Page 27 of Miss Delightful
Lavellais nodded. “An admonition many would do well to heed.” He slipped out the door on silent feet, and Goddard passed Alasdhair a scant finger of brandy.
“Miss Beulah?” Goddard asked, pouring another for Powell and one for himself. “Would that be the former Mademoiselle Belle, late of Covent Garden at unsavory hours?”
“She’s expecting a child,” Alasdhair said. “She wanted out. Half of Lavellais’s kitchen staff is female, and he employs charwomen too.” Several, like Lavellais himself, of apparent African descent. “You are both dying to know what Miss Dorcas Delancey was doing in my bedroom.”
Both Powell and Goddard were largish, dark-haired, and battle-worn. As a result of an intimate encounter with an exploding powder magazine, Goddard often wore an eye patch. Powell was a preacher’s son with a wide and well-hidden streak of devilment, a hallmark of preachers’ sons, according to him. He had soulful blue eyes, a dazzlingly warm and rare smile, and an absolutely lethal temper.
Alasdhair loved these men dearly. He did not love that they worried about him and that the worry took the form of nosy questions and awkward silences.
“Miss Delancey is the daughter of Thomas Delancey, vicar of St. Mildred’s,” Powell said. “Her reputation for virtuous works nearly equals your own reputation for foul humors. She has the unfortunate nickname of Miss Delightful in polite circles, because she tends to wax eloquent about all the undelightful realities of life in our fair metropolis.”
“It’s not my metropolis,” Alasdhair said as a waiter brought in a cheese board and set it on the table.
“I’ll claim Paris before I’ll accept the blame for London,” Goddard said, peering at the offerings. “Annie does a much better job with a cheese board. Makes it into a sort of still life, so all the colors are like art.”
Goddard’s Annie, a prodigious talent in the kitchen, had turned Goddard’s life into a work of art, gilded with smiles and smug innuendo.
“Powell, how is it you know of Miss Delancey?” Alasdhair asked, taking up a slice of toast adorned with melted brie.
“My sisters,” Powell replied. “I keep telling you, they know all. They see all. They hear all. They also occasionally come to London. Though we are a tribe of Dissenters, clergy are ever cordial toward one another. Vicar Delancey enjoys a very comfortable post at St. Mildred’s and is invited to some of the lesser entertainments to make up the numbers. His daughter serves as his hostess, and though she is applauded for taking an interest in the less fortunate, she’s also ridiculed for going about it with more genuine purpose than is deemed strictly necessary.”
“She’s resented for it,” Alasdhair said, taking another bite of cheese and toast. How manydayshad it been since he’d had a proper meal? That little snack with Miss Delancey did not count. “Do either of you know anything about a Miss Melanie Fairchild?”
“Not again, MacKay,” Powell said, taking a seat at the table. “London is home to thousands of prostitutes, and half of those are women too ashamed to return to their families in the shires. You cannot save them all.”
“Your figures are off. Most of the women providing favors for coin are simply supplementing wages too meager to live on. They have occupations, they have families. Many are married and would rather not work the streets ever again. If we paid the ladies better wages—or allowed married women to keep their wages rather than force them turn every groat over to a husband who squanders his coin—we’d have a lot less vice. Instead, we harangue the women about morality, while male greed and lustfulness are the real problems.”
“Tell us about Miss Delancey,” Goddard said, taking the chair nearest the hearth. By tacit agreement, Alasdhair and Powell left that chair to Goddard, who also had a bad hip as a result of his military frolics.
“I hardly know Miss Delancey.” Not quite true. Alasdhair knew Dorcas was brave, principled, softhearted, and fierce. He knew she was kind, that she smelled of every good thing in the flower garden, and that something drove her to be so protective of those she cared for.
“She wasin your bedroom,” Powell mused, “and you hardly know her, though by reputation, she’d only venture into such a location to save a lost soul. What in the hell are you up to now, MacKay?”
“I am apparently in the business of raising a baby,” Alasdhair said. “A business I am ill-suited to on my best day.” A gratifying silence greeted that announcement. Alasdhair had left both Powell and Goddard speechless, which surely qualified as a minor miracle.
“You are raising a baby,” Goddard said slowly, “and you’ve enticed Miss Delightful herself into your bedroom. Have you run mad, MacKay?”
“No enticing necessary,” Alasdhair said, slicing himself off a bite of cheddar and wrapping it around a piece of apple. “She invaded. A novel approach, but it has a certain charm.”
Powell and Goddard exchanged a look of genuine concern, while Alasdhair was feeling better than he had in ages. He had learned something else about Miss Delancey: She was lonely. She was weary of fighting all her battles as a single combatant, and Alasdhair knew exactly how that felt.
“Stop gaping, you two. Miss Melanie Fairchild apparently took her own life a short time ago by jumping from the Strand Bridge in the dead of night. Her child is now in my keeping, and Miss Delancey is related to the boy. She and I have questions about Miss Fairchild’s passing, and I have been investigating.”
“We could argue all afternoon and not talk you out of further involvement in such a mess,” Goddard said, “so tell us the rest of it, and leave out nothing.”
“Especially not the part about being ambushed by Miss Delightful.”
Alasdhair gave them what facts he had, and passed up the opportunity to argue with Powell. Dorcas was delightful, though Alasdhair was apparently the only man with sense enough to see that.
Chapter Seven
Dorcas occupied herself drafting an article on the plight of London’s prostitutes. She had alluded delicately to “the problem” in articles about prison reform, poor laws, Corn Laws, labor reform, and female education, but she’d veered around the twin institutions of marriage and prostitution.
Three days of jotting down thesis statements and supporting facts, three evenings of trying to revise jottings into coherent prose, had left Dorcas feeling housebound and restless. The article would be worthy, thought-provoking, and easily ignored. Not so easily ignored was the memory of Alasdhair MacKay toppling onto her and his weight pressing her against the bed.
Even harder to ignore was his sweet, respectful kiss to her cheek and his insistence that she was delightful. Maddening, brilliant, persistent, and utterly delightful. He’d heaped that praise upon her with the gravity he claimed so effortlessly and then punctuated his decree with that lovely little kiss.
Kisses could be lovely. Dorcas had known that in a theoretical sense. She’d known in a very real sense that they could also be horrid. The garden called to her as the place to ponder that conundrum and to recall the feel of adept male fingers wrapping her in warmth and consideration.
