Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Ben: "Consider this rock, Griff, and consider it well."

Griff: "What exactly is your point?"

Ben: "My point is that you'd be better off marrying this rock than one of my peers for this rock has more sense and intelligence than all of them combined."

(B & G conversation on the suitability of marriageable gentlemen of his acquaintance 5 years prior)

For the most part, Amy endured Blanche and Nicola waxing poetic on all of Oliver's personable qualities for the entirety of their lengthy shopping expedition the next day with a patience worthy of a saint.

She knew what they were about and clearly in the time since she had departed their company the previous day, they had contrived some poorly concealed plan to inspire affection within Amy for one of their friends. She could hardly fault them but really, they were beginning to sound a bit ridiculous.

"Oliver has remarkably nice teeth," Blanche was saying as she held up a swatch of mustard colour fabric to Penelope's flank and studied it with a curious frown.

"If one requires one's beau to have a full set of teeth," Nicola added, perusing a nearby rail that was brimming with frothy lace and satins and silks of all colours and patterns. "Certainly, many in our set have settled for far less in one's intended."

Heather, mercifully, exploded from a room round the back of the modiste's shop they were frequenting. She was dressed in an astonishingly pink lacy gown that positively glowed and almost turned her skin puce. Her excitement however at wearing such finery compensated for the ridiculousness of the design and colour on her. "Amy! What do you think? Isn't it marvellous?"

Amy thought no such thing but she bit back her smile and agreed, loathe to dampen her mother's eager spirits. "It is spectacular. Is that the one you wish to purchase?"

Heather smoothed the skirts over her thighs. "Perhaps the colour is a bit too young-"

"Nonsense," Blanche admonished playfully. "The colour is perfect for those who embody certain joie de vivre, don't you agree?"

Heather beamed at the young lady. "Aren't you the sweetest- very well, I shall acquire this one." Then she bustled back into the room from which she came to continue her harassment of the officiously studious modiste. Amy had chosen and measured for alterations her required frocks within the first hour- the other ladies, including her mother, were intent to draw out the excursion for as long as possible, it seemed. In the interim, both girls had insisted that Amy don one of the new day frocks right then and there in lieu of the respectable drab grey dress she had on that was not nearly as exciting or fetching as the one she currently wore- soft and white, patterned with pretty yellow daisies and a matching pelisse to endure the bracing wind that was inflicting the weather currently.

"Not to mention his green eyes," Nicola continued blithely once Heather was out of earshot.

"And he is superbly intelligent," Blanche added happily.

"Incredibly so," Nicola agreed.

"And the dimple in the middle of his chin is rather endearing," Blanche remarked.

"His hair is such a unique hue, I should think it quite a rarity-"

"Thick too, and if his father is anything to go by, there shan't be a bald Earl of Gravewood in the near future."

"And his fingernails are neat-"

"Ladies," Amy interrupted with an amused dryness that was bordering on a slight impatience, "would either of you like to marry him? Your admiration of his qualities is somewhat specific."