Alex interrupted this nonsense without compunction. “When the two of have quite finished getting maudlin, I wish you’d bend your minds to this scheme of mine.”
At this, Apple turned on him. “It’s a stupid scheme. I can’t possibly come to your home for Christmas. Oh, I don’t mean the story about Bath, I can easily concoct something there.”
Alex grinned. “I’ll go bail you can.”
“Yes, but it won’t do, Alex, you must see that. I shouldn’t know how to behave, and there’s no denying I don’t belong in your circle. I’d be terrified of doing or saying the wrong thing and I’d be uncomfortable all the time.”
“No, you wouldn’t, Apple,” struck in Georgy, with a lightning volte face. “I can guide you, never fear.”
Apple rode over her. “Besides, you’ve said I don’t know how many times how shocked your mother would be at these exploits, and it’s ridiculous to be putting your head in the lion’s mouth. I won’t come!”
“You’ll come if I have to drag you there,” said Alex. “I’m not leaving you alone to make a dog’s biscuit of things, because as sure as check you’ll do something silly and I’ll have the devil’s own work to sort it out afterwards.”
Apple’s grey eyes flashed. “So that’s it. You don’t trust me!”
“Why would I? A more hen-witted chit I’ve never encountered, and that includes my sister here.”
“How dare you, Alex?”
“I am not hen-witted! And I don’t want to go to Dymond Garth!”
“Well, you’re coming and that’s that. My mind’s made up.”
Apple subsided, glowering at him as Alex resumed eating, aware of his sister’s astonished gaze going from one to the other. For several moments, they ate in silence, Apple picking at her food in such a desultory fashion that eventually ran Alex out of patience.
“No use you sulking, Apple.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are. Stop it at once!”
She flashed him a glare. “I wish you won’t talk to me as if I was five!”
“Then don’t behave as if you were.”
To his annoyance, Georgy entered the lists. “How can you be so horrid, Alex? Poor Apple will be wishing she’d gone home with her cousins if you carry on in that style.”
He had the grace to feel a touch of remorse. He hadn’t meant to command the chit like that. If she hadn’t ripped up at him, he’d have used persuasion instead. But the truth was she was a deal too hot at hand and needed taming.
A small voice in the back of his head reminded him that it was scarcely his business to tame the girl, nor indeed to decide what she should do. In fact, he was being as autocratic as her cousins. On impulse, he turned to her. “Beg pardon, Apple. Shouldn’t have roared at you like that.”
She did not look at him, and her voice was tight and small. “It is of no consequence.”
The footman entering at this moment with a laden tray, silence fell again. Alex waited while the second course was laid out, casting a glance at Apple from time to time. Damnation, he’d hurt the chit! Why she’d taken it in snuff when she’d been ready enough to take up the cudgels in the past, he couldn’t fathom. She’d paid no heed to his strictures at the outset. But now it was as if he’d crushed her.
He was relieved when Georgy took up the mantle of the discussion the moment the room was clear of all but Berryman. “If Apple is indeed coming with us, Alex, she’s going to need more gowns. Two won’t suffice at Dymond Garth. We’ll have to go back to Emmeline’s.”
Alex waved this aside. “Do as you must, Georgy, though I’d no expectation of her posing as anything but a female in genteel poverty.”
Apple looked up at that, a little of her usual manner returning. “Genteel? But I’m not genteel.”
“Yes, but my mother won’t know that. Must have some reason you ain’t been on the Town. We’ll say Georgy befriended you, but lost touch when you left school. Then you sent to congratulate her on her marriage, say, and —”
“And we resumed our friendship,” finished Georgy. “Yes, that is excellent, Alex. Oh, and I think you are staying with me because I asked you, as Rob is going away and I didn’t want to be alone.”
“And when Captain Edginton asked Lord Dymond to take you to your mother’s, you felt it rude not to ask me to come for Christmas to your home because you’d already invited me to remain with you for the festive season.”
Alex gave a shout of laughter. “See what I mean, Georgy? No shortage of inventive tales when Apple’s about.”
