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“Oh, Jesus,” Mark snapped when a large furry bundle suddenly landed in his lap. Red hot shards of pain immediately lanced his thighs and he pushed himself roughly away from the table in a desperate attempt to get away from the pain. Epithets hovered on his lips and, despite his best efforts blasphemy got the better of him.
He glanced down to see the round, feral eyes glaring hatefully up at him. A loud hiss broke the silence and was accompanied with a yowl of protest when Harriett grabbed the furry beast and tried to yank it off Mark’s legs. The resultant pain exploded ever higher as the spiteful claws dug in.
“Will someone get this God damned beast off me,” he snarled. Desperate fingers plucked at the paws that seemed to come from nowhere, over and over, until sweat began to bead his brow.
“Mark Bosville, using the Lord’s name in vain is a sacrilege. You should be ashamed,” Miss Smethwick snapped and wagged her finger across the table at him.
Mark gritted his teach against the pain in his knees and watched Harriett tug the rotund stomach of the growling fur ball and hold it firmly against her chest. Mr Bentwhistle lunged forward and pulled the back legs away which left Mark free to stagger backward, blessedly relieved to be free.
“Muffin, you naughty boy, what do you think you are doing?” Beatrice crooned as she pushed her way around the table and relieved Harriett of her precious pet. She blithely ignored the yowls and growls that came from the feline predator and left Mark to brush the blood stains off his trousers as she scurried out of the room.
“I don’t know about you lot, but I certainly need a drink,” Alan Bentwhistle growled with a fervency that matched his determined strides toward the brandy decanter.
“Are you alright?” Harriett felt her cheeks blush when she realised that she was staring down at his trousers.
“Good, Lord, that thing has drawn blood,” Henrietta gasped in a voice that was somewhere between mirth and horror.
“It’s not funny, mother, that damned thing is dangerous,” Mark grumbled. He shot Miss Smethwick a filthy glare when she chided him for his epithet. Her objections were the last thing he was interested in.
“Did it scratch you?” He demanded and lifted Harriett’s hands so that he could study them more closely. He cursed at the large red welts on the back of her smooth skin, and turned to glare at Beatrice when she re-entered the room minus her precious Muffin.
“Do you have a cloth and some water? There are wounds here,” he demanded.
“I am sorry. I don’t know what came over him. Muffin is usually such a docile little thing,” Beatrice replied apologetically before she returned to the kitchen.
Mark snorted and glared balefully at the empty doorway. His thighs stung like the very devil himself had been gnawing on them.
Several long moments later, everyone finally settled into the circle of chairs in the parlour. As happened in Harriett’s house, the table had been pushed against the far wall to allow everyone to be able to sit a little more comfortably, although the room was still crowded.
“I really don’t think that we should continue with the Psychic Circle tonight,” Babette announced. “I would just like to take a moment if I may to congratulate the happy couple.” She gave Harriett a mock stare. “Although, it would have been nice to have been forewarned before the meeting.” She still couldn’t quite make out if Mark’s announcement was true, or some sort of strange scheme, but she sincerely hoped that the interest in the man’s eyes was an honest emotion and he had every intention of doing right by her niece.
“Did you not know?” Miss Smethwick gasped as she gave Mark and Harriett a stern glare. “What do you have to hide?”
“Nothing,” Mark snapped. He gave her his most official ‘don’t question me’ face and accompanied it with a dark frown. “It has been something we have kept to ourselves until the time was right. Given the ridiculous warnings given to Harriett, I think everyone should know of her association to me. There may be people idiotic enough to threaten my future wife, but should they actually be so bold as to do something, they will find themselves facing a very determined constabulary full of police officers.”
“Oh my, it’s like joining a family of constables,” Tuppence gasped. While she was very glad for her friend, given the look on Harriett’s face when Mark had told them, the announcement had been just as much as a shock to her as it had been to everyone else. Her friend’s reaction was enough to make Tuppence study her friend a little more closely, and a tendril of suspicion snuck up her spine. Was this some sort of ruse because of the threat? At that moment Mark glanced across at his future bride. The intimate look of adoration clearly written on his handsome face immediately allayed her doubts. She hadn’t even known that Harriett had been courting Mark Bosville, or had any acquaintance with him prior to the night of Minerva’s death. Clearly, she hadn’t spent as much time with her friend as she ought to have done, and immediately made a mental note to correct that at the earliest opportunity.
“Why don’t we all have a drink to celebrate? I made some cakes this afternoon,” Beatrice suggested as she returned to the room with water, cloth and a tray of cakes.
Harriett’s stomach rumbled at the large plate of freshly baked buns Beatrice placed on the small table in the centre of the room. She watched Madame Humphries and Miss Hepplethwaite help themselves to several of the cakes and caught sight of their carpet bag which lay open on the floor. She nudged mark and nodded in the direction of what was clearly a fake hand made out of a sock and a glove. Mark studied the contents of the carpet bag and wished that he could get just a couple of minutes alone with it.
Harriett leaned toward Mark and in a voice that was barely a whisper said, “Now why do you suppose they have a false arm in there?”
Mark looked ruefully at her. “Because they are a couple of fraudsters that we need to keep an eye on.”
“I would like to raise a toast to Mark and Harriett,” Beatrice cried and smiled supremely at everyone.
Harriett smiled and accepted the congratulations, and just hoped that Mark knew what he was doing.
“To the happy couple,” Mr Bentwhistle added and lifted his glass toward them before he took a large gulp of his brandy. Mark studied each person in the room and tried to watch as many reactions as possible as they drank their celebratory toast. Luckily, nobody clutched their throat and, half an hour later, began to gather themselves in preparation to leave.
“I think that I will say goodnight now,” Babette sighed as she glanced at the clock. “Charles will still be at the pub so I may just go and have a chat with the ladies before I go home. Harriett, if you are ready?”
“I will walk Harriett home, if that’s alright with you?” Mark suggested. He glanced hesitantly at his mother and mentally cursed his luck. This was the first opportunity he had to spend some time alone with Harriett in order to really get to know her, but his mother would need to be escorted home, so had to accompany them to Harriett’s house.
“Would you mind if I tagged along?” Henrietta asked Babette.
“Of course not. You are more than welcome,” Babette enthused. “We can discuss details about the nuptials.”
