Page 25 of Miss Delightful
“Then you bluff exceedingly well. I suppose I ought to shave, and I refuse to do that with you glaring daggers at me.”
“Your friends said you weren’t to bother, that they’ve seen you looking far worse.”
Mr. MacKay sighed and looked around the room as if he expected those friends to pop out of his wardrobe. “What else did they say?”
“Not much. That you needed to eat very regularly, or you got into difficulties. They weren’t worried.”
“They were worried. They are my nannies, those two. They carried extra rations at all times…” Mr. MacKay rose, stretched, and gazed down at Dorcas. “I did not mean to frighten you, but that’s part of the nature of the beast. I don’t realize I need to eat, and then I get too muzzy-headed to think through the situation. I always come right, so please don’t fret. My cousins admonished me not to shave, because when I’m peckish, my hands shake too badly to manage a razor. I could always shoot straight, though.”
“I can shave you. I have shaved my father from time to time, when he’s ill, or once when he sprained his wrist. I will be careful.”
“One suspects you are always careful. Has the fiend gone to sleep?”
He thought of the boy even now. “I don’t know. The nursery is quiet, and thus I gather John enjoys a full belly.” Dorcaswasalways careful, because she had to be. The offer to shave Mr. MacKay was not one a careful woman would have made. Charitable, perhaps, but not careful. “Shall I shave you?”
“I’ll be fine once I eat something. My thanks for your concern.”
Henderson arrived with a tray of sandwiches and a ceramic carafe swaddled in a thick linen towel. Dorcas poured out, the coffee aromatic and strong.
“You are to eat before you swill the whole pot.” What about this man tempted her to be so, so imperious?
He saluted with his cup. “A sip to revive the dying. You want to leave me some privacy, but you are worried, Dorcas Delancey, because you think I will try to back out of my promise to house John here for the next fortnight.”
She resorted to making the bed, the only bit of busyness available. “I am more concerned that you forgot you made such a promise. You were half swooning at the time.”
“And yet, you badgered me into an admission. I admire your tenacity.” Mr. MacKay consumed a sandwich and poured a second cup of coffee, this time adding cream and honey.
“Swoony men should not be held to account for their delirious declarations.”
“I do not swoon,” he said. “I grow light-headed. I become vertiginous. I am prone to syncope—a French doctor patching up British troops taught me that one—and presyncope, but I do not swoon. Perish the thought.”
Dorcas went to the wardrobe and began laying out a suit of morning clothes. “Youfellupon me. I could not stop you from collapsing. You must promise me to leave the nursery to Timmens tonight. She can sing as well as the next person, while you cannot… lactate.”
“My dear Miss Delancey, you are blushing.”
I am not your dear.Wasn’t anybody’s dear. “Have another sandwich.”
He did, this one disappearing more slowly. “Now, I can tell I’m hungry, but this will hold me for the present.” He rose and surveyed the outfit Dorcas had chosen.
“I would not have paired that mulberry waistcoat with a blue morning coat.”
“Too showy? A touch of gold—cravat pin, sleeve buttons, watch chain—will pick up the gold embroidery in the waistcoat. You must have a care with your appearance to reassure your cousins that you are back on your mettle.”
He stood improperly close, but then, what was propriety when she’d offered to shave him? When she’d seen him snoring on the floor? When she’d badgered him—his word—into keeping John here for the next two weeks?
“Youput me back on my mettle,” he said, “and I state only the surprising truth.”
Dorcas moved away, for she was blushing again. “Then I am no longer needed here. If you have any news to impart regarding Melanie’s situation, please call on me at the vicarage, and keep me informed regarding John’s wellbeing.”
She wanted distance between herself and Mr. MacKay, or that’s what sheshouldwant. What Dorcas truly wanted shocked her.
To touch his hair again.
To see him without his shirt.
To watch the transformation from bearded ruffian to clean-shavenMaster of Abercaldyand former officer.
To ensure that he did not again grow peckish because he was too worried about a teething baby.
