“Said by a man reeking of gin,” she said, shaking her head.

He looked over at her, lifting one of his brows into the famously regal Wyndham arch. “I wasn’t drinking gin.” Good Lord, he had more breeding than that.

She looked as if she might smile. “So sorry. What were you drinking, then?”

He was quite certain this wasn’t the sort of conversation one ought to conduct with one’s fiancée, but nothing about this meeting was the sort of thing one ought to do or see or say with one’s fiancée. “Ale,” he told her. “Have you ever tried it?”

“Of course not.”

“Tsk tsk. Such outrage.”

“That wasn’t outrage,” she shot back, outraged now. “It was simple fact. Who would have ever served me ale?”

She did have a point. “Very well,” he said, everything gracious. “But it wasn’t gin.”

She rolled her eyes, and he almost laughed. They were like an old married couple. Not that he’d had much cause to witness old married couples doing anything but insulting (his father) and accepting it (his mother), but Grace had told him that her parents had been wondrously devoted to each other, and from what he’d seen of Lord and Lady Crowland—Amelia’s parents—they seemed to get on reasonably well, too. Or at the very least, neither seemed consumed with desire to see the other one dead.

“Do your parents like each other?” he asked quite suddenly.

She blinked several times in rapid succession, obviously surprised by the change of topic. “My parents?”

“Do they get on?”

“Yes, I suppose.” She paused, and her brow wrinkled adorably as she considered it. “They don’t do very much together—their interests really don’t mesh—but I do think they hold each other in some affection. I haven’t given it much thought, to be honest.”

It was not exactly a description of a grand passion, but still, it was so entirely different from his own experience that Thomas could not help but be intrigued.

She must have noticed the interest on his face, because she continued, “I suppose they must get on. If they didn’t, I probably would have given it much thought, wouldn’t you think?”

He thought about the endless hours he’d wasted thinking about his own parents. He nodded. For all her innocence and guileless speech, she could be extraordinarily astute.

“My mother can nag a bit,” she said. “Well, more than a bit. But my father seems not to mind. He knows it is only because she feels it her duty to see all of her daughters settled. Which is of course his wish as well. He just doesn’t wish to be involved in the details of it.”

Thomas found himself nodding approvingly. Daughters had to be an incredible amount of work.