Page 41 of The Duke's Wicked Widow
“True!” The lassie was skipping ahead. “I wanna getlotsof presents for Christmas, but I have to be careful around the river, Ellie says, so I don’t die before then. Did you know that one time Ifell inthe river? Not this river, a different one, a little one, but I almost drownded.”
“Really?” he murmured, “Ye almostdrowned?” The subtle correction seemed to be lost on the girl, skipping along the pavement on Ellie’s other side. “What happened?”
“Ellie pulled me out. It was summer. My papa got sick last spring, did you know? But Ellie was with me when I fell. Maybe it was a lake, not a river. Did you know my papa? Did you know he was sick?”
He glanced at the woman by his side who was staring straight ahead, her expression barely visible behind the winter bonnet she wore. “I know. It was soon after he married Ellie.”
“They got married right at the start of the year. I remember, because it was a big party. I wasn’t allowed to go, but Ellie told me all about it afterward. Papa got sick right away.”
Instinctively Fawkes covered Ellie’s hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. That must’ve been a shock.”
“It was notrightaway,” she corrected softly. “We had a few weeks together. He…he was sick before we married, but none of us realized…”
Merida dodged around a display of books in front of a shop. “I remember you said Papa was stubborn and stupid not to tell anyone sooner.”
He saw Ellie’s eyes close briefly and felt a small smile tugging at his lips. “Aye, Merida, men can be like that when we get sick. He likely didnae want to admit to himself. Have ye had the sniffles before?”
“Of course!” the girl replied. “Nurse tells me if I run around barefoot, I’ll get the sniffles, but Ellie told me that’s not how gorm teepee works.”
“Germ theory,” Ellie corrected with a groan.
Fawkes found himself chuckling as he turned them onto a busier road. Here there were others who might see them together. Might see the Viscountess Cumnock on the arm of her husband’s bastard cousin.
And he found he didn’t care. His chin rose.
“Do ye want to ken a secret about the sniffles, Merida?”
“Yes!”
“There’s two different kind of sniffles. The girl kind and the boy kind.”
The little one gasped. “Can they make baby sniffles? That’s how babies get made, you know, a girl and a boy—”
Laughing, he interrupted her. “Nay, no’ like that. I mean, the sniffles a girl gets are different from the sniffles a boy gets. If a girl gets the sniffles, she carries a handkerchief and gets on with her life, aye?”
Merida bobbed her head in agreement. “Ihaveto carry a handkerchief because nurse gives me a paddling if I use my sleeve.”
“Well if ye gave those sniffles to a boy, what do ye think would happen?” He didn’t give her a chance to answer. “That boy would likely have to take to his bed for a week, moaning about his head cold and his horrible sneezing and how nae one has ever been as sick as he is, in the history of sick. It’s a much worse case of the sniffles.”
As Merida gaped, Ellietskedand shook her head. “Do not listen to that nonsense, Merida. They are the same sniffles. Both boys and girls get the same sniffles.”
Wide-eyed, the girl turned to Ellie just as a crowd gathered on the embankment came into view. “If they’re the same, why do the boys—”
“Because boys are big babies,” Ellie explained with a sidelong glance at Fawkes, something very much likemirthsparkling in her dark gaze. “They get the same head cold as you or I, and they take to their beds and complain, while you and I would just jolly well get on with things, would we not?”
Merida had burst into giggles. “Fawkes is a big baby!”
But Fawkes didn’t respond to her teasing. He was too intent on the crowd they approached. He wondered if he should steer the females away from it, but Merida’s attention had already been caught.
“Look! Oh, look, Ellie!” She pointed at what had everyone’s attention. “Look, someone’s fallen in, just like I fell in and you scooped me out! You have to scoop them out too, Ellie!”
Fawkes immediately tightened his hold on Ellie, just in case shewasinclined to throw herself down the waterman’s stairs. But he needn’t have bothered.
“The steps are icy, honeybear,” she murmured, pulling free of Fawkes’s hold to gather Merida in her arms. “I am certain someone will—”
“It’s not a person!” the little girl gasped. “Look, it’s a dog! Why’s she taking a swim? This isn’t the time for a swim. It’s so cold—look, she can’t swim!”
They were part of the crowd now and a bent old woman at Merida’s side clucked her tongue and shook her head. “A man tied a brick to its tail, that’s why it’s in there,” she declared, then spat. “Arsehole tossed the poor thing in, then went on his merry way.”
