Page 26 of Too Scot to Handle
“I’ll tell her you said so, Miss Charlotte. Do you need anything else from the kitchen?” Thomas was a handsome lad, as footmen were supposed to be. Tall, sandy-haired, blue-eyed, and cheerful without being obsequious.
“That will be all,” Percival said. “Be off with you, and don’t waste too much time flirting with the tweenie.”
Thomas bowed and withdrew in diplomatic silence.
“Her Grace has him in mind for the underbutler’s job at Morelands,” Percival said. “I think the poor tweenie will go into a permanent decline if young Thomas removes to Kent.” Better a decline than an untimely occasion of motherhood, in Esther’s opinion.
“The tweenie is Evans,” Elizabeth said. “If I were allowed to set up my own establishment, I could provide employment for them both.”
This again. Under protest, Percival had allowed his oldest daughter, Maggie, to have her own household when she’d turned thirty. Now the precedent had been set, and Elizabeth was determined on the same path.
“Elizabeth, you’d leave us desolate should you defect to your own household,” Percival replied, “and don’t bother haranguing me on the topic because your parents must be involved in any discussion of such an arrangement. As your devoted uncle, I seek only to keep you safe and happy.”
“Were you safe and happy wintering in Canada as a cavalry officer?” Charlotte asked.
“Oddly enough, I was, for the most part, but if you continue along these contentious lines, my dears, I won’t tell of your aunt’s card party. I believe she’s making up the guest list while you bring acrimony to my breakfast table.”
The sisters exchanged a look: Fall back and retreat. Perhaps they were hatching a plot to establish a spinster household together, which would break dear Tony’s heart.
“You say the card party is to be in place of the farewell soiree?” Elizabeth asked. “Let me guess. This charity will benefit Anwen’s urchins, and next year Mayfair will see a half-dozen charity card parties every Friday evening.”
Not a bad idea.
“Charity card parties will have caught on by the little season,” Charlotte rejoined. “If we inspired the gentlemen’s clubs to set aside one table each for charity play, even one night a week, London would soon run out of urchins.”
“You must suggest these ideas to your aunt,” Percival said. “You have the Windham genius for turning a situation to its best advantage. The Second Coming will arrive before the Church of England or my friends in Parliament address the issue of London’s poor children.”
He’d got their attention, which was the point of the digression.
“I thought you were firmly in the Tory camp on this issue,” Elizabeth said. “Let the poor humbly accept the will of the Almighty or work to better themselves, that sort of thing.”
Percival humbly accepted the will of his duchess, on most matters. Let the Almighty bear the challenge of arguing Her Grace around, for only He was equal to the task when that good woman was convinced of her position.
“Those are reasonable, even kindly sentiments,” Percival said. “To inflict expectations on the lower orders that they have no way of realizing only damns them to greater disappointment.” Or so his cronies in the Lords would argue. “However, your aunt points out that your cousins Devlin and Maggie were born very much among the poor.” To Percival’s mistresses, before he’d met his dear duchess. “When transplanted to a household where abundant love, nourishment, and education were available, they thrived magnificently.”
The duchess, born to wealthy if common stock, had made those arguments in the privacy of the ducal apartment. In all honesty Percival couldn’t offer a suitable response from the Tory side of the aisle. His children—illegitimate and born into relative poverty—were now of the peerage, despite their maternal antecedents.
And Percival could not be more grateful.
While Charlotte and Elizabeth debated the divine right of kings like a pair of ambitious back benchers, Percival sipped his tea and pretended to read the paper.
He hoped Anwen had galloped over every acre of Hyde Park with some handsome gallant at her side. Rosecroft would of course be absorbed with schooling whatever mount he’d taken for the outing, but he was also a former intelligence officer.
Nothing would transpire in the park without Rosecroft to bear witness and report the goings on back to his papa. Nothing.
* * *
Nothing penetrated Anwen’s awareness except pleasure.
Pleasure, to be kissed by a man who wasn’t in a hurry, half-drunk, or pleased with himself for appropriating liberties from a woman taken unawares by his boldness.
Pleasure, to kiss Lord Colin back. To do more than stand still, enduring the fumblings of a misguided fortune hunter who hoped a display of his bumbling charms would result in a lifetime of security.
Pleasure, to feel lovely bodily stirrings as the sun rose, the birds sang, and the quiet of the park reverberated with the potential of a new, wonderful day.
And beneath those delightful, if predictable pleasures, yet more joy, unique to Anwen.
Lord Colin had bluntly pronounced her slight stature an advantage in the saddle—how marvelous!—and what a novel perspective.
