Page 19 of Plucked By the Orc

He satisfied himself with the notion that Miss Gabbert had not noticed. And since this belief kept the entire situation bearable, he clung to it, even as Iris Gabbert’s lips, murmuring the lessons he’d planned for the day, continued to make the throbbing in the most sensitive parts of his body worse. Or better, depending on how one viewed it, but not a sensation he could afford now.

He tried to remember that Iris Gabbert was most decidedly not Lady Margaret Hathaway. For all of Miss Gabbert’s mischievousness, she’d given no hint of cruelty.

“Let us commence with your lessons, madam,” he said curtly, his unsheathed hands firmly clasped behind him. “We haven’t a moment to waste.”

Chapter Seven

“Happy ‘ens are horribly ‘aughty.” Iris paused and looked up at Duncan to see his response. Her tutor. Her tormentor, more like.

For the past few days, they’d spent hour after hour on these enunciation lessons so that she could learn how to speak like a bleeding lady. And though she was trying her mightiest, she wasn’t convinced she had it yet.

“I said three times, Miss Gabbert.” As usual, Duncan Higgins’s broad features betrayed nothing of his feelings. He merely stood toward the back of the library, listening to her and scribbling in his blasted notebook with the nib of a quill. One of these nights, she was going to sneak into his library and get a look at those notes.

Right now, she valued her sleep too much to bother. Well, not valued exactly. More like she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the goose down pillow.

“Repeat it,” he told her. “You’ve almost got the hang of this.”

Inhaling, she focused again on the tongue twister Duncan had presented for her lesson this morning, determined not to let him notice any of her self-doubt.

“Happy hens are horribly ‘aughty.”

“Better. But I still didn’t hear the first sound of the last word.” His mouth puckered as it did when he was demonstrating. “Haughty.”

“That’s what I said!” she protested.

“Madam, I am right here, not five paces from you, and I assure you that you did not pronounce the final ‘h.’ Try it again.”

Iris expelled the word with her lips in the same shape as Duncan had shown her. “Happy hens are horribly haughty.”

She gulped, out of breath from making that bleeding “h” sound. All of these “h’s” left her feeling winded. It was quicker leaving them out, but if something was easier or faster, it was likely not how thetontackled it.

“Much better,” Duncan said. “I told you. Three times is the charm indeed.”

Though she still had to catch her breath, Iris realized she was flattered. She was always flattered when he praised her.

No matter how exhausting the lessons.

Over the past few days, after taking her fill of the spread the cook left out on the sideboard for breakfast, she joined Duncan in the library. They reviewed the cards inscribed with tongue twisters and sketches of the throat and mouth to show her what should happen when she pronounced words like a proper lady.

His goal was to get through twenty cards before breaking for luncheon, and while that was a high and mighty objective, she found the scents drifting from the kitchen downstairs a powerful motivation to move her tongue the way Duncan insisted it should. He was a clever one, he was.

The meals were the most exquisite she’d ever tasted, and then some—no more eel or turnip pasties on Iris Gabbert’s plate. ForDuncan Higgins, only the finest dishes were acceptable. Though she had heard him grumble over his chef’s struggle with Orcan food, as far as she was concerned, there was none to compare.

The cook prepared mackerel roasted with fennel leaves to impart a delicate flavor, spicy mulligatawny soup, which Duncan insisted had grown in popularity in the Hidden Realm just as it had in London, and savory potato pies. Iris had only made a passing mention to Duncan of a love for gingerbread cake when Cheffie served it as pudding that very night.

Which wasn’t fair. How could a girl resist a man who kept her so well-fed? But then she needed to keep up her strength. That’s all. Her lessons went on for eight hours and more daily with hardly a break for one of them sumptuous meals.

Anyway, there was plenty enough to occupy her time. When he wasn’t putting his cards before her and making her utter all sorts of nonsense, Duncan was placing a heavy book on her head and having her cross the room without letting the blessed thing fall. She’d wobbled like some poor sap on a pirate’s ship made to walk the plank, she did.

Even worse, he insisted she repeat the exercise the following day. In heels rather than her customary leather half-boots. He had procured a pair of satin slippers with a short heel from the Burlington Arcade. They were cunning little things, cream-colored so she could have them dyed if she fancied, with criss-cross ribbons like a ballerina’s. Pretty as they were, how was a girl supposed to walk in them?

That was the point, though.Humans complicate matters unnecessarily.Hadn’t Duncan Higgins said as much when they first met? To pass as a lady, Iris needed to slow her pace, take care with her gait, and pretend to be someone raised to enter a room as though she owned the place. As though everyone else had to plan their moves around hers.

A woman who never imagined wasting time meant neglecting hours she might have spent earning enough money for a doss house. A true lady would never imagine herself reduced to such circumstances.

The more she learned, the more Iris realized how much more she still needed to learn. Not only the enunciation lessons but practicing the only topics deemed appropriate for conversation: the weather, health, if one has caught sight of a member of the royal family, particularly the Prince Regent himself, or had traveled recently, perhaps to Bath or Brighton, or, better still, the picturesque Lake District. Iris hadn’t been to any of these places, but apparently that didn’t matter. She should only inquire about the recent travels of others and make polite indications that it all sounded marvelous, regardless of whether she thought it sounded marvelous or not.

So she kept busy as a bee. And at first, it hadn’t bothered her a pinch that she ate alone. But the more they got on with the lessons, the more it occurred to her that it might be pleasant to have company when she took luncheon. For as strict and demanding as Duncan Higgins could be, he didn’t have her fooled. There was something more to him, a lightness behind all that brooding, and she wanted to take some time to find out more.

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