Page 28 of Miss Dauntless
Mrs. Merridew did, indeed, know things, such as how to muddle a man for days on end with a simple gesture of affection.
“Missus can cook too,” Cook said in her thick burr. “Has ideas, about spices and sauces. Wants the table set just so, but she’s no’ fussy.”
“Puttin’ the manners on the lads, she is,” Mrs. Winklebleck said. “They’ll never be choirboys, but they are tryin’.”
“Choirboys in my experience are a rowdy lot.” While earls, with proper provocation, could apparently be a randy lot. Tremont had largely ignored his animal spirits in Spain, there having been a war on and few opportunities for frolicking—not that he was the frolicking sort. When he’d returned to England, keeping body and soul together had left nothing in reserve for masculine mischief, but now…
Matilda had kissed him, and his imagination had gone rampaging off in all manner of earthy directions.
Cook gave Tremont a sidewise appraisal. “You’d know more about being a choirboy than we would, milord.”
Her reproof was mostly for form’s sake. Earls did not take tea with the staff belowstairs, but Mrs. Winklebleck had poured him a cup, and the rudeness of a refusal was beyond him. He’d known her when she was Big Nan, a pillar of the streetwalking community.
And yes, much to his fascination, there was such a thing as the streetwalking community, and it did have impressive pillars. So, too, did the newsboy community, the housebreakers’ community, and the crossing sweepers’ community boast of pillars—real pillars, of moral and physical invincibility, not mere snobs claiming a fine ear for gossip while sparing the poor box mere pennies for show.
More to the point, Nan had known Tremont when he’d been eking out a living as a scribe and reader in the pubs of St. Giles. He’d been no sort of pillar at all, but he’d learned a thing or two.
“Have we thought of a name for this place?” he asked. And where was the wonderful Mrs. Merridew at that moment?
Nan took another slurp of her tea. “Missus says the lads have to decide because it’s their ’ouse. House, rather. We’ll be living at My Weary Arse if that lot gets their way.”
“The Home for Useless Reprobates,” Cook muttered. “They do appreciate a good meal, though.”
The ultimate test of discernment in Cook’s eyes. “How’s MacIvey working out?”
A look passed between Nan and Cook.
“He’ll do,” Cook said. “Hard worker, that ’un.”
“MacPherson’s jealous,” Nan said. “Missus wants to show him how to keep the books, but she hasn’t got ’round to it, what with the shoveling and all.”
Tremont set down his teacup. “If Mrs. Merridew is having to wield a snow shovel when this house is full of able-bodied men—”
“Listen to ye,” Cook said. “Cluckin’ like the king of the coop. She sent the men ’round to shovel snow for some old Puritan from the kirk, and the Puritan paid the lads and sent them on to her Puritan friends, and you never seen such a lot of grown men assuring each other that more snow was on the way. The lad Charles says they all shoulda been crossing sweepers, so skilled are they with their shovels.”
“So Mrs. Merridew has the men shoveling snow for hire. Enterprising of her.” What else had she found to do in the past week? Tremont had accomplished appallingly little, all because of a certain kiss from a certain lady on a certain chilly front porch.
He should have kissed her back then and there.
He should have brought her flowers the next day.
He should have sent her flowers along with a witty note, but how did wit apply to the sweetest, most luscious, unexpected…?
Or perhaps the correct course was to invite her over for more tea and conversation, because she seemed to think that had gone well.
He should have sent her a smarmy poem copied in his own hand.
But no. Those were the hackneyed maneuvers of a fatuous swain, and Matilda deserved a more impressive response to her kiss.
“He used to do this,” Nan was saying, “in St. Giles. Stare off into space as if the fairies stole his wits. War can leave a man dicked in the nob.”
“War did not impair my hearing, madam. I am preoccupied is all. Mrs. Merridew can leave us at the end of the month if she pleases to. I am here to ensure she’s not of that mind.”
Nan gave him a pitying look. “You’re smitten. No shame in it, milord. Missus don’t flaunt her wares, but she does make an impression.”
“Was married once meself,” Cook said. “Settled me doon, ye might say. The handsome laddies aren’t so charmin’ when they wake up with a sore head on Sunday. Missus knows about more than just how to make boot black or cook up a bully-base.”
“That’s French,” Nan said, shifting her bulk on her chair. “Fish stew with spices and whatnot.”
