Page 77 of The Virtues of Christmas
The lads had straggled in as the morning wore on. Even Detwiler had made it in before noon, but nothing about Dougal’s day had gone right. He’d had to fetch George down from the top of the awning, Jake had slipped and cut his knee on a patch of ice, and the bakeshop had remained closed.
“For Mrs. Horner to take the day off was brilliant,” Harry crowed, swinging into Dougal’s office uninvited. “Every other broadsheet I had has already sold out, and folk are clamoring for her final column tomorrow. They’re more interested in our advice than in Father Christmas’s visit.”
Harry had been a font of nervous cheer since assuring Dougal that Patience had arrived safely to her home and that she’d taken breakfast with her.
“I’m not angry with you, Harry,” Dougal said. “I was dishonest, and that’s ungentlemanly. Sooner or later, Patience would have learned my middle name.” At the altar perhaps. What a drama would have ensued then.
Harry took the seat opposite Dougal’s desk. “Why did you lie to her, Dougal?”
George hopped up on the desk and spread himself out on the blotter. The cat’s expression was more critical than curious.Yes, why lie to the woman you want to spend the rest of your life with?
“I have no excuses. I made an expedient decision last summer in the best interests of the business—and its employees—and then didn’t rectify the situation. I don’t blame Patience—”
“Excuse me, Mr. MacHugh,” Detwiler said from the doorway.
“Yes?”
“You’ve callers, sir. Ladies.”
What else could go wrong on this blasted day? “Send them in, Detwiler. Harry, see if the bakeshop is open yet. We could use some crumpets.”
Detwiler ushered in the single greatest concentration of female beauty the offices of MacHugh and Sons had ever seen. Four red-headed females assembled in Dougal’s office, four fine young ladies. They weren’t individually stunning, but each woman was attractive, and everything, from her bonnet ribbons to her gloves, to the trim on the collar of her velvet cloak, murmured of good taste and excellent breeding.
“Dougal P. MacHugh, ladies,” he said, bowing and coming around his desk. “Won’t you have a seat? I’ve sent the boy for sweets, and I’m always—”
“Don’t bother attempting to charm us,Professor Pennypacker,” said one of the ladies. She wore blue spectacles and the plainest cloak of the four. When she’d taken a seat, the others did likewise.
Dougal remained on his feet, for these lovely creatures were ladies. They weren’t Patience, though, and Dougal wanted to pitch the lot of them into the snow and go findhislady. If he’d made Patience cry…
“May I ask who has the pleasure of reproaching me?”
The women exchanged a look, then George leaped into the lap of the one wearing the spectacles.
“What a delightful creature,” she said as George’s purr reverberated across the office. “We are just come from a call on Miss Patience Friendly, sir, and as her friends, we must express concern regarding your dealings with her. Because no one is on hand to see to the civilities, I will introduce myself. I’m Megan Windham, and these are my sisters, Elizabeth, Charlotte, and Anwen.”
Dougal bowed to each in turn, while in the back of his mind an ominous bell tolled. A publisher knew London Society, though he rarely mingled among its titled members. Windham was the family name associated with the Moreland dukedom, and these people were Patience’s friends.
Her very unhappy friends.
“Ladies, what may I do for you?”
“Do have a seat,” said Miss Charlotte Windham. “We’re intent on a thorough scold.”
“I deserve a thorough scold.”
“You do,” Miss Elizabeth Windham said. “If not a birching and pillorying. Have you any idea the extent to which Patience’s trust was abused by her former fiancé?”
Dougal could dissemble again, could puff up with male pride and mutter about not discussing Patience behind her back. Fat lot of good such a course had done him before.
“I am aware of that history, and believe that in my way, I may have exceeded even the viscount’s perfidy.”
The smallest sister, the one with the unusual name, peered at him. “Whatever will you do about it? For matters in their present posture will not serve, Mr. MacHugh.”
The lady’s family was immensely powerful, and her observation might quietly threaten the ruin of Dougal’s business. More to the point, however, these women would bedisappointedin him, and that, added to Patience’s disappointment, was unbearable.
A panting, red-faced Harry appeared in the door, holding up a parcel as if it were a trophy.
“Would you ladies care for some crumpets?” Dougal asked, rising and taking the parcel from Harry.
