Jacob turned in time to see a swift look of wily calculation pass over Ruby’s pretty features before the lady moved to their table, a maid in tow.
‘Miss Fitz-Pennington, it’s been an age!’ declared Ruby to all the interested ears at other tables. In fact, it had been a matter of weeks since she’d left Jacob’s cottage in Cumberland to take up residency in Viscount Sandys’s love nest in Marylebone. She brushed a kiss on Dora’s cheek and offered her hand to Jacob.
Jacob stood, bowed over her knuckles, and then pulled out another chair. ‘Will you join us?’
‘Only for a moment. I have errands to run. Shopping– it is so fatiguing.’ Ruby sank gracefully onto the offered seat. ‘You may wait for me in the shade, Betty,’ she said to her maid.
Betty– who could be no more than fourteen– bobbed a curtsey and went outside, her eyes wide, taking in all the details of the high life she likely had never seen before.
‘You? In Gunter’s?’ said Dora.
Ruby rubbed her bump, forget-me-not blue eyes alive with amusement. She had the roses-and-cream complexion that was in vogue, as well as charming ebony curls frothing around her heart-shaped face– very much a fashionable beauty. Her walking dress was of sprigged muslin with a light silk pelisse in pink– perfectly decent, but Jacob was sure Dora would tell him it was a costly garment. His Dora had a draper’s eye for such things. ‘I know,’ Ruby said. ‘Arthur would not approve but it is his fault. He sent me a pail of ice cream as a gift, and now I cannot get enough of the heavenly stuff. It’s ambros—What’s the word I’m looking for?’
‘Ambrosia,’ supplied Dora.
‘Ambrosia. It’s the only thing Junior appears to like.’
‘Cravings are natural for a lady in your condition,’ said Jacob smoothly, wondering at this thoughtfulness from his brother. Actually, on second thoughts, he didn’t want to wonder about his brother’s dealings with his ladylove, not when Jacob had to face his sister-in-law, Diana, at family gatherings. She did not deserve this disloyalty from her husband.
Ruby beamed at him. ‘Oh, I do like you, Dr Sandys.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘I don’t suppose you can recommend a good accoucheur?’
‘I’ll send over some names,’ Jacob promised, glad she hadn’t asked him to be attendant at her lying-in. He had given up practising medicine unless it was an emergency and it would bein bad taste to attend his brother’s mistress in such an intimate procedure.
‘And they let you in here without protest?’ murmured Dora. Dora had told Jacob of the many times she and Ruby had been turned away from shops and inns for the sin of being actresses.
‘Oh, they are sweethearts– all of them,’ said Ruby gaily, waving at the watching waiters. Even grouchy Mr Gunter smiled at her from behind the counter. ‘They know people will keep coming for their exceptional ice cream even if an occasional bird of paradise alights among the sparrows.’
‘Is that what you’re calling yourself?’ Dora’s eyes glittered with laughter.
‘There are worse names, Dora, which I’m sure you know.’ Ruby turned her smiles on the waiter who was returning with their order. ‘Oh, do tell me what they ordered, Giovanni!’
‘The burnt almond and the Parmesan cheese, Signora Plum,’ said the waiter, producing them with a flourish.
Ruby pulled a comical face. ‘Good heavens, Dora, you really are extraordinary. Why not go for apricot or ginger if you must be different? Or the pistachio– at least that is a charming green colour.’
‘I see someone else is eating her way through the menu,’ said Jacob, leaning back so Giovanni could place a little cup of black coffee in front of him. The enticing odour of perfectly brewed espresso held him in rapture for a second. If Dora’s weakness was ice cream, his might be a decent cup of coffee.
‘Buon appetito!’ said the waiter, with a little bow.
Ruby watched them both expectantly, like a spaniel gazing at her mistress to hand her a biscuit.
‘What?’ asked Dora.
‘I’m waiting to find out if burnt almond and Parmesan are as foul as they sound.’ Dora offered her a spoon which she refusedwith a delicate shudder. ‘No, dear, you are my bellwether leading the flock of those of us with less adventurous tastes.’
‘I already know that burnt almond is divine so I’d better try this cheese concoction.’ Dora scraped a spoonful from the side of the pale-yellow ice. ‘Together?’ she asked Jacob.
He dug in his spoon. ‘In all things.’ He toasted her with his loaded utensil.
Ruby sighed. ‘You two are adorable.’
In unison, they both ate their sample. It was… extraordinary. Jacob had been expecting a creamy taste, but the intense flavour of the Parmesan pushed it into a more fragrant area, countering the sweetness with a salty savour. He loved it.
‘Dora?’ he asked.
She was gulping her coffee. ‘Tastes like smelly feet.’
Ruby chuckled with deep unladylike laughter, somehow surprising for someone of her petite frame.
