“Of course I w-would!” she exclaimed.
Although she was still overset, the enthusiasm in her voice made him smile. Distraction was in order, and he wasn’t afraid to employ his cook’s decadent confections for that purpose, even if it was the midst of the night.
She was already scrambling from his lap in a flurry of bounding curls and ruffled nightgown and girlish enthusiasm. Brandon threw back the bedclothes and rose as well, making certain to discreetly obtain a handkerchief and mop up his neck before tucking it into a pocket on his dressing gown. Taking up a candle to aid them on their journey, he lit it, light flaring to life in the room.
The flickering flame illuminated Pandora’s tearstained cheeks. He forced a smile for her benefit and took up a fresh handkerchief to dry her face as well.
“I do believe we may find some of Mrs. Willoughby’s famed cabinet pudding,” he told Pandora with a conspiratorial air.
He had begun asking his cook to leave some of Pandora’s favorites aside in the evenings for just such occasions. He already knew the Savoy cake laden with candied angelica and ginger and sultanas awaited them.
His daughter clapped excitedly. “Oh, I hopes we will, Duke.”
“Come,” he said gently, offering her his hand.
She slipped her small fingers trustingly into his, and he led Pandora to the kitchens.
“Have you heard the lateston-dit?”Rosamund asked Lottie over tea that afternoon, bearing the air of someone who couldn’t wait to relay the scandalous gossip she’d recently learned.
“On-dit, on-dit,” squawked Megs from Rosamund’s shoulder.
Her somewhat eccentric friend had brought her African grey parrot along for her call.
Megs was a brilliant bird, but Lottie couldn’t help but to be perpetually disconcerted by the parrot’s presence. She felt quite as if they were being eavesdropped upon.
“I don’t believe that I have,” she said mildly, taking a sip of her tea.
“I should think you would find it most intriguing as it pertains to a certain duke.”
“A certain duke, a certain duke,” Megs added.
“Hush, darling,” Rosamund chided the parrot, offering her a bite of sliced apple that Lottie had requested from the kitchen for just such a purpose. “The Duke of Brandon, to be precise.”
Lottie’s stomach performed a little flip at the mentioning of Brandon. Although several days had passed since their ignominious meeting at his most recent ball, she had been haunted by the memory of his mouth on hers.
But she schooled her features into the blandest expression she could muster, not wanting a hint of her conflicting emotions to show. “I’m sure I don’t have any interest in gossip concerning His Grace—or anything else regarding him, for that matter.”
Megs blinked at her, chewing on her apple from Rosamund’s shoulder. Lottie swore the parrot knew she was lying. She narrowly resisted making a face at the bird, who was far too wise and knowing for a creature so small.
Rosamund pursed her lips. “With the way the two of you were speaking together at the ball, I thought that perhaps you had an…understanding.”
As a single woman, Rosamund was not meant to know such things.
“Your mother would be horrified to hear you speak thus,” Lottie reminded her, feeling that as the older, if not wiser, of the two of them, and certainly as the more experienced, she bore a responsibility.
Rosamund grinned, unrepentant. “I have no doubt that Mama would, which is why I never mention such subjects in her presence.”
“Never mention to Mama,” Megs said. “Do keep it a secret, Megs. Do keep it a secret.”
A slight flush gilded Rosamund’s cheekbones at the parrot’s telling musings. “Never mind you,” she scolded Megs quietly, offering up another bit of apple before turning her attention back to Lottie. “Don’t you wish to know? I couldn’t very well tell my mother about it since she disapproves of gossip. But I’ve been seething with the need to confide in someone.”
How ironic. Lottie found herself feeling quite the opposite. She could see, however, that her friend would tell her whether she wished to hear theon-ditor not.
She sighed, settling her teacup in its saucer with a small rattle. “What is the gossip you have heard concerning Brandon?”
Lottie could only presume that what her friend had heard had been positively scandalous.
Rosamund leaned forward in her chair, lowering her voice as if they were in a crowded room and anyone might hear. “Ihave it on good authority that he has an illegitimate daughter who islivingwith him now. She is a young child, no more than five years of age, and she was recently abandoned at his poorgrandmother’stown house.”
