Page 4 of Reforming Lord Ragsdale
“Do you ever read?” he asked, his voice gentle.
“Read, John?”
“Yes, Fae. That’s when you open a book and examine its lines from left to right with the object of interpreting the words on the page. Some do it for enlightenment; others for entertainment,” he explained patiently, his insides writhing.
She was silent as she took her hand out of his and gave him her profile. “I think about what I am going to wear and how I should arrange my hair.” She brightened then. “When the delivery boy comes with food, he always jokes a bit and asks what I think about politics.”
“And what do you tell him?”
Fae turned back to regard him, her eyes wide in her flawless face. “Oh, I just laugh.” She gave him a demonstration, her tinkling laughter as lovely as her features.
He grinned then and pulled her up. “Fae, well, it was a stupid question, wasn’t it?”
Her hands went to his neckcloth then, but he removed them and put on his coat again. “Some other time, m’dear.” She was starting in again in her Anglo-Franco babble as he closed the door quietly behind him.
The evening sky was spitting out snow as he hurriedalong the street. If he didn’t feel any worse for his encounter with his mistress, he also felt no better. When he returned home and allowed Lasker this time to help him out of his overcoat, he suddenly realized that it wouldn’t take much to send him off to Norfolk finally, to an empty estate and a full wine cellar.I have avoided it too long, he thought. He stood indecisively in the hall, wondering where his mother was.
“She is at cards, my lord,” Lasker pronounced.
“Lasker, you are amazing,” Lord Ragsdale murmured. “I don’t even have to speak to get an answer from you.”
“Just so, my lord,” Lasker agreed as they walked along together. He opened the door to the morning room and closed it quietly behind him.
Lady Ragsdale looked up from her solitaire and patted the chair beside her. John shook his head and stood over her, looking down at her hand.
“Mother, you’re cheating again,” he commented.
“Of course I am,” she agreed equably. “How do you expect me to win at solitaire unless I cheat?” She took his hand suddenly and kissed it. “My dear, whatever is the matter with you these days?”
He sat down then and, leaning back, stuck his long legs out in front of him. “I don’t know, Mother.”
She smiled, glanced sideways at him, and then cheated again. “You remind me of someone on the verge of something.”
He smiled back and returned the card she had just laid down to her hand. “If I had uttered such a nonsensical bit of illogic back at Brasenose in my Oxford years, my don would have kicked me down the stairs!” He tipped his head back and stared at the ceiling. “As it is, you are probably right.”
“Very well, then, son. Go to bed.”
“Yes, Mama.” Lord Ragsdale stood up and stretched. “By the way, it is snowing again.”
While he watched, she put the offending card back in its place before her. “We are still going to Oxford tomorrow.”
“Yes, Mama,” he repeated, smiling slightly. He may not have apologized in words, but she understood.How dear you are to me, he thought as he admired her calm beauty.Perhaps if I am extremely lucky, one day I will have a daughter who looks like you.
She blew a kiss to him as he stood in the open door. “Son, you have a chance to redeem yourself tomorrow.”
“Hmm?”
“My dresser is not feeling good enough to travel. Emma Costello will travel in her stead and look after Sally and me.”
He sighed, started his hand toward his forehead, and then dropped it. “Then I will be on horseback, madam,” he replied crisply as he left the room.
Robert Claridge was still up, but only just, when Lord Ragsdale knocked on his cousin’s door. When he opened it to Robert’s sleepy “Come in,” his young cousin sat up quickly in bed, as though trying to appear at attention.
“For heaven’s sake, relax!” John admonished as he closed the door and sat himself down beside his cousin’s bed. “I am only your cousin, and by the eternal, I am a stupid one. Forgive me for my outburst this afternoon, Robert,” he apologized simply.
Robert scratched his head and lay back down again. He punched his pillow into a comfortable ball and looked at his cousin. “Don’t trouble your head about it, my lord,” he said. “My aunt Staples explained why you haven’t much love for the Irish.”
“No, I haven’t,” he agreed, grateful to his mother all over again for smoothing his path with his young relative. “But that’s no excuse for such rudeness to your servant.”
