“He did always seem pale,” Miss Mayton said.
“I suppose we will never know, but all this reminiscing about Mr. Cramden does not help us much,” Cordelia said. “However, just because we did not learn about Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas then, does not mean we cannot now. We have a whole library downstairs.”
“Goodness, we do,” Miss Mayton said. “I always forget about that room.”
“On the morrow, we will begin our studies. We will learn something about these fellows. Then, when Lord Harveston attempts to paint us stupid, he will find out otherwise.”
“He will be shocked to his insufferable shoes,” Juliet said, sounding very satisfied by the idea.
“And, as an antidote to our tedious studies,” Miss Mayton said, “we expect Viola and Rosalind to dinner on the morrow and afterward I will read fromThe Dreadful Doings of Dembric Dale. It will be a palate cleanser after we have struggled to understand two old men and their ideas about judging themselves.”
Cordelia felt infinitely better about things. She would show Lord Harveston just how mistaken he’d been. And how insufferable he’d been, which had now been established as an incontrovertible fact.
*
Tattleton had avague sense of unease. Of course, there were reasons aplenty for such a feeling. For one, it seemed it was to be a regular habit that Lady Juliet called him, Benny, and Johnny to the drawing room to play cards after the earl, Miss Mayton, and Lady Cordelia had gone out.
He could not believe that the earl would be approving of it, but then he did sympathize with Lady Juliet’s plight. It was just nerve-wracking when the time grew late and he must keep one ear out for the sound of carriage wheels stopping at the front of the house.
He did not like sneaking around!
It also seemed to be becoming a habit that Lord Darling, that cheeky creature, was to come to the drawing room. He attended the card games and one had to watch him carefully as he liked to make off with cards and chew them up. When he wasn’t doing that, he was chewing on the curtains. How was a butler to explain frayed curtains?
It seemed Lord Darling was to have the run of the house now and putting him in the garden was looking like an impossible dream. He could not be contained and Tattleton was forever discovering him in the most unlikely places.
Whatever they set up below stairs to keep him from wandering off was soon defeated. The devilish kid managed to jump over everything.
No, not even jump—it was more like a springing straight up in the air. It defied the laws of nature!
So far, he’d found the thing standing on a sofa, attempting to balance on a windowsill, and standing on the earl’s important papers on his desk in the library.
It had been no easy feat to dust off hoof prints from the earl’s letters. Tattleton was just grateful the wretch had not eaten them.
And then, it had taken to chewing on things. It seemed particularly fond of tablecloths and the bottoms of curtains.
All Lady Juliet had to say of it was that he was still a baby.
Yes, hewasstill a baby. What sort of havoc would he create as he grew!
This was all disturbing enough, but something else had happened to put him on edge. Something had happened at Almack’s. He did not know what, but he’d known Lady Cordelia since she was a baby. She’d been crying.
What could she have been crying about?
“There now, Mr. Tattleton,” Mrs. Huffson said, “I know the little mite is a handful, but even you must admit that Lord Darlingisrather darling when he’s sleeping.”
The creature was curled up on the bedding the ladies Cordelia and Juliet had set up for him. Finely-made bedding that ought to be on actual beds.
“I need not admit any such thing, Mrs. Huffson,” he said, sipping his brandy.
“Well, think of it this way,” the housekeeper said, “whatever Lord Darling is, what he isn’t is four cats underfoot, and he isn’t a dog poised to have a litter of pups, and he isn’t a bird who screams ‘murder’ at everyone who walks by.”
Tattleton was rather surprised that Mrs. Huffson would bring to his notice the creatures that had plagued him during other seasons. As if that was supposed to ease his mind!
He eyed the now-sleeping Lord Darling. Oh yes, he looked so harmless in his repose. The morning would bring a different story, though.
Tattleton sighed and said, “I would be most gratified if that creature were the only thing weighing heavily upon me, Mrs. Huffson.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Huffson said, “has something occurred?”
