“I’ll speak to Lady Jersey,” Darden said. “Now, Bea, what is this I hear of your requirements for the gentleman who will win your heart?”
The sisters, with the help of Miss Mayton, speedily apprised Darden of the qualities deemed absolutely necessary to Beatrice’s happiness.
“So…he is to be Beowulf, Hercules, Robin Hood, Sir Gawain, and Henry the Fifth, all rolled together,” Darden said, bemused. “That is quite the list.”
“And he must be violently in love and might even tear out his hair,” Rosalind said.
“Not too much hair, though,” Viola qualified. “That would be unattractive.”
“He will challenge any rival suitor to a duel, I’m afraid,” Miss Mayton said, though she did not appear particularly averse to that violent outcome.
“And he will write Beatrice poems,” Juliet said, “of which I will assess the depth of feeling.”
“He may, in the course of things, threaten to do a violence to himself,” Beatrice said. “Though I have repeatedly said I wish it to be only threats. I am not unreasonable.”
“I am not convinced you will unearth such a fellow at Almack’s,” Darden said, laughing.
“She will not unearth such a fellowanywhere,” Van Doren said. “As I have pointed out many times.”
“As you can see, Darden,” the earl said goodhumoredly, “your sisters have got rather carried away with ideas of romance. It shall all come out right, though. Beatrice will encounter some gentleman who may have some or none of the qualities on her list and he will be found very agreeable.”
“You always do say so, Papa,” Beatrice said, “and that I might fall in love against my will. But I vow I will not be prevailed upon to wed some person who is only concerned with my running of his household. I must be in receipt of finer feelings that soar above mundane practicalities.”
“It is what makes life worth living,” Cordelia confirmed.
“It is its very essence,” Viola said.
“I will write an ode about it,” Juliet said. “Ode to finer feelings.”
“Very well, have it as you like it for now,” the earl said indulgently. “Miss Mayton, you did promise to read to us again.”
Miss Mayton nodded and pulled her book from her sewing box. Beatrice had often noticed that her aunt kept no end of things in her box, though very little actual sewing as she did not prefer the activity.
“As we know so far,” Miss Mayton said, “the governess has been determined to see under the duke’s eye patch. Will she recoil in horror and all is lost? Or will she see that she does not mind it, in which case all will end happily?”
Miss Mayton cleared her throat.
The governess had climbed to the roof and now hung herself over the side, determined to see the duke in his bath. Surely, he would take off the eye patch then!
She braced her feet between the stone crenellations and hung herself upside down.
She could see into his bedchamber!
But only the back of his head, as his bath was turned the wrong way!
Would this torture of not knowing plague her forever?
The duke stood and the governess was near blinded by a glimpse of nether regions she should not see!
Her shoes lost their grip and she plummeted down into a stand of bushes. She staggered to her feet.
“Wait a minute,” Van Doren said, interrupting Miss Mayton. “She fell from the roof, but she’s not dead? She just stands up like nothing happened?”
“She could hardly keep trying to see under the duke’s eye patch if she was dead, could she?” Beatrice asked.
“I wish they were both dead,” Van Doren muttered.
Chapter Six
