Page 63 of Miss Delightful
Another look passed between Alasdhair’s cousins, and he realized they had been having these silent exchanges ever since Badajoz. He simply hadn’t noticed. Just as Goddard’s eyesight and hearing had suffered during the war, so had Alasdhair’s perceptions, but in a different way.
“Your house hasn’t any…” Goddard waved a hand. “Touches of grace, small comforts, or displays of sentiment.”
Oh, but it did. Behind Alasdhair’s privacy screen, he had a dozen displays of sentiment, and Dorcas had seen those too. “Clutter, ye mean? Fripperies?”
“Something like that.” Powell shoved the hassock away with a booted foot. “Miss Delancey will doubtless have a few ideas, and you will give her free rein, MacKay. Be generous with her pin money, and don’t question what she does with it unless the larders are empty, and she’s frequenting gaming hells.”
“If she wants to frequent gaming hells, I’ll happily take her around to a few. She will then draft the most scathing pamphlets imaginable on the glorification of games of chance. If she turns her sights on the Coventry, you had best prepare to move to France, Goddard.”
“Will she do that?” Goddard’s tone was curious rather than offended.
“No. Dorcas is more concerned with the truly destitute, with corruption in law enforcement, and with the injustices women face daily.”
Powell rose and stretched. “She’ll get on with my sisters famously.”
“You say that,” Goddard murmured, “as if my lady cousins might be planning to besiege London.”
“Don’t even think it. You are married, MacKay is hearing wedding bells, and I am the lone holdout defending the garrison of bachelor freedom. The last thing I need is the petticoat regiment descending upon my household to see me matched to the harridan of their choosing. I wish you the best, MacKay, but I am worried for you.”
“Your honesty is, as ever, appreciated,” Alasdhair said. “Goddard, anything to add to Powell’s fretting?”
Goddard finished his champagne and set the glass aside. “What have you learned about Miss Delancey’s late cousin?”
“Nothing since Powell and I interrogated his friends. No body has been found. Therefore, no inquest, nothing. It’s as if Miss Fairchild vanished.”
“People do,” Powell said, a little wistfully. “People come to London expressly to vanish.”
“People without your sisters, perhaps.” Alasdhair rose, ready to get home and ensure John had gone down for the night without a fuss. “The odd thing is that twice now, I’ve been going about my business, simply walking along, and I’ve seen Melanie’s ghost.”
Powell peered at him. “Does your intended know you see ghosts?”
“He doesn’t mean an actual ghost,” Goddard said. “He means the mind plays tricks. When my parents died, I would swear I heard my father humming in his study, but he wasn’t there. I thought I saw the flash of my mother’s skirts in the garden, but in the next instant, the impression vanished. We want them to be alive, and grief sifts through memories to create that fiction for a fleeting moment.”
“The old men,” Powell said, “the veterans, say they dream of their fallen comrades, and it feels more real than waking life.”
What did Powell dream of? Apparently not marriage. “The old soldiers and the urchins are all keeping an eye out for a woman matching her description,” Alasdhair said, “but Father Thames doesn’t always give up his dead, and perhaps that’s for the best.”
“Now you’re a philosopher.” Powell collected the empty glasses and put them on the sideboard. “I am simply a tired Welshman ready to seek my bed. Give me some warning before I’m to attend the nuptials, and I will do my best to be there. I would not miss one of Ann’s wedding breakfasts for all the pub songs in St. Giles.”
He sketched a bow and left, while Goddard stood with his backside to the fire. “He’ll manage. His sisters will see to it.”
“They are formidable.”
“So is he,” Goddard said. “Is this hasty engagement about the boy, MacKay?”
Alasdhair’s engagement wasn’t any hastier than many others, and besides, Dorcas hadn’t set a date yet. Her brother was coming south for a visit, and that apparently had the vicarage in an uproar.
“A child needs parents, Goddard, and a bachelor guardian isn’t an ideal substitute. Dorcas loves the bairn, but then, who wouldn’t?”
Goddard moved away from the fire and shoved the hassock Powell had displaced back before its appointed chair.
“Will you ever tell us what really happened in Badajoz, MacKay?”
You don’t need to know. You don’t want to know.Mind your own business.Answers that would have served Alasdhair in the past.
“Perhaps.” But not soon. Probably not ever. “Give my love to Ann.”
Goddard offered a two-finger salute and left Alasdhair alone by the dwindling fire.
