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Chapter Seventeen
“I do not conceive a young lady appears to advantage when she is throwing her limbs into contortions and jumping like a rope dancer.”
Private Education: A Practical Plan for the Studies of Young Ladies.
Elizabeth Appleton. 1815.
It never rained but it poured; the Academy’s boiler had malfunctioned, his young fighter Liam had put a foot through an ale-house door, and a marquess had knotted himself in the ropes surrounding the practice ring, which had required them to be cut and rehung.
All the same, Seth whistled to himself as he meandered down the hallway.
Three days had passed since Astwood’s threat at Wimbledon, and thus far nothing dire had occurred, but then he’d also hired a man to patrol the gardens, as such menace should never be taken lightly.
He’d kept it hush, not wishing Matilda to feel indebted, but his daughter had given him that askew look with hand on hip as the burly chap – designed for clouting heads rather than weeding his borders – had lumbered by.
Evenings had been agreeable, with the three of them discussing his day and their lessons over dinner, Chloe playing pianoforte afterwards, yet…
Not that he would ever, for one single moment, begrudge his daughter’s company, but could she not stay at Modesty’s for an evening this week?
Matilda and he could then converse over a bottle of costly wine and a meal of venison. He would discover more of her tastes and passions, her dreams and wants.
Perhaps he could lurk in the library of a night and hope she might descend for a book to aid her sleep – but that sounded so contrived. And in any case, the intimate surroundings and plush sofas would no doubt initiate a more carnal endeavour.
He banished the prurient images, and as he wandered past the ballroom they used for their practice, the door creaked, moss-green eyes peeping around. “Pa? Can I borrow you?”
“Certainly, pet.” He ambled in. “What can I…”
Matilda stood fidgeting foot to foot in the centre of the wooden floor, wearing only white petticoats and…was that one of his shirts? He’d have words with Chloe about that. It drowned her, but nevertheless gaped in all the right places, and he was fairly certain she wore no stays or corset.
“Maybe I shouldn’t…”
But his daughter dragged him by the wrist whilst Matilda tugged down the thin veil of petticoats to obscure her bare porcelain ankles.
Too late to save his eyes from the tormenting vision.
“No, no. I need you,” implored Chloe. “For demonstration purposes. I’ll stand here and you pretend to be a roving scoundrel who grabs me from behind. You know the move.”
Yes, unfortunately for him, he did, and sighing, he removed his jacket and stretched.
They must have practised this a hundred times as it was no mean feat for a slender girl; his lower back had a perpetual ache.
But he lunged and placed an arm about his daughter’s neck.
“Wot ’ave we ’ere?” he asked in his most villainous voice. “A helpless little girlie all alone.” And he rendered his body lax – it hurt less.
“Oh, Sir,” his daughter wittered in her most feeble voice. “Please don’t–”
A brutal stamp on his foot threw him off balance, and then with a shove of her backside into his hip, she seized the arm around her neck, bent forward, thrust a hand behind his head, yanked, levered him from the floor and rolled him off her back, letting the wooden boards take his breath.
“Then,” she explained to her startled governess, “you can stamp a foot in his talliwa–”
“Mercy!” cried Seth.
His devil-child smirked.
“Do you see, Miss Griffin? It’s the element of surprise that makes it possible. Could you do the same?”
“Well, I…” She blinked and pushed her spectacles up her nose. “I could attempt it, one supposes.”
