Page 59 of A Very Bellamy Christmas

“You have the worst handwriting I have ever seen.”

“So…that makes me the best at the worst handwriting. I enjoy being the best.” He gave her his smug smile—the one Sylvester always said made a person want to punch him.

She rolled her eyes and then crumpled up the chit and tossed it aside.

“What? I’m not allowed to play?”

“I already added your name earlier,” she said, smirking up at him.

Andrew couldn’t help laughing. “You really are a fiend, aren’t you?”

“I’m sorry I interrupted your tête-à-tête with Miss Martin at the pond today.”

Andrew scowled and glanced around. “Perhaps you could shout that a bit louder? People in the back of the drawing room might not have heard.”

She made a dismissive gesture with one hand. “Nobody is paying attention to us.”

Andrew crossed his arms and leaned his hip against the table, his body, not coincidentally, between Kathryn and the settee where the subject of their conversation was sitting. Alone. “You will do her no favors if my name is coupled with hers, Kathryn.”

Kathryn only smiled. “She is not your usual sort of flirtation, is she?”

Andrew felt the not unfamiliar urge to throttle her. “You know nothing about my flirtations, usual or otherwise.”

“I will get to see them firsthand when we go to London.”

Andrew ignored her, watching with growing displeasure as an especially handsome young man approached Miss Martin. He said something and she smiled up at him—blindingly—and then set aside her needlework and took his hand when he extended it.

“Who the devil is that?” he demanded before he could stop himself.

Kathryn followed his gaze. “That’s Dixon. He’s one of Needham’s secretaries. Surely you remember? You were introduced the day we arrived.”

“Of course I remember him,” Andrew snapped. But he didn’t. “I just didn’t see his face,” he lied.

“He is Viscount Cowper’s youngest son,” Kathryn said, staring at him strangely.

“I know that,” he said testily. “I went to school with one of his brothers.”

“Yes, you said that when you met him.”

Dixon led Miss Martin to a large pair of doors disguised by murals of some battle or other and pushed one of the doors aside, exposing a pianoforte. Miss Martin said something that made Dixon laugh. She then opened the bench and sorted through some sheets of music.

Dixon shoved the other door open and turned to the assembled guests. “Lady Needham has suggested an impromptu dance and Miss Martin has agreed to provide some music.”

Andrew winced at the cheer that went up.

“I’ll just need some help moving furniture and rolling up this carpet.”

A dozen volunteers rushed to help.

Andrew didn’t think it was quite fair that Dixon had tapped Miss Martin to play and not take part in the dancing. Every young woman Andrew had ever met could bang out at least a few tunes on the piano. Surely somebody else could—

“Has anyone else noticed?”

He turned to Kathryn. “Pardon?”

“That you forget things—and people.”

Andrew was accustomed to Kathryn’s constant needling—he even enjoyed her sharp wit and found it amusing to bicker with her like an adolescent boy on occasion—but this subject was not one he was willing to banter about.

He leashed his fury before leaning closer to her, lowering his voice so that only she would be able to hear him. “You know, Kathryn, this propensity of yours to pry and meddle and share your unwanted opinion freely might be amusing in a child, but it is offensive and obnoxious in an adult. And it will quickly gain you a reputation as an interfering busybody.” He’d started off speaking coolly and ended up almost snarling the last words.

Annoyed with himself he pushed away from the table, boiling with anger, and some other emotion he did not want to look at too closely.

Suddenly, the room was chokingly claustrophobic, and Andrew could not get away fast enough.