Page 21 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
“But ithurts!” Pansy kicked again, punctuating her pain.
Ada wrangled her legs into submission. “It will hurt less if you let me apply this poultice and wrap it up. How did you get the scrape anyway? We’re not in the country anymore. There are fewer trees to climb.”
Pansy wiped a tear from her eye. “I saw a cat and ran after it.”
Ada lifted worried eyes to her sister’s face. “Did it scratch you?”
Pansy shook her head. “I fell, and the rocks scratched me.”
“Ah. Well, don’t go chasing cats, yes?”
“No.” Pansy’s chin could chisel marble.
Ada peered at her closely. “No, you will not chase cats or…”
Pansy peered just as closely at Ada. “No, I donotpromise to not chase cats. I like cats. I want one.”
Ada reminded her, “Nicholas sneezes around them. You know we cannot have one.”
“Sarah said I could.”
“Did you tell Sarah about Nicholas?”
Pansy grinned. She loved her twin cousins, but she had something of a war with the eldest of them, Nicholas.
“What about Nicky?”
Ada looked over her shoulder.
Her stepmother stood in the doorway, a slight frown between her graceful, dark brows.
Ada finished wrapping up Pansy’s scrapes and stood. “He’s allergic to cats.”
Sarah’s frown deepened, then she raised both brows in Pansy’s direction and crossed her arms over her chest.
Pansy kicked her legs, seemingly not caring she’d just been found out. “See my scrape, Sarah?” She pointed at her knees. “It hurts.”
Ada leaned in close to Pansy. “You’re smiling. If you wish Sarah to think you contrite, stick the lower lip out a bit, and for goodness’ sake, try to summon tears.”
Pansy grinned even wider, hopped off the trunk, and bolted from the room.
Sarah sighed. “Contrite and Pansy are not two words I’d expect to have any affiliation. She’s usually full of reasons explaining why what she’s done is quite right.”
Ada turned and sat on the trunk with a sigh. “You’ve grown to know her well in the last months.”
As Ada had grown to know her stepmother well. She remembered her mother fondly within a well-preserved corner of her heart. But she’d died, and five years without a mother had left Ada aching for maternal affection Sarah seemed happy to provide. Barely two months had passed, and Ada could not help but think of Sarah asmother, instead ofstepmother.
Sarah sat beside her on the trunk and patted her arm. “Are you excited for Lola’s ball? It’s only a week away.”
Ada nodded carefully. Excited, yes, a bit. She’d not given it much thought since meeting Lord Albee. She’d been too busy trying to help him. Unfortunately, all her attempts had failed. The man had kissed her, proving her unfit to help him reform himself. Or perhaps verifying he could not be improved. Whatever the kiss had proved, it had also signaled her failure, and that stung, even if the kiss had been sweet, soft, and seeking. But the intent behind the kiss had been mean. He’d intended to scare her. She’d realized that after she’d run, pulse pounding, back to the rogue-less safety of her aunt’s sitting room.
“Have you heard from Lucas?” Sarah asked. “Your father gave him leave to write to you.”
“I have.” Just yesterday, in fact. It had arrived after she’d returned home from Lola’s. She’d been lying in bed, thinking of how a kiss like Lord Albee’s, if given for the right reasons, could change a woman’s life. Such a waste for that kind of kiss to be used as a weapon to scare, to hurt. Then her maid had popped in with a letter, and she’d thought… she’d hoped… but it had been from Lucas, not Lord Albee.
“And?”
“And Lucas is well. He will be in London soon but did not say precisely when.”
