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“We’re learning that, poppet,” Loren muttered.
Poppet?
Maxine gazed up at him with bright eyes.
Oh my God!
Wasn’t he just the best?
We made it into the house just as Mary was nearly shouting, “By Brigid! The wonders you have wrought! And I’m barely but ten steps inside!” She whirled on us. “Maxine. Come here, child. You and your mother are going to take me on a tour of these delightful changes you’ve made. I don’t want to miss a thing.”
Maxine let Loren go and dashed to Mary.
“Carling, send someone to follow with pen and paper,” Mary demanded. “I might have notes.”
“Right away, milady,” Carling replied, and took off.
Mom looked over her shoulder at me as she pulled Mary and Maxine to the stairs, saying, “First, let’s start in Maxine’s room. I want your opinion. We’re redoing it. There’s this lovely yellow wallpaper that we’ve found.”
“Yellow, my dear?” Mary asked while they went up the steps, those words coming out like, the color of vomit, my dear? “Everyone knows a bedroom should be blue.”
They disappeared up the stairs.
Loren turned me into his arms.
Mm.
This felt good.
When I caught his eyes, I said, “Hi.”
“We’re going to Le Cirque Magique for dinner tonight.”
Nice.
Our first date.
Instead of shouting Yippee! I said, “All right.”
“Tell Idina to pack a case. Your mother’s home is getting crowded. Tonight, you’ll again be staying with me.”
Nice!
“Righty ho,” I agreed, grinning.
He studied my mouth before he kissed the grin right off it.
I was panting when he lifted his head and shared, “Now, I have some things I need to do. I’ll arrive to collect you at seven this eve.”
Ummmmmm…
The brazen schemer!
I squinted my eyes at him and held on when it seemed he was going to let me go.
“That kiss was awesome, my lord, but not so fast.”
His lips twitched.
“Do these things have anything to do with a certain Madam Dupont?” I demanded to know.
“Darling.”
I waited.
Apparently, that was all he was going to say.
“Loren,” I snapped.
“I won’t exert myself. I promise.”
“I should hope not, since you also promised you healed fast, and I would hate to feel the need to sleep alone in my own bed to allow you room to do that.”
He gathered me back to him and put his lips to mine.
“This is most assuredly incentive to see to my health.”
“Indeed,” I agreed.
I felt his lips smile against mine, he kissed me again, this time hella more thoroughly, so I was swaying and dazed when he ended it, lifted up, kissed my forehead and murmured, “See you at seven.”
And then he was away.
Chapter Nineteen
Associates
Satrine
Scratching him under his chin, I carried Mr. Popplewell purring in my arms into the kitchens at the back of the house.
When I arrived, our cook, Mrs. Soames, looked up and smiled.
“Lady Satrine, how lovely.”
I sniffed the air and shared, “I’m accompanying Lord Remington to Le Cirque Magique tonight, and it is solely a testament to how wonderful he is that I go and thus sacrifice experiencing whatever it is you’re cooking for our dinner.”
She blushed.
“Mr. Popplewell tells me he needs chicken,” I informed her.
He purred louder.
“Lady Maxine was in here not an hour ago, getting him a bowl of cod,” she told me.
Mr. Popplewell hissed.
I looked down at the cat. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“Sssssisssy,” he replied irritably.
“You can wait until dinner,” I stated firmly.
He rolled huffily in my arms, leaped out of them, and after shooting me a baleful cat glare, with ginger-ringed tail held high, he waddled out of the kitchens on his white-booted feet.
“That’s the fattest cat I’ve seen in my life,” Mrs. Soames noted.
Down the hall, another hiss was heard.
Mr. Popplewell was not fond of being called fat.
I laughed softly and said, “I fear we do him no favors, spoiling him as we do.”
“I think a savvy but lost creature who has no home, when he finds one, should have everything he wishes for a spell. Don’t you?” Mrs. Soames asked.
I looked into her eyes and answered softly, “Quite right.”
She smiled at me.
I got down to the real business for being there.
“Is Carling in his office?”
“He is indeed, madam.”
I nodded and moved that way. “Thank you.”
Carling’s office was more a hidey hole/wine cellar/liquor storage, probably because the door was banded in iron and had a lock. His desk was shoved in amongst the mess, which included barrels and crates full of who knew what. It was likely Dad-not-Dad made him guard all of this, regardless of how stuffy and almost inoperable it made his office.
He was crammed behind said desk, poring over some papers.
“I daresay we can afford it if one of the staff feels the need of a glass of brandy after having a busy day,” I said quietly. “We hardly need an ironclad door.”
His head shot up right before he shot out of his seat.
“Lady Satrine!”
“Please, do sit,” I invited.
He didn’t, of course.
