Society's Expectations & Too Many Complications {Finalist}

Chapter 17

"Lord Henry Chalmers," I uttered, shocked into utter stupefaction. When I pictured beautiful scenery, gorgeous food and a pleasant company of friends... I didn't quite picture the Pig rolling around the hills alongside us. "Uh- um, how came you to be here?"

"Oh, did not your mother tell you?" Pig replied, a little stupidly in my opinion. Obviously not, or I would not be asking. "When the gracious Duchess Taylor heard of your outing, she extended the invitation towards myself, and Miss Winters here, who I was planning on showing the scenic walks in any case."

"How..." A thousand words to describe this circumstance come to mind. Agony. Torture. Hated. Detested. Deplored. "Lovely."

I had a feeling that I would be talking to my mother very soon and in the same terms that my lovely had been forced out in.

"She invited me to dinner as well," Pig continued brightly, just heaping the onslaught forward. "It was extremely kind of her."

Perhaps that talk could also include discreetly beheading her. That might shut her up.

"I am delighted," I said, though even a half-wit donkey could tell that I am no such thing. "Dinner tonight will be such a lovely affair."

"Actually, I believe I am invited to that dinner as well," Sebastian put forward thoughtfully.

"You are?" I asked him, incredulous, at the same time that Pig said,

"You are?"

"I was given an invitation as well, I believe," Daniel added as well, only adding to my supreme disbelief.

"Well I wasn't," Victoria declared tartly. "Is this a men's only event?"

"Some how, I doubt it," I said slowly, only just beginning to piece together the puzzle. Oh, of course. My mother thinks I am too inept in handling my own affairs and is inclined to invite every single man that I have spent company with.

Ah, that means Gerald as well.

I groaned, under my breath thankfully, so no one noticed but Sebastian who gave me a cheeky grin.

"Well, dinner will be a right delight," I proclaimed, though the heavy sarcasm in the undertone of my voice did seem to be noticed by Sebastian and Daniel. However Pig, always as ever stupid, just smiles widely, looking for all the world as a frog that has swallowed a fly.

"Yes, indeed," Ella giggled, as she watched the scene unfolding between us.

"Giggling is quite inane, dear sister," Sara reprimanded her sharply, that layer of frost on her tone not melting away in the presence of company.

"Breathing is quite inane too," I muttered, offhandedly. Ella heard and begins to giggle again, much to the Ice Queen's disapproval. Oh what a hateful laughing bunch these gypsies are, I can almost hear her thinking.

"Are we to join picnics then?" Victoria asked, though I shot her several looks which absolutely do not signify: let's break bread with Pig and just watch him get fatter.

"What a lovely idea!" Pig exclaimed, as if the notion had never occurred to him.

"Oh, yes, lovely," Miss Winters echoed, though that little tad of emotion never quite caught onto her words.

Lovely. Lovely. Lovely.

Lovely was what was said when everyone sampled the food. Lovely was what was said when Pig decided to tell everyone that long-winded story about a cat or a dog, or it might have been a turtle. Lovely was what was said when Miss Sara Winters drawled on about something that I did not bother to listen to.