Page 29 of Plucked By the Orc

“I say,” Iris said quietly as the maid helped Mother pour tea into porcelain cups. “The weather has been. Marvelous. This week. But due to change.”

Much to Felton’s disappointment, Iris turned away from him.

“Do you not think so? Vicar Swinton?”

“I do!” the vicar replied with an enthusiasm misaligned to the subject. “I was commenting on it before you arrived.”

“Hmm.” Iris eyed the sponge cake Mother had asked the maid to slice for them. But she remained perfectly composed as she bypassed Felton’s fawning and turned her attention to the boy’s mother.

“And how. Does her ladyship’s health. Fare. Well, I gather?”

Lady Maberly fiddled with the brilliant pink and orange Orcan sapphire on her ring. “I should say I could do without the ache in my sciatica muscles, but otherwise, I’ve no complaints.”

“Mercy me, Mother,” Felton declared. “Were you not complaining of a persistent pain in your feet just on the way here?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the viscountess huffed.

As this tête-à-tête between Felton and his mother continued, neither agreeing precisely on what the other had said during the course of the coach ride, Mother passed a cup of tea to Iris. Duncan watched intently as Iris accepted, handling it with even more care than he had instructed, sure to turn it properly in its saucer so she might lift from the fragile handle. Which was hardly big enough for her slender index and middle fingers to slip through. For that reason, Duncan had given up on the tea of the English long ago. Give him a hearty ale. And in a tankard fit for an orc’s hands, such as those in which the English served pints of their own passable ale at public houses.

The maid came around with a pewter serving bowl filled with tiny sugar cubes. Iris nodded once, and the maid used a matching set of tiny tongs to plop a cube into Iris’s cup. Iris then took the silver teaspoon in her other hand, so slowly and quietly that one would scarcely detect the motion were they not paying as much mind as Duncan.

In emulating the moves of theton, Iris retained a deliberateness in her actions that might have been stiff or affected. And yet Iris’s subtle detachment from the role of a lady visiting another lady, as happened hundreds of times over in London on any given day of the week, lent an ethereal quality to her person.A quality that Duncan had naught to do with but found entrancing, the same as everyone else present did.

For the space of twenty seconds, as Lady Maberly finally admitted that she may have mentioned a numbness in her feet in passing, Iris opened her lovely eyes astonishingly wide, and he was certain he saw alarm in them.

His heart thumped maddeningly.Maybe she didn’t remember how to consume tea and scones properly. Or she had nothing more to say to the company at hand. She might make some unseemly sound. Albion would win the flutter and take Wintermist, after all.

But that panic dissipated as quickly as it had formed, and Iris stirred the sugar into her tea in a smooth, clockwise motion.

“At least. The unseasonably warm weather.” Iris drew a fresh breath. The pink slip of her tongue lapped her lower lip. And then she continued in her soft and deliberate manner. “Must do wonders. For your health. Viscountess.”

“Thank you, yes,” Lady Maberly said. “But how astonishing that I have not seen you before. Are you debuting? Is this your first season in London?”

Duncan’s hands clenched into meaty fists. They had rehearsed this narrative several times over, but it remained to Iris alone to relay it properly.

“I have indeed. Only now found myself. In London,” Iris replied, careful to keep her pinkie finger extended as she took a sip of her tea, as Mrs. Thompson had made a point of reminding her this morning. “My family hails. From the North. You see.”

“How extraordinary,” Vicar Swinton said, leaning forward with a curiosity Duncan found off-putting. Weren’t these Englishmen raised to nod politely at whatever a lady might tell them? “Your accent doesn’t sound northern at all.”

“Quite right,” Albion added, apparently deciding he needed to insert himself into this dialogue at the least helpful time. If Albion thought some disruption like this would be enough toget Wintermist back, however, he severely misjudged Miss Iris Gabbert.

“Oh, I was not raised. In the North,” Iris told them in her breathless manner. “I was sent away. At a young age. You see.”

“I believe we will find Lady Iris has many extraordinary qualities once you know her well,” Mother commented. “Wouldn’t you agree, Duncan?”

But his mother’s voice scarcely registered. Intent onnotgawking at Iris, he focused on Felton, who stared mesmerized at his lovely new acquaintance. The boy slathered some of the whipped butter from Mother’s pot on a scone, causing the thing to nearly crumble under the weight of the condiment.

And yet, the way this little dandy dared to admire Iris openly struck Duncan as thoroughly inappropriate. Human society had strict rules for furthering an acquaintance between an unmarried lady and an unmarried gentleman, and staring at a woman as though she was performing in a circus certainly didn’t count among them.

“Where were you raised then, Lady Iris?” Felton asked. “I daresay your accent is most pleasing, but I can’t place it.”

Iris lowered her gaze, focusing on a scone and wiggling the fingers on her free hand as she did when Chef Laurent’s latest meal was ready to be served.

“Oh. I shan’t talk about that,” she replied, softening her voice even more. “It was a most unpleasant experience. For me. I would not wish to go into detail. If it so pleases.”

“Dear me!” Felton exclaimed, the sides of his throat growing red with splotches. “Of course not, my lady. How rude of me to ask.”

“You. Do not strike me. As a gentleman. Who is rude. At all.”

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