she asked Sebastian. His eyes looked glazed over. She wondered if he could even see properly.
“It is ah…a bit disheveled,” he agreed.
She smacked his arm playfully. “Why did you not tell me?”
“Ah…” He searched for something to say but came up empty.
“Oh, never mind,” she said turning. “You probably can’t see worth a damn anyway,” she muttered, and walked away to freshen up.