Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Griff: "What do you think falling in love is like?"

Ben: "Nauseating."

(B & G conversation on love 4 years prior)

The next day Amy did not see or hear from Oliver, not that she had actively sought him out either. Not after what had happened the previous day in the park, the inadvertent meeting with Mrs Helena Abbot.

Presently, Lord Lionel Hollingsworth slammed his wicked looking knife into the roasted chicken before him on the table, the entirety of the dinner settings reverberating with the motion and startling Amy who was unfortunately right beside the voracious man as they gathered later that evening for dinner.

"The first thing one ought to do before skinning a beast," Lionel explained, pinning Amy with his intense green eyes to ensure that she was indeed paying him heed, "is to flip them belly up!" Emphatically, he whipped the charred bird's carcass over on the platter it was on with a noisy slap. "Then, you have to remove the genitals-"

"Lionel, really, we are at the dinner table," Arianna appealed. Her aggrieved pull of her lips was masked when she covered the gesture with a sip of her wine.

Amy grimaced as the earl began to demonstrate, with the ominously pointed tip of the weapon he had pilfered from somewhere, how to skin whatever animal he envisioned in his mind. Grateful that the chicken was already well and truly dead, she averted her gaze and pushed away her plate of vegetables.

"You have put our guests off their meal," Arianna said, lightly reprimanding.

The earl promptly slapped a hunk of flesh on Amy's recently abandoned dinner plate and then proceeded to do the same to Heather, who looked delighted. "I am quite alright," Amy's mother announced, tucking into her fare happily. "You needn't concern yourself, Arianna."

"Lionel, you should know that Amy does not eat meat," Oliver's mother said tightly with an apologetic look at Amy.

"No, really, it is quite alright-"

"I beg your pardon," Lionel said, hurriedly spearing the chicken breast from Amy's plate and dumping it with his own. "My apologies, my dear. Here, have some lamb with mint sauce instead."

Amy smiled patiently at Lionel as he proceeded to summon an awaiting footman. "I believe I am feeling out of sorts and wish to retire early this evening, if that is alright," she said before the man could serve her any of the food Lord Hollingsworth was almost forcefully feeding her himself.

"Of course, dear. You must be weary from all the excitement for the ball tomorrow," Arianna remarked kindly. Heather was content to concentrate on the plate of food and wine before her.

She retired quickly after that, rather put out that Oliver had not been in attendance yet again, and with the efforts of his father endeavouring to change years of commitment to a diet that suited her well, Amy simply wasn't feeling very much herself. Oh, she was fond of Oliver's parents and it was clear they were both very fond of each other, too, which made their odd relationship even more astounding. But Lionel was not known to be delicate in his speech and Arianna found her husband mostly too amusing to take umbrage with anything he may say or infer, though Amy firmly believed that Lionel never really intended to offend.

Her mother, on the other hand, had indulged in far too much wine at the dinner table and gleefully laughed at everything that had transpired, adding her most inappropriate comments to Lionel's own ramblings. The two of them were more familiar with each other than even Amy and Oliver were together, and soon she abandoned the lot of them, favouring the solace of her private rooms even while she inwardly missed her friend and found it mysteriously disconcerting to do so.