Angry sex had been the tonic he required to exorcise his mood. Manners returning, Jacob felt it incumbent on him to be the one to sweep up the carraway seeds as he had been the one to break the jar. The little buggers had gone everywhere. Dora returned from upstairs where she had gone to wash and, of course, laughed at him.
‘Next time you should pay attention to what I say.’
‘I find myself encouraged that you consider there will be a next time for lovemaking in a kitchen.’ He tipped the seeds into the pig bucket and the shards of pottery into the one for ashes.
‘Do you want me to say I’m sorry?’
He sighed. ‘What would be the point?’
‘Well, I can at least truthfully say I am sorry that the forgery caused you pain. I’ve always assumed those that buy them continue in blissful ignorance, no harm done.’
There came a tap on the door. It saved him from making an answer to that.
‘Is it safe to come in?’ called Alex.
‘Yes!’ replied Dora. ‘I hope we didn’t shock you?’
Alex put his head around the door and grinned. ‘It takes more than that to shock a former army officer. And I made sure you were not spied upon.’
‘I found it heartening even if Alex did spoil my fun!’ called Ruby from behind him. ‘Dora was always such a prude on the theatre circuit, I was beginning to think she had decided to dedicate herself to Diana and become a Vestal Virgin.’
‘How do you know about that?’ asked Alex, evidently intrigued by this evidence of a classical education.
‘Pericles,’ said Ruby simply. ‘Alex, the note.’
Recalled to his business, Alex pulled a letter from his pocket. ‘This came while you were otherwise engaged.’ He waggled his eyebrows– unnecessarily, in Jacob’s estimation. ‘From your brother and it’s marked urgent.’
Jacob brushed his hands off on his thighs, took the note and cracked the seal. The contents made him fume. ‘Blast that man!’
‘What’s he done now?’ asked Dora.
He hesitated whether to show her the letter as it might hurt her feelings; but he decided that if he was angry at her for a forgery made long ago before she had met him, she would have grounds for complaint if he faked their situation with the viscount. He handed over the letter. She read it quickly and gave a startled bark of laughter.
‘Well, that puts me in my place, doesn’t it?’ she said lightly.
‘Look, you two, unsatisfied curiosity isn’t good for someone in my condition!’ Ruby marched in to take the message. ‘I’ve already been kept out of things once this morning.’
Dora passed it back to Jacob, depriving Ruby of the chance to seize it. ‘What condition is that? That of the incurably curious?’
Ruby huffed. ‘It can’t be good for me to worry that something has come between you two lovebirds. My baby will be born bald and wrinkled with worry.’
‘All babies are born that way. We come into the world like worried old men, have a few years of wrinkle-free bloom then go back to how we began again,’ said Jacob.
‘Not that you’d ever look like an old man,’ said Alex gallantly to both ladies.
‘They know what I mean.’
Ruby folded her arms. ‘The letter?’
‘We’d better tell her, or she’ll resort to ridiculous stratagems to find out,’ said Dora.
‘My brother has summoned me to a meeting at the house where Lord Furness and Lady Alice are staying. He says it is all very well for me to indulge myself with my fancy piece?—’
‘Which would be me,’ said Dora.
‘—but that I should assume my responsibilities to the Sandys family and socialise with our equals.’
‘And not wallow in low company like mine.’
