Only perfection.
Today, he was taking his son to see the Stone King.
Everyone else was just incidental, weren’t they? But it couldn’t hurt to show these Portuguese guests the charms of a properly outfitted English picnic basket.
The carriage ride should be, at most, two hours. More of the guests had decided to join the excursion than he had anticipated, including his slippery little wife, who hadn’t attended a single dinner since his arrival almost a week ago; all of her scheminglittle friends; and his mother’s full coterie of scary spinster ladies.
Tommy, of course, was also coming, which meant that the carriage needed room for Abra. His mother and her beau were coming. And an assortment of Portuguese people he hadn’t been able to commit to memory were apparently also coming.
“We’ll be telling the story in English,” Freddy said testily.
To which his mother responded, “They all speak English, dear. We are the deficient ones in the company for our lack of options.”
“I could tell the story in French!” Oliver had offered, screwing up his little face as though he were going to attempt it in earnest. “Un … un temps! Un temps quand je suis sur le temps?!”
“Darling, no,” said Patricia, suddenly red-faced with the suppressed urge to laugh.
“Once upon a time?” Raul had guessed later, in a respectful whisper. “Once I was on top of the time?”
“He’s still very young, Raul,” she’d tutted back affectionately. “But we should probably be on top of the time, all the same. The morning is progressing.”
“Agreed!” Freddy had boomed, scooping Oliver up and onto his hip. “Tout le monde! On y va! Sur le temps!”
The boy, in all his angelic perfection, had giggled so hard, he’d gotten the hiccups.
Claire was already in the drive when they emerged, holding court between a gaggle of attentive females and the line of obedient carriages ready to do her bidding. She glowed. She was wearingdandelion yellow, stitched with bright red accents on the bodice and sleeves. From here, he could see she was wearing a pair of jasper earrings he’d bought her in Luxembourg, catching the red lowlights in her hair when she turned her head.
Did she remember he had bought those for her? Would she be wearing them if she did?
Freddy frowned, but he did set his son down to allow him to run over to his mother before they were to depart. In an ideal world, the three of them would have all chosen the same carriage and bundled into a domestic unit of anticipation and bliss as they rambled down the road to Long Compton.
Alas.
Freddy narrowed his eyes at the way Abe Murphy tossed Oliver into the air, at the way the boy’s delighted squeals echoed across the pebbled drive. Surely Oliver had the good sense to prefer his father over his uncle, didn’t he? His uncle by marriage only. Not even a blood relative. Just some sod who happened to be married to Claire’s sister.
“Darling, you’re making a face,” his mother had said in a bored sort of voice, patting him on the shoulder and crossing in front of him. “It isn’t becoming.”
He did not stop glaring; he simply rotated the entire operation toward his mother instead as she went about greeting some of her future in-laws in a charming little stutter of newly learned Portuguese.
“Good morning,” said Silas from his shoulder. “You’re making a face.”
This led Freddy to announce loudly that it was time to go.
And perhaps because they agreed or perhaps because, for a brief, shining moment, everyone remembered he was the damned earl of this damned estate, they did.
They went.
They all loaded up in the carriages, lurched into horse-drawn movement, and set off to meet the stone king and his doomed army.
Perfection wason course for success.
He’d held Abra for most of the journey, insisting to Tommy that the dog preferred his lap to hers just now while trying to hide the grip he needed to keep her in place. There was just something soothing about her warmth and weight.
He didn’t need to explain it!
Especially since Oliver had chosen to ride with his mother on the way out.
Abra, sensible little thing that she was, had given up on having seating preferences in good order and slumped into a snoring slumber shortly after the carriage reached the main roads. Freddy stared down at her quite a lot over the conversation in the carriage, wondering what it must feel like to sleep like that.
