Page 21 of Miss Delightful
“At a hobble.” Alasdhair made it to the side of the bed, though the change in position left him a trifle swoony. He hadn’t been this far gone since he’d collapsed at Lisbon. “That child has aged me thirty years in three nights.”
“He’s having a difficult time,” Miss Delancey replied, gaze upon Alasdhair’s privacy screen, which was a japanned scene of grazing horses and towering mountains. “And this is precisely why you must not think to uproot John yet again for some time.”
Alasdhair rose from the bed and caught sight of himself in the cheval mirror. He was wrinkled from brow to breeches, his hair would put Medusa to the blush, his cheeks were dark with day-old beard.
“I look like a reiver after a bad raid. You should be terrified at the sight of me.”
“I did not toss all propriety aside by coming into your personal demesne to discuss your questionable appearance, Mr. MacKay. My concern is John’s future. Promise me you will not send him off to some village family in the next fortnight. Not while he’s so upset.”
Alasdhair stood, which occasioned more weavy-wavy sensations, just as if he’d finished a straight week of forced marches.
The key to his salvation popped into his mind like a revelation: “I need to eat.” And he needed coffee. Stout, nearly bitter, with a dollop of cream and a dash of honey. A whole pot of serious coffee for a man in extremis. He was supposed to meet Goddard and Powell at the club for an early luncheon, and the morning was already well advanced.
“You need to listen to me.” Miss Delancey smoothed the quilts on the bed and rearranged Alasdhair’s pillows into a neat, symmetrical stack.
“I cannot think, much less listen, in my present state, Miss Delancey, and you must not be capable of much rational thought either, or you would never be closeted with me in my bedroom when I am half undressed.”
She swatted at the pillows. “You are prevaricating, Mr. MacKay. That child’s welfare is more important than your delicate sensibilities. If I had meekly awaited you in your chilly parlor, you would be wrapped in the arms of Morpheus, while I wasted an hour waiting for you to recall you have a guest.”
“For your information, Lord Justice Miss Delancey, I was not asleep. I was resting my eyes.” Alasdhair had been beyond merely sleeping and heading for the territory of complete, restorative oblivion. Now that he was out of bed, he needed to head for… clean clothing?
Shaving was out of the question until he’d found some sustenance to steady his hands.
Miss Delancey held a round velvet pillow before her middle, like a shield. “My nickname is Miss Delightful. If you intend to ridicule me, I will thank you not to go venturing off into new insults.”
Alasdhair sauntered over to her, a saunter being all he could manage. “But you are delightful, Miss Delancey. Delightfully tart, delightfully articulate, delightfully intelligent. Delightfully fierce. You are delightful in many regards.”
He’d hoped to make her smile. Why had that become an objective? Instead, her gaze clouded with what appeared to be bewilderment.
“You seek to distract me with false flattery. I want your promise that John will remain under this roof for at least the next two weeks. We must think of his wellbeing before all else, Mr. MacKay, and Melanie entrusted him into your keeping.”
Dorcas Delancey did not smell tart and articulate. She smelled of a thousand flowers, of soft breezes, and gentle sunshine. She smelled of lazy summer days and murmured endearments.
That baby has reived my bloody wits.“You have ambushed me in the one place where I should be safe from all attackers.” Strategic brilliance on her part. “You have pressed your advantage when I am weak and wan. You have shown no mercy when I am famished and muddled. Napoleon should rejoice that he did not meet you before he went a-plundering across Europe.”
“I am not trying to wrest an empire from a tyrant, Mr. MacKay. I am trying to secure peace and safety for one tiny baby for a mere two weeks.”
The last, stumbling, mumbling part of Alasdhair’s mind that could still claim a spark of reason sensed what Miss Delancey was up to. This was not an ambush, a skirmish, or even a minor battle. This was how she intended to win the war. She’d chosen her moment with a cunning that earned his admiration, even as she upended his rest, his privacy, and his thinking mind.
Two weeks of sleepless nights would turn into two years, then twenty. Twenty years of fretting, of not knowing what to do or how to help the lad. Twenty years of awkward discussions, of not setting a good enough example, of not having the right answers to all the worst questions.
“He needs a family, Miss Delancey. My empire consists of my tyrannical self and my horse, and his loyalty is to his oats.”
Alasdhair’s voice had taken on that faraway, across-the-glen quality that presaged falling out of the saddle, except he wasn’t in the saddle.
“Mr. MacKay, are you well?”
“Exhausted, famished. I don’t do so verra weel when famished.” And there was the burr, as furry and unapologetic as a Highland wildcat. “I need a wee sittie-doon.”
“Promise me John can stay, and cease your dramatics.”
“Aye, the lad can stay.” Alasdhair heard himself say the words as if they’d been spoken across a loch at dewfall. Water did strange things to sound.
And then he pitched headlong into Miss Delancey, and all was sweet, fragrant, curvaceous oblivion.
* * *
“I struggle,”Thomas Delancey said, passing over another hymnal that would no longer meet the standards appropriate to St. Mildred’s congregation. “I struggle nigh constantly, in my heart.”
