Page 49 of Desperate Proposals
She raised one eyebrow, looking so assured that Marcus suddenly wanted very much for it to be evening and for her to be looking at him thus, only in the nude.
“Well, either way.” He cleared his throat, discomfited by such a thought. “Make sure you’re up to snuff.”
She did not respond, but merely watched him, and for a moment he thought she might speak of something else. But then she added disinterestedly, “I believe that was all I wished to discuss.”
Marcus stood, fiddling with the pen still in his hands. He’d attended scant few balls, and fewer still since his cousin, Harmonia, had married. It always felt better to have someone allied with you at such ordeals, where the deck was always stacked against someone lacking a title. Like him.
“Perhaps, er, you might speak with Bray as well?”
She waited.
Marcus set the pen down. “That he might check and… make sure I’m also up to snuff.”
“Very well,” she said, and nodded graciously.
It took him a full quarter of an hour after his wife had left to clear his head and return to his correspondence, which surprised him. But he assured himself that it was only the novelty of a female presence in his home, of a woman in his bed after a few years of celibacy. The situation would normalize soon enough.
Five hours later, the situation was absolutely, completely,utterlymad.
Leonora Wolfenden, a little girl of five years (or was it four?), was howling—no,screeching—as she beat upon the floor with her tiny fists, her face twisted into an expression of rage and despair worthy of any Renaissance painting.
“I don’t understand,” Marcus shouted to Mrs. Selina Wolfenden, his hands over his ears. “What the dickens is the matter? What is it she wants?”
His newly obtained sister-in-law replied with the slightest suggestion of a shrug. She seemed awfully at ease for a lady whose progeny was going on as if she were being poisoned by the very air she breathed.
Marcus felt a tap on his shoulder and turned to find himself face to face with his new coachman, Murphy, a narrow-faced man dwarfed by the many capes of his greatcoat. He held his hat in hand, along with his long whip.
“Sir, I believe this is my fault,” he apologized.
“What?” Marcus bellowed, confused.
Leonora latched onto a heavy oak side table, kicking it in a staccato rhythm that paired nightmarishly with her screams. Mrs. Wolfenden sighed as she seated herself upon a settee, tapping against her skirts with a folded black fan.
“I said,” Murphy shouted, “I believe this is my fault.” Then he looked back to Marcus apologetically and barked, “Sir!”
“No, no, I heard you,” Marcus said as he felt a panicky sensation rise in his chest at the absurdity of it all. “But what do youmean, man?”
Murphy frowned and looked at the little girl.
“I told her she couldn’t ride Saturn, one of the team. The bay.”
“What?” Marcus exclaimed.
“I told—”
“No, no, I heard you,” Marcus yelled. The sound of a door opening barely registered in his frenzied mind.
“Oh,” Murphy looked back to him with a contrite expression. “Saturn, my lead. I told the young miss it wasn’t the time for it, not with the horses just returning and in their tack.”
“Of course,” Marcus said, finally comprehending the disagreement between the girl and the coachman. “Pay it no mind; you are in the right.”
“She’s got a gob like the Thames Tunnel, she does,” Murphy said, staring at Leonora with a mix of horror and awe.
“Thank you, Murphy. Now please, go and see to the horses.”Free yourself from this torture,Marcus added silently.
With a nod, the coachman left.
Only then did Marcus look back to Leonora, and he started; Evelyn was there, on her knees alongside her niece, in that same lovely dark blue gown. It must’ve been her who had opened the door.
