Just to Have You (Blackwood & Friends #3)

Chapter Nine

"Oh, dear," Nicola laughed slightly, a faint blush reddening her cheeks. "We are being far too obvious, aren't we?"

"Quite." Amy smiled however. It was not the first time a person of her acquaintance had insinuated that her and Oliver would make the perfect matrimonial match, though never with so much enthusiasm as Blanche and Nicola.

The smaller woman made a slight scoffing sound. "I shan't stop, you know," she admitted enthusiastically. "You are perfect for Oliver, I have no idea how the two of you have maintained a friendship for so long and not, well... you know."

"Compromised each other?" Nicola asked innocently.

Amy coughed slightly, feeling insurmountably uncomfortable at that. She glanced about the modiste shop but the chattering from her mother in the other room and the beleaguered modiste's grunts of agreement or protest were the only sounds being heeded currently. They were very much alone which was a good thing because Blanche promptly barked: "He's compromised you!"

"Oh, God, no-"

"Blanche, lower your voice," Nicola whispered, though she was laughing.

"But he has, hasn't he?" Wide grey eyes turned to Amy demandingly. "Go on, admit it. If you do then we can force him to-"

"You are both being ridiculous," Amy told them succinctly. "You must let this topic drop at once, I can assure you nothing of the sort has transpired." She felt her cheeks and neck burn with the lie though she comforted herself in the knowledge that it wasn't entirely a fib. It had been years ago and hardly mattered, a moment of ludicrous impetuousness on her part that ended with the both of them mutually agreeing on their incompatibility as anything more than friends.

"Bee, perhaps it is not our place to interfere," Nicola said with a softly appeasing voice.

"Oh, what do you know," Blanche muttered, peeved. But then she tossed her head and rolled her eyes and moved to the next swatch of fabric that she matched against Penelope's pelt. "Oliver has scarcely left her side the entire day, clearly he's besotted and doesn't even realise it. She certainly doesn't either. They are being deliberately ignorant. I half believe that if he could see this far he would be looking at her right now."

"You know that he wears spectacles?" Amy asked, surprised.

"What?" Nicola practically barked in alarm.

"Yes, of course," Blanche said smoothly and her smile was sly. "Clearly you do too. See? Another reason why you are perfect for each other. You know everything about him."

"Good Lord, I am never to hear the end of this, am I?"

"Oliver wears what now? Spectacles? Oh, I have to see him-"

"It's a secret, though I hardly know why," Blanche told Nicola quickly before the other woman ran outside to pester the man standing among his peers lingering near the modiste with an increasing edge of frustration the longer the ladies remained inside.

"Oh, I think they would enhance his appeal," Nicola mused to Amy, "do they?"

And that made her consider Oliver and consider what his spectacles did to his overall appeal and... she had to admit she did enjoy seeing him wear them. They added an element of sophistication, of boyish innocence, to his overall roguish, hard-edged face. And Oliver was quite devastatingly handsome and cheerful and bitingly intelligent, a deadly combination alone... then to add spectacles to all that... It was probably better that he did not wear them publicly.

"No, no," the modiste said now emerging with Amy's mother from the room towards the back of the shop, her gaze fixing to Blanche who was holding up another blue swatch of fabric against Penelope. "I beg your pardon, my lady, but I simply cannot tailor any more attire for your dog. One wardrobe is enough, surely-"