Page 90 of The Duke Who Saved Christmas
It was Beth.
“You’re lucky your mother didn’t hear you say that,” she said, crossing the room and sitting on the sofa, much to my amusement. “Is there any tea left in that pot?”
Thomas immediately got up. “Please don’t tell heryouheard that.”
“I can’t promise anything.” Beth grabbed another blanket and pulled it over her legs. “Three sugars.”
“I thought you had two.”
“Well, now I have three. Don’t make me cry.”
I dipped my head and hid my laughter in a fistful of blanket.
“Three it is,” Thomas said, putting an extra spoonful of sugar into her tea and stirring it in. “How are you feeling?”
“Tired. Hungry. Happy. Raging at the injustice of how nobody likes the end bit of the bread loaf. The usual.”
Hell, I wasn’t even pregnant, and I felt that.
“The end bit makes cracking cheese on toast,” I offered, raising my cup towards her. “The edges curl up and keeps all the cheese inside the bit of bread.”
Beth looked at me, and if it were a cartoon, she’d have hearts pumping from her pupils right now. “That’s bloody genius. Why have I never done that?”
I grinned.
“Anyway, I have some pyjamas set aside for you,” she continued. “Emily explained what happened. I think someone is putting them in one of the spare rooms for you.”
Oh.
“Oh, thank you. You didn’t have to.”
“Nonsense. You can’t sleep in your clothes, and you’ll freeze if you wear nothing.” She slid a sly gaze towards Thomas. “Although it sounds like someone here wouldn’t mind that at all.”
Thomas sat back down and picked up his mug. “If you were single, neither would you.”
“You are a pig,” Beth replied.
“I didn’t hear a denial.”
“I’m a married woman, so shut up or I’ll tell her all your dirty secrets.”
“I don’t have any dirty secrets.”
“I beg to differ.”
I laughed, shuffling back to lean against the sofa. Their sibling-like relationship was so endearing. It reminded me so much of me and Hazel, and I loved that Beth had that kind of relationship in her life after what she’d told me about her parents.
“Now there’s a conversation I’d make you cheese on toast for,” I told Beth.
She grinned.
“This is an ambush,” Thomas grumbled, but there was a sparkle in his eyes that belied his grumpy tone.
Emily strolled into the room just as he finished talking, looking at her phone. “Right, well, I spoke to your grandmother, Sylvie, and they’re fine. Apparently, Hazel and Julian were with them having dinner when the snow started, so they decided to stay with them just in case.”
Nice to know my sister and her almost-husband were having a nice, calm dinner at my house while I was getting poked in the eye by pine needles.
Fortheirwedding, no less.
