Page 56 of Miss Dignified
“Since I spent the night inLydia’sbed. I mean to marry her if she’ll have me, so you can leave off strutting and pawing and tell me why it is that you’ve disturbed my peace at the crack of doom. My plans for the day include lurking in a number of disreputable taverns, idling on noisome street corners, and generally listening at keyholes. You two louts were not on my schedule. Finding William Brook—before my sisters arrive—is.”
Goddard and MacKay both looked as if they’d been caught filching sweets from the pantry.
“In her…bed?” MacKay asked nigh timorously.
“For the night.” Lydia would not thank him for making that disclosure, but Goddard and MacKay needed to cease their nannying and deal with facts. “You can draw lots to see which of you stands up with me, or you both can. A ceremony needs two witnesses at least.”
“Ask Dorning to stand up with you,” Goddard said. “He likes that sort of thing, and it will save me a sore shoulder from arm-wrestling MacKay for the honor.”
“Dorning?” Powell did not care for Mr. Sycamore Dorning. He was loquacious, self-important, and, at the most inconvenient times, right. “I think not.”
“His brother is an earl,” MacKay shot back. “Another brother paints half of fancy London’s portraits. Two others have married into some other earldom’s family of Vikings. His older sister is married to Worth Kettering. A family like that could do a lot for your lads, Powell.”
An unreasonable anger blighted much of Dylan’s joy in the day. “Ido a lot for the lads. When they need something, they come to me, not to Sycamore Damned Dorning.”
Goddard and MacKay pointedly did not look at each other, or at Dylan.
“My apologies,” he said. “I will ask Dorning to stand up with me, should the happy occasion arise, but you will forgive my protectiveness toward the men. We had only each other to rely on, and now something untoward is afoot. I fear for Will Brook.”
“We ran across Fournier last night,” Goddard said, pretending to study a portrait of Great-Grandmama Beulah Powell in her widow’s weeds.
“I thought you were assembling for a hand of cards.” To which Dylan had for once sent regrets.
“He made up our fourth,” MacKay said. “Dorning’s suggestion. Fournier volunteered that he’s heard of your search for Brook and heard as well that you’d best desist.”
Dylan said the first thing that popped into his head. “Fournier is French.” Sold a very good claret at a reasonable price, but his champagne hadn’t a patch on Goddard’s.
“And you are Welsh,” Goddard observed. “Some things cannot be helped.” Goddard was half French, hence the note of umbrage in his observation.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I meant, why would a Frenchman hear of my ramblings about the stews? The émigrés and I rarely cross paths, for understandable reasons. I am puzzled and intrigued.”
MacKay smacked him on the arm. “You are warned, ye bloody fool. Fournier indicated that whoever has sent Will Brook into hiding is in a position to shorten your life. Give it up, Powell, or at least let the lads do your looking for you.”
“The lads are lying to me.” Even the words hurt. “Probably trying to keep me safe. Do you trust Fournier?”
“Yes,” Goddard said. “He noted that you’ve helped the occasional former prisoner of war or French soldier. He feels he owes you a debt on their behalf, and Fournier pays his debts to the penny and on time.”
“He went to some effort to convey the warning,” MacKay said. “If Brook has borrowed money from the wrong people, if he got the wrong woman with child, you can do little for him.”
Those problems were relatively straightforward—if expensive—to deal with. “If he committed rape, then he’s put himself beyond the pale, but short of that, he’s one of ours, and we do not leave a soldier to fend for himself in enemy territory.”
“If you won’t desist,” Goddard said, “then at least let us help you.”
“It’s not your fight.”
“But you are our cousin.”
MacKay stepped close. “You aspire to be Lydia Lovelace’s intended. Hard to do that if you’re being measured for a shroud because you were too pigheaded to accept aid when you needed it.”
Thatargument gave Dylan pause, as did the particular battle light in MacKay’s eyes. MacKay had transferred rather than remain under Dunacre’s command, and once, in a semi-inebriated fit of remorse, MacKay had berated himself for deserting his cousin.
A meddling pair of cousins was bad enough, but cousins driven by old guilt would be impossible to wave off.
“Let me see what I can find out today,” Dylan said, “and I’ll let you know if assistance is needed.”
MacKay looked like he wanted to say more, about stubborn Welshmen, hopeless battles, and soldiers who could not be saved from their own recklessness.
“We tried,” Goddard muttered. “The ladies said we had to try.”
