Lemon verbena was a scent worn by governesses and maiden aunties, but on Miss Armstrong, the fragrance was… beguiling. Dunfallon liked using the most precise and vivid prose to convey a concept, and that fanciful modifier came easily to his unfanciful mind.
Beguiling, like the hint of humor in her voice even when she scolded a naughty child, or like the understated affection in her touch with the same miscreant. What sort of stories did she write, and why was she so protective of them?
He marched through the foot traffic on the walkway, bemused by the combination of tart, sweet, and spicy that characterized both the lady and her chosen fragrance. Miss Armstrong’s father had apparently been a scholar. Perhaps that explained her bookish inclinations.
Dunfallon wanted to read the stories she’d written. That was only fair, given how the morning had progressed. Would her tales, too, feature the exploits of intrepid feline youngsters, as Mr. Dingle’s tales did? Or perhaps Miss Armstrong reserved her talent for plucky damsels and swashbuckling pirate captains?
When was the last time I read such an epic? Stayed up half the night on the high seas, muttering imprecations at a literary dastard? Cheering on my heroes and wishing the story would never end? When was the last time I whiled away an hour with a tall tale as a cat purred contentedly in my lap?
“Not for years, laddie,” Dunfallon muttered as he opened the chop shop door for a woman trying to keep hold of a toddler with one hand and manage a cloth sack with the other.
“Thankee, sir!” the child piped as the mother sent Dunfallon a harried smile.
Dunfallon paid for his own food rather than add to the library’s account and accepted a largish box of comestibles that savored of good beef broth and fresh bread. Plain fare that nonetheless reminded him that he was hungry.
A duke wasn’t often permitted to partake of plain fare, but then, dukes didn’t typically spend the morning lugging buckets of coal or wielding a broom under the tutelage of an eight-year-old drill sergeant.
The box in Dunfallon’s hands meant that despite his height and fine tailoring, he earned no second glances from fine ladies. Gentlemen kept their hands free, the better to assist any damsels who encountered difficulties mincing between shops.
He carried his booty past a chorus of young men yodeling some old hymn appropriate to the season. A batch of slacking apprentices no doubt, earning the odd coin with their noise.
Dunfallon was soon back at the library and dragooned into buttering slice after slice of warm bread. Miss Armstrong passed the food out, and if a patron’s little paws had yet to be washed, he or she was directed to remedy the oversight before Miss surrendered the goods. The two old gents before the fire roused themselves to partake as well, and both of them subjected Dunfallon to a visual inspection.
“You ain’t like no curate I ever seen,” white-haired Mr. Pettibone opined, tearing off a bite of bread and stuffing it into his mouth. “Curates is young and skinny and perpetually afflicted with the horn colic.”
“Met a lot of curates at sea, did you, Petty?” bald Mr. Bevins asked, dipping his bread into his cider. His voice carried a West Indies lilt, and his dark eyes twinkled with humor.
“We had chaplains,” Pettibone replied, gesturing with his bread, “same as you did in the artillery. Chaplains be like curates.”
An argument ensued of much greater vigor than the subject warranted, which—judging from Miss Armstrong’s smile—was the usual case with Petty and Bevins when they weren’t napping.
“Come have your soup, Mr. Dunn,” she said, “before it grows cold. Hot food tastes better in chipper weather, don’t you think?”
“Compared to the Trossachs this time of year, London is balmy, or so every loyal Scotsman would have you believe.”
“Then I would like to see the Trossachs in winter. I usually take my meal upstairs. On the occasion of your first day with us, you are welcome to join me.”
Meaning on subsequent days, Dunfallon’s company would not be needed. The sheer novelty of a limited welcome was refreshing—or something. That a librarian’s vocabulary included a pronoun akin to the royal we also caught Dunfallon’s ear.
“Upstairs with us, then.” He accepted a tray from Miss Armstrong, then paused at the foot of the steps when the boy Caspar caught his eye.
The lad wasn’t merely skinny, he was gaunt, and London’s weather was far from balmy. Dunfallon passed over a sandwich, put a finger to his lips, and followed Miss Armstrong to the mezzanine.
She led him into the little room he’d supposed was secure storage for valuable books.
And perhaps it was. The back wall consisted of shelves crammed with venerable tomes, while the outer wall featured a pair of French doors that let in what light was to be had at midday. A well-stuffed sofa lined the inside wall, a low table before it and a worn green quilt draped over the back.
The parlor stove next to the French doors made the space cozy, and a battered desk in the corner suggested pretensions to office functions.
“I nap here when I’m supposed to be penning overdue notices,” Miss Armstrong said. “You are sworn to secrecy.”
“You should have had me bring some coal up.” Dunfallon set the tray on the table. “I’ve never done so much hauling and portering in my life as I have in this one morning.” And he’d never realized that so simple a thing as keeping his hands free—for balance on icy walkways, for defense, to thwart ambitious pickpockets—was a privilege.
“You’ll step and fetch aplenty as a curate,” Miss Armstrong observed, taking a seat on the sofa unassisted. “If your congregation is small, the elders and committeemen will work you half to death.”
As a duke’s extra spare, Dunfallon had expected to join the diplomatic ranks, though the church had also been a possibility, and he’d thus been appropriately educated. For him, though, there would have been no mending walls, repairing roofs, or carrying parcels for the spinster aunties on market day.
He would have been groomed for a bishopric or the deanship of a cathedral, God help him.
“I lack a true vocation,” he said, “though I seem to be managing the stepping and fetching adequately. Might I sit?”
“Please. We don’t stand on ceremony at West Bart’s. If you wait for me to invite you to sit, and I wait for you to hold all the doors, we will both do a great deal of pointless standing about. Why is there only one sandwich on this tray? If I have told Caspar once, I have told him a thousand times, he must set a proper—”
“Haud yer wheesht, missy. I gave the lad my sandwich.” Dunfallon lowered himself to the sofa, careful to sit a good eighteen inches from Miss Armstrong. When she’d said they did not stand on ceremony at the library, she’d spoken the truth. The door was firmly closed, and they were alone behind it, meaning Miss Armstrong could, in theory, force Dunfallon to offer for her.
Except that she never would. How Dunfallon knew this, he could not say. Something to do with the swish of her skirts as she patrolled her demesne or the relish in her voice when she spoke the villain’s part of a story. Miss Armstrong did not aspire to wear a tiara, which made her quite the puzzle.
What did she aspire to?
“If you do not long to become a vicar,” Miss Armstrong said, ladling him a bowl of steaming soup from the crock on the tray, “then what are your ambitions? You are clearly well educated, your aunt is a fixture in polite society, and you have some means.” She brushed a glance over the gold pin securing his cravat.
To remain a bachelor was a petty, if sincere, aspiration. Dunfallon surprised himself by giving an older, more honest reply.
“I once upon a time longed to be a writer, but my family had no patience with that nonsense. I went for a soldier after I’d drunk my way through university, and the transition to the military wasn’t as difficult as you might think. I’m at somewhat of a crossroads.”
She passed him a spoon. “How fortunate you are, to be at a crossroads. Women do not find themselves at that happy location. Our paths are laid out for us—the good path, the better path, and the best path, though the wrong path also beckons. For what we are about to receive, we are exceedingly grateful.”
And for the outspoken company. “Amen.” Dunfallon took a taste of delicious beef barley soup.
“You doubtless think I am ridiculous for lamenting the limitations of my gender,” Miss Armstrong said, serving her own portion, “but you have the requisite masculine adornments to do as you please with your life.”
Did she refer to his testicles? “Adornments?”
“Mister before your name, a top hat upon your handsome head, a very fine walking stick with which to smite your foes or to attack hapless hedges if you’re cup-shot. The accoutrements of your gender are many and well recognized.”
“Do you dislike being female, Miss Armstrong?”
She sent him a look that conveyed something like disgust—with him. Despair, impatience, distaste?
“I am pleased enough to be female, considering the alternatives, but if you are a woman, you are to keep yourself to dull and chaste paths until you can snag the attention of some eligible man. You are to be attractive, but not flirtatious. Have interesting conversation, but no controversial opinions. Find your waltzing partner’s every bleating and bloviation fascinating and his execrable dancing delightful. You are, in fact, to perfect the art of lying to a man so skillfully that he thinks himself in love with you.”
When Dunfallon would have replied, she waved her spoon at him. “And if a lady is so very, very fortunate as to become some fellow’s unpaid housekeeper, clerk, shopgirl, seamstress, governess, cook, gardener, or manager of same, her reward will be the duties of mistress without any of the mistress’s freedoms or remuneration. Instead, it shall be her greatest joy to bring forth her children in pain and perhaps survive the ordeal the first half-dozen times or so.”
Miss Armstrong held out half the remaining sandwich to him. “Would you trade your lot for mine?”
Dunfallon thought of Miss Peasegill gaily hallooing after him as if she’d spotted Reynard breaking for his covert. Had that been a deception on her part?
He would ponder that possibility later. “What of the fellow’s devotion to you, Miss Armstrong? His determination to provide well for you and to raise a family with you in a home full of love and laughter? What of his loyalty when you are sickly and out of sorts, his good cheer in the face of life’s vicissitudes? What of his companionship and hard work and affection?”
Now, where had that sermon come from, considering that bachelorhood loomed as the most precious jewel in Dunfallon’s hoard?
Miss Armstrong picked up her half of the sandwich. “You describe marriage to a paragon, and he does not exist, Mr. Dunn. My mother died trying to give my father an heir, and when Mama was barely cold in the ground, Papa married a much younger woman. Step-mama promptly presented Papa with a healthy son, suggesting…”
She took a bite of her sandwich, though Dunfallon could finish the thought easily enough: Suggesting her dear papa’s grief had been summarily eclipsed by his desire for male progeny.
“I’m sorry,” Dunfallon said, though he was apologizing for what amounted to a sacred duty among aristocratic men—men with standing whose daughters did not become librarians. Such men were to perpetuate the male line at all costs, to ensure the family’s wealth remained in the family.
Even families without titles needed sons to manage the land and coin—or the shop—for future generations, and in titled families… Some titled families preferred to have so many sons that they numbered them rather than named them.
“I am spoiling your appetite with my sour opinions,” Miss Armstrong said. “I do apologize.”
“Just the opposite.” Dunfallon had finished his soup and started on his half sandwich. “You are honest and articulate, so I will do my best to return the compliment. Do you suppose men like being misled, manipulated, and viewed as prize stags to be brought down by the most skilled markswoman, who then resents her stag for indulging in one of the few true pleasures of married life—pleasures that are supposed to be shared, unless he’s a complete bungler?
“Do you believe,” he went on, “that a husband delights in carrying responsibility for the welfare of an entire household, despite being as frail and mortal as the next fellow? Do you suppose those bachelors you disdain never tire of the duty waltzes and duty musicales and duty escorts and duty house parties?”
He should not have mentioned that bit about shared pleasure, but Miss Armstrong looked intrigued rather than appalled.
“You raise valid questions, Mr. Dunn. I suppose debating skills are much prized among aspiring clergy.” She took another bite of her sandwich. Miss Armstrong enjoyed a healthy appetite and didn’t lace herself too tightly to indulge it.
“I was never aspiring clergy,” Dunfallon said. “I am not exactly aspiring clergy now. I was a bookish fellow with an outspoken distrust of authority, as most true scholars are apt to be. My teachers despaired of me, but they also knew to cram my head full of the ideas of men far more astute than I could hope to be.”
“Of men?” She might have been referring to a particularly unattractive class of insect.
“I read Mrs. Radcliffe and Mrs. Burney too. Whacking great adventures and clever social dramas. Silly sometimes, too—sideways satire—but that’s part of the joy of a good story.”
Miss Armstrong set down her sandwich and bestowed on Dunfallon a smile of such delighted sweetness that had she shot him in the bum with an arrow, he could not have been more astonished. When she smiled like that, Miss Armstrong barreled right past beguiling and galloped into the nearer reaches of fascinating.
The slight detachment that she carried around like a banner when executing her librarian’s duties was exchanged for the pennant of the prettiest lady in the shire, the most warmhearted, intelligent, alluring, unexpected…
God have mercy, he wasn’t the only one dissembling. Miss Emerald Armstrong wasn’t what she appeared to be, not at all, and that pleased Dunfallon as spirited debate, hot soup, and bachelor freedoms never had.
“Which of Mrs. Burney’s is your favorite?” she asked, scooting a few inches closer. “Everybody prefers Evelina, but where would Pride and Prejudice be without Cecilia?”
“Ah, but are we sure that Pride and Prejudice was written by ‘a lady’?”
Miss Armstrong went off into flights, about Mrs. Burney’s gift for satire being perfected by the later author into delicate irony, and the female perspective enlightening both, and on and on she held forth.
As she did so, Dunfallon added a few other descriptors to the list he was curating on Miss Armstrong’s behalf. She was lovely, a general term that seldom graced his vocabulary unless his family’s whisky was under discussion. She was astute, able to connect seemingly distant points of logic that were, in fact, related.
And she was—despite the spinster attire, tidy bun, and firm command of unruly urchins—intellectually and morally passionate.
“I’m off on my rounds,” she said after dining on Waverly’s bones at length. “I must make the weekly trek returning books that were borrowed from our sister libraries and mistakenly surrendered here. You are welcome to bide in this office as long as you please. You will be back on Friday, won’t you?”
Before this nooning, Dunfallon had been fashioning a polite epistle about an enjoyable morning, a regrettable if puzzling misunderstanding, and best wishes for the library—along with a bank draft. Dukes were much given to conveying their parting sentiments with bank drafts.
Besides, he had much to see to. December always meant a mountain of reports from the stewards, debts to settle, charities to fund, and family correspondence on top of the usual mountain of business mail, in addition to social obligations that featured various strengths of bad punch.
The clerks and under-stewards were in particular want of supervision in December, to say nothing of the household staff, who’d spend the month sampling recipes for wassail left to their own devices.
And yet, where parting sentiments should have resided, Dunfallon instead felt a nagging reluctance to leave. Miss Armstrong also had much to see to—a building to look after, children underfoot, thousands of books to keep track of. Who assisted her with any of it?
He’d spied an oil can in the cupboard downstairs, and any number of hinges, hasps, and door latches on the premises would benefit from its use. She needed at least two spare buckets of coal for her parlor stove, and this office could use a thorough dusting too.
“What is on the agenda for Friday?” he asked. The deadly sin of lust—for books, of course—came to mind.
“After our story, the children and I will decorate the library for the holidays. We’ll hang cloved oranges in the windows, though I daresay we’ll eat some oranges as well. We’ll put up wreaths and greenery outside and wrap red ribbon on the banisters. The pensioners will help, too, of course, but I’d hate to ask them to climb the ladders. The smaller children will make snowflakes of old paper, and we hang those in the windows too.”
How dreadfully… appealing. The library would be full of mayhem and fun, the opposite of a gentlemen’s club. At the library, nobody would be inebriated or boasting of last night’s wagers and conquests. Nobody would be crying into his imported brandy about parsimonious uncles or jealous mistresses.
“I will be here Friday,” Dunfallon said, getting to his feet, “and if we are through with our repast, I’ll take the dishes back to the chop house.”
“That would be appreciated. When I return from my rounds, I have a half-dozen overdue notices to write, and I’ve put them off too long as it is. I hate asking a patron to surrender a book if they are still truly enjoying it.”
She rose, and Dunfallon realized he’d not only volunteered for more porter’s duty, but he was being dismissed by a busy woman who thought he was some sort of clergy-in-training.
“I don’t want to be a curate.” He didn’t much want to be a duke either.
“Then don’t be.” She patted his arm, much the way she might have patted Caspar’s head. “What would you rather be instead?”
He owed her the truth, and yet… His Grace of Dunfallon would not be welcome back on Friday, nor permitted a private repast with the lady librarian. He would have no opportunity to lug coal up two flights of stairs for Emmie Armstrong, or to oil every hinge and lock in the library for her.
“You ask about my aspirations. I have always wanted to be a pirate king. Until Friday, Miss Armstrong, and my thanks for a delightful meal.”
He bowed—catching another whiff of lemon verbena—then collected the tray and saw himself out. Maybe aspiring curates did not bow to opinionated librarians, but dukes certainly did, as did pirate kings.
“Mr. Dunn reads Mrs. Burney, and he could debate the gender of Pride and Prejudice’s author,” Emmie said. “Not lecture me, my lady, but rather, engage in honest and good-natured debate.”
The discussion had been good-natured, though Mr. Dunn’s voice—a growling bass-baritone—imbued his discourse with more ferocity than the speaker likely intended.
Leah, Countess of Bellefonte, sniffed the orange in her hand, then added it to the basket on the potting table. “You do not mean to tell me that Mr. Dunn respected your opinions, Emmie? One of Nicholas’s most endearing features is that he listens to me and to the children. He maintains that a smart man will also listen to his horse, and to his siblings if they deign to bestow advice. I’ve caught him in conversation with the pantry mouser too.”
Lord and Lady Bellefonte had a horde of siblings between them, a growing brood of children, and a veritable regiment of nieces and nephews. His lordship was built on Viking proportions, and his good humor was on a scale with the rest of him. Emmie had found the earl more than once playing hide-and-seek with his children—and his countess—in this very conservatory.
“Lord Bellefonte accepts counsel from his sisters?”
“Nicholas adores his family,” Lady Bellefonte replied, adding more oranges to the basket. “He and I would not be married but for a promise he made to his late father. Nicholas is an earl—that cannot be helped—but he is first and foremost the head of our family.”
“And a firm advocate for the traditional kissing bough, apparently,” Emmie said, eyeing a second basket brimming with greenery and topped with bunches of mistletoe.
“Oh, that, too, and never leave the gingerbread unguarded around him.”
“His lordship sounds like certain small boys I know.” And not like Mr. Dunn, who’d given Caspar his sandwich. A gentleman should be charitable, but that he would notice Caspar’s hunger was unusual. Of all the boys, Caspar was the most proud and the worst at begging.
“Nicholas does not put on airs,” her ladyship said, sniffing another orange, “for which—among many other traits—I treasure him.” Her ladyship’s smile was cat-in-the-cream-pot pleased. “Where did I…? Ah, here they are.” She pried the cork off a large glass jar, sniffed, then sealed it up again and banged the cork down with her fist. “You need not look so puzzled, Emmie. Good men abound. They aren’t all like Hercules Flynn.”
The fragrance of cloves wafted on the humid air of the conservatory. “Lord Hercules,” Emmie muttered. “Even when we were engaged, he did not give me leave to drop his honorific.” He’d been all too happy to drop his breeches, though.
“Lord Hercules will not be at our open house, Emmie. My guest lists never include him.” Her ladyship stashed the cloves among the pine boughs and mistletoe. “Nor do they include Lady Hercules.”
“She and I are quite civil.” Emmie collected spools of red and green ribbon from the table and added them to the basket of oranges. “More than civil, in fact. I feel sorry for her. Hercules set me aside because his present wife had the larger dowry. All of Society knows this, but worse, the lady herself knows it. I gather her family didn’t allow her much choice, given that Lord Hercules’s family is titled.”
“And I,” Lady Bellefonte said, passing over a spool of gold ribbon, “like many others, think you had a narrow escape. Lord Hercules is intemperate.”
He wagered, he drank, he dueled. Standard behavior for a marquess’s spare. “He has never read an entire book, not even Tom Jones. When he told me that—boasted of it—I knew I was making a mistake.”
“Precisely.” Her ladyship shook out a red and green plaid cloth and folded it over the oranges and ribbon. “Lord Hercules was wrong for you, and engagements often dissolve when finances come under discussion. All that is behind you, and this year, you must come to my open house.”
Some traitorous, lonely part of Emmie wanted to attend. “That would be unwise, my lady. Lord Hercules won’t impose himself on the household, but he has many friends, and some of his friends have wives and sisters. I do not care to once again be referred to as The Face That Launched a Thousand Sips.”
“Lord Hercules was sipping deeply before he became engaged to you. Make no mistake about that.”
“He was drunk when he asked leave to court me.” Emmie had never told anybody that. Had never put into words the despair that had enveloped her when she’d realized how much fortification Hercules had indulged in before embarking on their courtship. “He smelled of cheap perfume too.”
Her ladyship ceased fussing with a second plaid cloth and wrapped Emmie in a quick, fierce hug. “A very narrow escape, then. Your freedom is worth whatever petty gossip followed from his defection.”
Emmie moved away, took up the second cloth, and folded it atop the greenery. “My brother has barely spoken to me since. Ambrose said if his best friend wasn’t good enough for me, then I clearly had no need of a brother either.”
“Oh dear. Shall I have a word with your muddle-headed sibling? You were not the one to cry off, except in the technical sense.”
Lady Bellefonte meant well, but she had never encountered the stubbornness of a young man trying to don the confident air of an effective patriarch.
“Hercules insinuated that I was impossible to court, and Ambrose believed his old school chum rather than listen to me. I cannot prove what Hercules asked of me in confidence, and I have my competence.” And my books. “Thank God I am enough of a fossil that Ambrose cannot interfere with my funds.”
“You are a woman of independent means and to be envied. I am a woman with an open house that you should attend.”
Why did Mr. Dingle’s cozy little tales about intrepid kittens never feature a feline who dreaded Society? A young lady mouser who’d been the butt of gossip and mean toasts? One whose name had appeared in the betting books and whose only sibling refused to speak with her?
Probably because such a tale could not be turned about with a brilliant flash of ingenuity and some good luck, and Mr. Dingle’s tales always ended happily.
“Say you’ll come, Emmie.” Lady Bellefonte made the invitation a command rather than a wheedle. Perhaps in this household, Lord Bellefonte did all the wheedling. What an odd thought.
“You can bring along this Mr. Dunn,” her ladyship went on, “if an escort is the problem.”
“I would rather not attend, my lady. Holiday punch can bring out the friendly overtures from the bachelors.”
“And from the chaperones and footmen and even the curates. That is part of the appeal of the season, but if you fear the friendly overtures, allow me to put your worries to rest. Nicholas has invited Dunfallon, and with the duke in the room, nobody will notice you.”
“His Grace of Dunfallon?” Some unwritten law required social pariahs to read the Society pages. West Bart’s Lending subscribed to three weeklies and two dailies, and Dunfallon’s name appeared in them all. If he drove out with a marquess’s daughter, that was remarked. If he stood up with a duke’s niece, that was observed. If a young lady and her widowed mama joined him at the opera, that was speculated upon.
How much of the duke’s socializing fell under Mr. Dunn’s “duty” category?
“The very one,” Lady Bellefonte replied. “His Grace of Don’t Fall For Him, the most eligible bachelor in the realm. The soldier-statesman, pride of Scotland, and despair of the matchmakers. He’s not a bad sort, really, though his humor tends to be understated. Dunfallon is the dour Highlander, while Nicholas is Merry Olde to the life. They are nonetheless fast friends and have been for years.”
Perhaps Dunfallon, for all his wealth and standing, found the holidays trying too. “His Grace doubtless needs friends. He lost two older brothers, from what I’ve read.” The first had been given a Christian name—the same name as all the previous Dukes of Dunfallon. Kenneth, or Callum, or Camden. Something resoundingly Scottish. The spare had been Secondus and the current duke… Tertius? What a sorry lot of names to impose on baby boys.
“Those of us who need friends are often the last to accept friendly invitations,” Lady Bellefonte said. “Let’s enjoy a spot of tea, and I’ll have the footmen take these baskets over to West Bart’s. I’ll do East Bart’s tomorrow, though they don’t seem to take their decorating as seriously as West Bart’s does.”
Because East Bart’s did not welcome every urchin, pensioner, or stray cat through its doors. “East Bart’s has a different set of patrons, but we are all devoted to reading for pleasure and improvement, and we all appreciate your support, my lady.”
Emmie owed much to Lady Bellefonte, and her ladyship had never expected anything other than a well-run library in return.
“I am happy to support the libraries,” she said. “Books were one of few comforts I had growing up, and all of my children are avid readers. Let us repair to a cozy sitting room, my dear. A conservatory in winter always feels a little stuffy to me, though winter is precisely when a conservatory is most useful.”
Emmie allowed herself to be gently herded along to an elegant, light-filled parlor done up in blue, cream, and gold. She indulged in two cups of hot, sweet tea and an assortment of fruit tarts—why did fruit taste especially wonderful in winter?—and waited for her ladyship to renew the invitation to the open house.
That renewed invitation did not come, which was fortunate. Emmie was happy among her books, with her urchins and pensioners and the occasional bluestocking, spinster, or widow. Lady Bellefonte managed the library’s directors, and that left Emmie free to run the premises.
“What is he like, this curate?” Her ladyship asked when the tray had been removed and the fire built up. “How old is he?”
Mr. Dunn was like… Scotland. Imposing, lovely, more complicated than his attractive features suggested, and more vigorous than a curate should be.
Also more expensively dressed.
More opinionated.
Taller, as exponents of generations of wealth tended to be tall.
“He is no boy,” Emmie replied, because her ladyship expected an answer. “Old for a curate, but then, good posts are hard to come by these days. Well-read, articulate, not one to speak for the pleasure of hearing himself declaim. Has a luscious burr and a mind both curious and confident. Not without humor, though far from silly.”
“You like him.”
“I… do.” Emmie’s admission was laced with puzzlement. She had found Lord Hercules likable at first. He and his many friends excelled at being likable, while they insulted a lady behind her back. “Mr. Dunn is a hard worker, and he doesn’t put on airs.”
He also didn’t fit the description of a curate in many significant particulars, and that turned Emmie’s liking ever so slightly cautious.
“And he argues with you over novels and politics,” Lady Bellefonte observed.
“Yes,” Emmie said. “Well, no. Not argues. We debate, we discuss, we agree on some issues and differ on others. Hours after he’s left the premises, I’m still pondering the points he made and thinking of the clever ripostes I should have offered him when I had the chance.”
Talk wandered from there to books, to her ladyship’s vast family, to recipes for punch, and by the time Emmie had returned to the library, the enormous baskets were already waiting in her office. When she unwrapped the greenery to set it out on the balcony, she found heaps more mistletoe atop the pine boughs than she recalled Lady Bellefonte packing.
Lady Bellefonte had made some sort of mistake, clearly.
Or had she? East Bart’s had no use for mistletoe, though perhaps West Bart’s did.