I pulled open my window and leaned out. “Are you daft?” I whispered loudly.
He bowed extravagantly, deeply, his dark tousled hair falling over his brow. “Such poetry, my lady.
I was usually hungry enough to eat what I was given without comment, but if the Earl served boiled tongue or calves' foot jelly, I fully intended to wrap it in my napkin and hide it in the nearest umbrella stand.
Alyxandra HarveyI can't breathe. I'm joing the Rational Dress Society the very moment we are back in London,and I fully intend to leave their pamphlets under Mother's pillow and tucked into her corsets.
Alyxandra HarveyCome to rob my sister then,have you?"
"Certainly not," Mother replied, her smile brittle.
"This fashion for talking to the dead is pure poppycock,if you ask me.Dead is dead."
"Agatha,that's rude even for you," Mrs. Gordon said.
"Shall we begin,Mrs. Willoughby, before my sister's abominable manners drive you clear away?
Mother was delicate the way badgers were delicate.
Alyxandra HarveyI turned my attention back to the tal, handsome footman who was waiting patiently for me to take his hand and descend out of the plush carriage. Colin looked at me blandly. I knew perfectly well that he was remembering last spring when I stumbled out of a hired hack and sprawled, rather spectacularly, into a muddy puddle.
Alyxandra HarveyTraveling all alone,are you?" One of them asked with what could be described only as a leer worthy of any penny dreadful.
Blast.
"Let me pass," I demanded. Where the devil was everyone?
"There's a toll,love," he insisted. "Didn't you know?"
We were well hidden by the luggage and a shroud of steam,thick as London fog. The third boy looked uncomfortable, as if he wanted to stop his companions but didn't know how. Fat lot of good his squirming would do me.
"Give us a kiss,then.
Isn't he utterly divine? Beautiful?"
"Somehow,I think he'd disagree with that last one." And not enough with the first.
"All right," she waved her dismissively. "Handsome then. Do you think he noticed me?"
"We were sprawled in a heap of twitching limbs and lace at his feet. He would have had to have been unconscious not to notice us."
She wrinkled her nose. "I meant,do you think he noticed I'm nearly on the Marriage Mart now?"
I didn't know how to reply. I didn't want to hurt her feelings,but I wasn't sure Frederic noticed anything other than cards and port.He was twenty years old,after all,and quite wealthy. He was acting exactly as he was expected to.
Her cheeks were red. "We should return before Mother wonders where we've gone off to.Heaven forbid we might be somewhere enjoying ourselves!
R," Elizabeth breathed. "For what? Rheumatism? Retinue? Richard the Third?"
The planchette continued to move, torward the O.
"Romantic? It's going to tell us our husband's name! Or else...rotund." She paused. "Is it calling us fat?"
W.
"Someone's going to have a row?
I'd seen elevated social mamas do far worse in the name of securing a husband for their daughters. An eldery, gray-curled grandmother once tripped an eligible bachelor on his way to the gaming table so he would fall at her granddaughter's satin-slippered feet. Instead he'd landed on a footman and broken his arm.
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