Page 11 of Miss Delectable
“’Tisn’t fair, what the ladies endure,” Powell observed. “Eve offered Adam the apple, and so every woman is relegated to suffering. If Adam had been a better husband, he’d have told her, “Evie, me love, I’d rather have your kisses than that stupid apple.’ He’d have chucked the fruit and kept paradise for us all. But no, he was useless to her when she needed him to show some sense, and what was he thinking, allowing her to wander off on her own in Eden?”
“Dissenters,” MacKay muttered. “Goddard has a problem, so please don’t start spouting Scripture.”
“My problem,” Rye said, “is complicated. If the other boys know Benny is of the female persuasion, then I can intimate that I knew, too, and was waiting for Benny to say something. If they didn’t know, I have to extricate Benny from the household without anybody’s feelings being hurt or secrets being betrayed.”
“I care naught for secrets,” MacKay said. “But you can’t blame the wee lassie. London is—”
“Hell’s privy, for an orphaned female,” Powell finished for him. “We know, MacKay.” He took the chair between Rye’s and MacKay’s. “What does young Benny have to say for herself?”
“I’m giving her time to sort that out.”
Powell shoved Rye’s shoulder and sank into a reading chair between Rye and MacKay. “You’re at a complete loss and stalling your arse off.”
“That too. She was uncomfortable. Physically uncomfortable.”
“Cordial with a tot of the poppy,” Powell said. “My sisters, who know everything, swear by it.”
“If you were my brother, I’d take to tippling too,” MacKay replied. “You need a woman, Goddard, to speak to the lass. To explain the things men don’t know.”
“What don’t we know?” Powell retorted, crossing his arms and putting his booted feet up on a hassock. “If that girl spent any time on the streets, she knows where babies come from. Live demonstrations take place nightly mere steps from the theaters.”
“There’s more to it than that,” MacKay said. “Mess and pain, calendars and tisanes. Mysterious female whatnot. What will you do, Goddard?”
“I thought I’d consult men with more experience than I have.” The sight in Rye’s left eye was improving, at least under low light. Compared to the months immediately following his injury, when he’d dared not open his bad eye in full sunlight, he’d come far.
“Consult your sister,” Powell said, closing his eyes. “Sisters know everything. They are born knowing everything. Witness, my sister Bronwen suggested I join up. Wellington would still be toiling his way across Spain if I hadn’t lent him a hand.”
MacKay smacked Powell’s arm. “Wellington was dead stuck until I arrived, and you know it.”
Rye had been dead stuck until these two had shown up in the officers’ mess. He’d been close to them in his youth, and they’d brought with them memories both happy and embarrassing.
Only Rye had been saddled with a knighthood, but for each man, peacetime posed a special kind of problem.
“The way I see it,” Powell said, “Benny is still one of your lads. You put the situation to her same as you would any difficult mission. There’s an objective, terrain, enemy lookouts, the usual hazards. What is the objective, by the way?”
To keep the girl safe. The objective was always to keep the rank and file safe from avoidable perils. “That’s part of the challenge. Benny has some say in what the objective is, doesn’t she?”
“Nothing for it,” MacKay said, leaning past Powell to appropriate a sip from Rye’s glass. “You must talk to the girl. Have a straight-up, man-to-man, er… well, an honest talk with her.”
“Good luck.” Powell’s words held not a hint of teasing.
“You two have been no help whatsoever,” Rye replied, getting to tired feet. “I believe I’ll frolic in the rain rather than waste any more of my time here.” The temptation to fall asleep in the exquisitely comfortable chairs by the roaring fire in the company of good friends was nigh overwhelming.
But Rye avoided leaving the children without an adult in the house overnight, and MacKay was right: An honest conversation with Benny was unavoidable.
“You’ve made out your will, right?” Powell said as Rye stretched in the fire’s heat. “I get the horses.”
“MacKay gets Scipio, you get Agricola, but you have to agree to take some of the lads too.”
“I’ll send them to my sisters,” Powell said. “Look how well I turned out, after all.”
MacKay didn’t dignify that with a riposte.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Rye said, “for a pleasant meal.”
“Let us know how it goes.” MacKay saluted with Rye’s drink. “Women are complicated, and they develop that quality earlier in life than is convenient, to my way of thinking.”
“I wouldn’t know.” On that statement of lowering fact, Rye left his friends to their brandy. They were conversing softly in what passed for their common language as he closed the door to the reading room.
