You Are My Summer (The Cuttings #2) [In (Painstakingly Slow) Progress]

Chapter Thirteen

The rain poured down hard as a lightning struck down from my view outside the window. I wished it would strike me instead rather than be in the situation I was in at the moment.

"Olivia!" Lady C barked, tapping her cane onto the perfectly polished wooden floors of Cole's ancestral home. "If you drop the book one more time, I shall not hesitate to place another one on top of it, making it two. Now do get on with it and stop staring out the window. England is full of surprises but never when it comes to rain."

I groaned and nodded my assent, completely forgetting that the book the dowager was talking about completely toppled down onto the floor.

"Oh, for heaven's sake." Lady C looked up at the high, domed ceiling and muttered something. Possibly to God.

I quickly picked up the book, which read Pride & Prejudice on the cover, and sloppily placed it back on my head. "Sooorry, Lady C. I'll do it again." She merely raised an eyebrow and watched me. I slowly straightened my spine, matching the dowager's ramrod straight back, and slowly – painstakingly slowly – walked around half of the ballroom as elegantly as I could as I tried to remember both Lady C and Lady Portia's lesson's for the past four days. I kept my elbows slightly bent while my hands met and my fingers entwined together in a posh and aristocratic fashion and kept my eyes firmly off the ground.

I saw Lady C pace back and forth as she continued to watch my movements, no doubt criticizing any flaws I had. She slowly nodded and looked at me with her astonishingly pale blue eyes, smiling like a feline. "Brilliant. But you need to practice more. I daresay, you have improved rather quickly. If you've seen Keller's lessons before she turned marchioness, let me tell you now that is one for the books." Her eyes twinkled slyly. "The comedy books."

I gave a little surprised laugh at that but remembered that I couldn't fully do it since I was still walking with a book on top of my head. I was into my second round when the grand double doors slammed open and – out of complete surprise since any sound made in the ballroom echoed loudly – dropped Jane Austen's beloved Pride & Prejudice on the shiny floor with a bang.

"Oh, bloody hell!" Lady C boomed, making my eyes go round as she cursed the words and raised her arms in frustration. I never thought I'd hear her say those words but for some odd reason it was really amusing.

We both looked at the double doors (with Lady C glaring) and saw Cole emerge in a plain white shirt, black jeans that fit in all the right places and white sneakers. He stared at his grandmother in amusement as he neared us, calmly saying, "A lady never swears, isn't that right, Aunt Marge?"

"Oh, pish posh," she snapped, waving a hand in annoyance. "Olivia was doing a rather adequate job—"

"You said I was brilliant!" I accused.

"—a rather adequately brilliant job parading across half the ballroom with a four hundred and thirty-two-paged book."

I blinked at the fact that she knew the exact amount of pages Jane Austen's book had. "At least it's only a few pages," I joked, hugging the book across my chest as I smiled sheepishly.

Lady C's eyes narrowed into slits. "You better hope we keep Pride & Prejudice because I rather feel like switching it up to different volumes of the OED."

"Uh...the OED?" I queried, scrunching my eyebrows.

Cole gave a rare grin. "The Oxford English Dictionary. Or dictionaries, since there are twelve volumes."

"What?"

"These are first editions," Lady C provided, "which, I assure you, my dear, are very heavy."