Page 50 of The Best of Friends
“I am pleased to hear that.” He gave a quick swirl of ending notes. “For the sake of English cultural heritage, I bring this monstrosity Charlie has created to a close.” Toss stood and stepped from the pianoforte, pausing to dip a bow to Mater. “My sincerest condolences that you have such a graceless lump for a son.”
“His father’s fault,” Mater said, looking almost serious.
Charlie, a little out of breath but not out of energy, responded with a smile. “I suspect Father was actually a very good dancer.”
“He was, but given the choice between grace and humor, he could not resist indulging in the latter.”
Artemis hooked her arm through Charlie’s. “That sounds extremely familiar.”
“The important question,” Toss said, “is do I get a point for enduring that display?”
“If you do, so does Daria.” Newton, ever the barrister, gave a serious answer.
Tobias crossed to the pianoforte and held a hand out to his sister. Toss silently pleaded with her to refuse the offer and remain there with him. But she didn’t.
“The more important question is,” Charlie said, moving with the others to gather the furniture they had moved out of the way for dancing, “How many times can Toss or Daria receive a point for doing something he or she has already done simply because it isstillsomething their respective families would not approve of? Because while I certainly want to see Toss win, I’d be embarrassed to know our team was victorious by being boring.”
“While I suspect I am not actually losing the game, I do think I need to argue in favor of receiving points for anything I can,” Toss said.
“I’ve been keeping very close score,” Charlie said, “and I can tell you that you and Daria currently have the exact same number of points.”
Daria was just then sitting in a chair her brother had led her to. “Then I must object to points given for playing the pianoforte.”
Her objection, made in a theatrical tone of panic, set the group to laughing once more. Toss stepped away from the pianoforte, unsure where he meant to sit since the seat beside her was occupied by her brother. There was no place he’d rather sit, which somehow made choosing a spot all the more difficult.
Colm was the next to speak. “Does Mr. Comstock the Elder object specifically to ‘O, Dear! What Can the Matter Be?’? That might earn the gentlemen’s team a point without simply repeating the ‘point for playing’ claim.”
“Laurence the Lout despises asking people what’s the matter,” Charlie tossed out in a tone that would never be believed to be serious.
Newton joined in the insistence. “The man rages against the very idea of inquiring after a person’s state of being. Does soconstantly.”
Artemis looked over at her Huntresses with a dry look of annoyance. “I think it would be best to award them a point for this, or they will never stop.”
“And as they cannot even manage to name themselves, I think we need to allow them some intellectual slack,” Eve said. She even clicked her tongue as if it were a tremendous shame.
Toss met the eyes of his gentlemen associates. “We really do need to name ourselves. The Huntresses will mock us mercilessly until we do.”
“I would suggest corresponding on the matter with Scott and Fennel and Mr. Seymour,” Mater said. “Charlie is his father’s son and his uncle Stanley’s nephew. Leave the matter to him and you’ll be known to all and sundry as the Puddingheads or some such thing.”
Charlie gave them all a look of growing intrigue and excitement.
“No,” Newton said firmly.
“If you finish this Season without having decided what to call yourselves, we likelywillcall you the Puddingheads simply because it will be so fitting,” Artemis said.
“Would I get a point for being pathetic?” Toss asked.
The room burst forth in laughter once more. So much about being dragged to London against his preferences had been frustrating and demoralizing. But moments like these gave him hope.
He looked over at Daria and found her smiling back at him. Moments likethis onegave him more than just hope. They gave him a glimpse of a future worth working for. He felt in his soul a reason, in addition to his passion for it and his independence, to find a place for himself in the world of music. She had inspired more than the underpinnings of a tune. She was inspiringhim.
But then Daria glanced over at Colm, who smiled back at her, and Toss’s heart simply dropped into his stomach, where it most certainly did not belong.
Colm was very new to the group, so Toss hadn’t seen him interact much with Daria. And he’d been too distracted or too unobservant to make note ofhowthey’d interacted. Was this a budding spark between them? Surely they were simply friends. That was what Daria called her connection to Toss as well. Friends. The best of friends, yes, but friends.
Until he sorted out a future for himself and distance enough from Laurence to protect anyone sharing that future, he needed to remember that friends, best or otherwise, was all he was truly in a position to be for anyone.
“Do you suppose that between all of us, we could gather or borrow enough horses to go for a ride?” Eve asked. “We don’t get to ride often when we’re in London, and it would be so lovely.”
