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Victoria said to Damaris, who was tugging on her skirt for attention, “Should you like to go riding with your Uncle Rafael and me?”
The little girl shouted with glee. “Nanny. I want to go. I will go.”
“Little terror,” said Nanny Black fondly.
“Have you a proper mount, Victoria?”
“Toddy’s well enough. Since I carry Damaris in front of me, I wouldn’t want to ride that ill- humored brute of yours, Rafael.”
“Gadfly isn’t ill-humored, he’s simply spirited, like my bride. He knows I’m his master and he obeys me, just as—”
“I don’t think Damaris will need a coat, Nanny,” Victoria said quickly, not paying any heed to her husband.
“Should you like me to be your servant until we get downstairs?” With his words, Rafael swung the little girl up on his shoulders. He settled her thin legs on either side of his face and grinned at his wife. “Ready?”
“Damaris,” Victoria said in a clear, very sweet voice, “be certain to hold on tight—to your uncle’s hair.”
Rafael howled, more for Damaris’s benefit than from scalp pain.
“Little terror,” said Nanny Black.
The three of them were met by Elaine in the entryway downstairs. “Where are you taking her?”
“Riding,” said Victoria.
“Mama,” said Damaris, and tugged on Rafael’s hair, “this isn’t Papa, it’s Uncle Rafill.”
Elaine, Victoria noted, looked a bit pale this morning, and there were shadows beneath her eyes. She said, quickly, “Are you feeling all right?”
“No,” said Elaine. “I’m increasing, you know, Victoria.”
“Yes, I’m sorry. It’s just that you look so beautiful, I tend to forget.”
Elaine relaxed visibly. “Do take good care of my daughter, Rafael.”
Rafael winced at a particularly enthusiastic tug on his hair. “If she doesn’t do me in first.”
“Little terror,” said Victoria in her best imitation of Nanny Black, and Damaris went into gales of laughter.
“She does know how to control herself, does she not?” Rafael suddenly looked a bit worried.
Victoria said with a perfectly straight face, “For the most part. Only if she gets excited will she forget—”
Elaine interrupted, “Of course she is perfectly fine, Rafael. Really, Victoria, you shouldn’t tease him so.”
“He deserves it,” said Victoria. “We’re going to Fletcher’s Pond, Elaine, and will have lunch there. I’ll have Damaris back in time for her nap.”
It was Flash who lifted Damaris up to Victoria. “Your name is odd, like Uncle Rafull’s,” Damaris told him from her perch in front of Victoria.
“Rifall, hmmm,” said Flash, giving his captain a drawing smile. “Well, then, little miss, you shall call me Mr. Savory. Doesn’t that add a certain dignity? I’m a proper dignified person, you know.”
“You’re funny,” said Damaris. “I’m ready, Uncle Refill.”
“Yes, ma’am. We will see you later, Mr. Savory.”
Victoria let Rafael go where he wished to. He drew his stallion to a halt every few minutes to view a prospect that he remembered from bygone years. At one point he turned to Victoria and said, “I believe Squire Esterbridge lives just over there. Should you like to visit him and his sterling specimen of a son? Old David, the bully-coward and spineless sod?”
She shook her head, frowning at him. What an odd thing to call David. He’d certainly been gullible, but he’d always been nice enough to her before that long-ago afternoon at Fletcher’s Pond.
