“Yes, I know,” Freddy replied apologetically. “But she is contained? For now?”
“For now,” Dot replied with a sigh. “Millie has her occupied with the baby. Why isn’t Mr. Cresson with you?”
“Because he’s waiting for the final box,” Freddy replied, heaving a relieved sigh as he divested himself of his trio of boxes and stepped back to stretch his arms. “They were still rolling off the press when we arrived. That’s the last time I trust him to choose a publisher! He’s had close to a year!”
“Oh, Freddy, it doesn’t work like that,” Dot tutted, though she did not look truly reproachful. “You know that.”
“I know no such thing,” he said with a grin, then turned from her to continue conducting his little symphony of activity. “Lads, start unpacking them in pretty little stacks, would you? I promise you’ll be well compensated.”
Dot was still making faces and heaving sighs, but she rushed forward to assist, wielding a letter opener like a stiletto.
“What time is everyone arriving?” Freddy asked, noting that he was actually breaking a sweat now,afterall the heaving and hauling. In response, the doorbell rang.
“Oh, Freddy Hightower, I am going to kill you,” Dot groaned, pressing her fingers into her brow. “You had better pray that it’s someone ringing the wrong bell.”
“Praying presently!” he called after her, still in very good spirits despite his imminent murder. “Maybe it’s Joe.”
It wasn’t.
It was a gaggle of females consisting of several he’d known were coming and a quartet of his mother’s spinster friends that he hadn’t anticipated. He did intend, later, to ask who had included the most terrifying people he knew, but right now it was not his priority.
“Ah, the cake,” he said with a little gasp of pleasure as it emerged from the kitchen, alongside several platters full ofvol-au-ventsand tiny sandwiches. “Look at the cake!”
He tipped the boys double what they were likely paid in the first place and recommended a little cafe to them that he knew for a fact was only a short walk from the front door. The othercopies would have to be held in the kitchens for later, he decided, stepping back to consider the presentation of the room now that guests were already milling about, touching things and having opinions and so on.
“Lord Bentley?” came a soft, feminine voice at his elbow. “Freddy!”
He turned, brows raised at this unfamiliar lilt, much sweeter and less canny than his typical female company. He broke into a smile immediately upon spotting its source in the exuberant ginger visage of Hannah Lazarus, a youngingénuehe’d met under the wing of Ember and Joe years ago, during a particularly risky caper in a gothic mansion.
“Hannah!” he said, immediately stepping forward to kiss her on either cheek. “Look at you! I didn’t know you were coming.”
“I have not seen you since Blackcove!” she replied. “I sent my congratulations to your mother last year, however. I trust she is very happy in her new marriage?”
“Distressingly happy, yes,” he replied. “I’m so pleased you came. We must catch up when there is time. How have you fared since we last spoke?”
“Much the same,” she replied with a shrug. “I still haven’t touched the dice.”
“Good girl,” he said with a nod of approval. “How goes your pursuit of the evasive and gigantic Mr. Beck? Any joy?”
“Oh, that,” said Hannah Lazarus, coloring until her cheeks blended into her hair. “No, nothing has happened with that.”
“Well, there’s still time,” he assured her. “There is always quite a lot of time in matters of love, my girl. I can promise you that.”
She seemed to consider it, shifting her eyes to the side for a moment as if considering a great deal of mischief.
Freddy cleared his throat, wondering if he had just lit a fuse he shouldn’t have. He touched her shoulder to bring her attention back around, flashing her what he hoped was a distracting array of teeth. “Still, I am so very pleased to see you here and well. Did Ember bring you?”
“Well, you must not be cross with them, but Ember and Joe let me read the book before it went to press.” She blinked her big blue eyes at him, grinning widely. “They were so marvelous that I made quite a fuss about being included in their debut. You might not believe me, but I can be very persistent when I want something.”
“I believe you,” he assured her, patting her shoulder, then immediately choosing to feign crossness anyway as he looked over her head at her accomplice. “Ember! Come here! I’m suing you.”
“Already?” Ember replied in a very bored tone, not bothering to do more than glance at him over her glass of punch. “Don’t be tedious.”
“Me?” Freddy replied. “Tedious? I beg your absolute pardon.”
He waited for Dot to return and grant her permission to move things along. She announced that Joe had arrived with the additional boxes and that her husband was here now too. She waved her hands at everyone and shushed them and sighed and wrung her hands.
It was perfect.
