“Are you still waiting for Harrison to propose?” Bianca asked, the side of her mouth twitching into a grin.
Bea pulled her gaze away from Harrison to stare guiltily at Bianca. “I’m afraid that at this point, it’s not going to happen.”
“Nonsense,” Bianca snorted. “That man has been besotted with you for at least two years.”
“Perhaps.” Bea lowered her eyes, wanting to believe it but not letting herself hope.
Bianca stared at her like she had spit on her mother’s grave. “You can’t possibly tell me that you think the man would do anything but propose,” she said.
“It hasn’t happened yet, so I despair of it happening at all,” Bea said.
Bianca shook her head. “And here I thought you were intelligent.”
“Bea is intelligent,” Diana said, back to glaring across the room as Harrison and John took the new boxes of donations to a table that was already overloaded with various crates, sacks, and parcels of clothing, toys, and necessities. “It’s men who lack basic intelligence.”
Again, Bianca laughed. “You’re not wrong,” she said, then laid a hand on Bea’s shoulder. “He’ll propose, ducky. I know it. A man doesn’t look at a woman the way Harrison looks at you without marriage on his mind. And besides, it’s nearly Christmas. What better time to ask a woman to spend the whole rest of her life with him than at Christmas?”
“If you say so,” Bea said with a wistful sigh.
She tried to return to tying bows, but her heart, her thoughts, and her eyes flew back to Harrison at the other end of the room. She would have given anything to know if he planned to marry her or if she’d been imagining his regard for her. She only wished she would work up the nerve to let him know that, if he asked for her hand, her answer would be a resounding yes.