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His skin did have an unhealthy pallor. Alice would have to do something about that. Before she left for India she would make it her mission to introduce a more healthy diet to the household.
“The populace of England has a horror of uncooked vegetables,” she said. “Yet a diet must be sufficiently varied with vegetables, fruits, and nuts. Mr. Shelley has published quite a revelatory treatise on the subject, if you would care to read it, Your Grace.”
“Grow in the dirt, they do, vegetables,” grumbled March. “With grubs and other nasty things.”
“Precisely why we wash them,” said Alice.
“I don’t like washing. Don’t trust it,” replied March.
Alice narrowed her eyes. “I can see that.” The footman needed a good dousing.
“Well la-di-da,” he replied, sticking his nose in the air. “Ain’t we fine.”
“Mr. March, this is my wife you’re talking to,” said Nick. He smiled at her, a private smile... a promise, and Alice’s irritation with his unconventional serving staff vanished.
“Said you’d never marry,” March grumbled. “Wives are too much trouble, you said. She’ll try to change things around here, just you wait.”
He all but stuck his tongue out. What a churlish little fellow.
“Are you married, my boy?” the duke asked Nick with a puzzled expression in his watery gray eyes. “Can that be true? Why, you’re only fifteen!”
Alice blinked. “I think you are mistak—”
“Actually,” the tall, spindly butler with the long, grave face who seemingly doubled as a footman, said, “he’s thirty years, two months, twenty days and twelve hours old.”
“Thank you, Bill,” said Nick gravely.
“Madam, I must protest,” the duke said, setting down his fork with a bang against the table. “The marriage must be annulled. You are robbing the cradle. You are...” his voice trailed into silence as he gazed at her raptly “...as comely as a cymbidium blooming upon a craggy mountaintop. Just like your mother. Beautiful Agatha. I hope she will dine with us tomorrow.”
“Why, thank you,” Alice said. “A cymbidium is a genus of—?”
“Orchid,” Hatherly finished. “And we’d better not encourage the topic or we’ll all be trapped here for hours.”
“It’s quite rude to interrupt a lady when she is speaking,” the duke scolded. “Didn’t you learn anything at your expensive boarding school, you young rascal? Do forgive my son, dear lady.” The duke inclined his head. “He’s still growing.”
Alice very much doubted that. If he grew any wider in the shoulders he wouldn’t be able to fit through doorways. She nodded politely. “Of course.”
“As I was saying, the Cymbidium is a hardy genus of orchids in the family of... in the family of...”
“I’ve heard of your celebrated collection,” Alice interrupted, seeing that the duke was flustered by his inability to remember his botany.
“Beautiful lady,” said the duke, staring at her dreamily. “You remind me of a young Marie Antoinette. She had such melting eyes and rosebud lips. Her dimple was in her chin, though. Such a charming dimple. Ah...”
He plucked a handkerchief from his sleeve and touched it to his nose. “I was a great favorite of hers at the court of Versailles. I once had the distinct honor of presenting her with a rare black orchid for her conservatory. She wanted to run away with me. She was madly in love with me. It’s the nose, you see. She did admire a stately nose. But, alas, she is gone. Too soon. Too soon.”
He blew the stately article in question noisily into his handkerchief.
“Ah... it is quite an impressive nose,” said Alice.
“Thank you, my dear. It’s all in the stories a nose has to tell.” He placed a finger on the bump in the bridge of his nose. “Now, this particular bump was received during my first voyage to South America, when our ship encountered the dread pirate—”
Nick clanged his fork against his wineglass. “I’d like to propose a toast.”
The duke’s eyes lit. “Oh, I love toasts.” He raised his glass. “What are we toasting, my boy? Wait a moment. Are you old enough to be drinking? Seems to me that young lads in my day were only allowed a thimbleful of claret. And here you’ve had at least three glasses.”
“Four.” He rose and held his glass toward Alice. “To my wife, the Lady Hatherly, health, wealth, and a westerly wind.”
“Wind?” scoffed the duke. “One mustn’t wish for one’s wife to pass wind. Manners, my boy. Manners.”
