“Theo, listen now,” Mrs. Varney said. “By day I stand with face of stone. At night I fill the silent home. I feast on log and coal and spark. Seek here the heart that warms the dark.”
“Hello, Mungo.”
“Tabitha.” He nodded. The woman was a predator, but in a harmless way, or so others told him. She terrified Mungo, and not many people could lay claim to that.
“Mungo told me just yesterday how he thought you were the prettiest woman he knew, Tabitha,” Gray said.
Mungo reached for him, but he’d moved to the right, putting Bram, Leo, and Mavis between them.
“Oh, Mungo, I think you are the most handsome man in Crabbett Close too,” Tabitha cooed.
“Really?” Miss Downing said, looking at him. She wrinkled her nose, and it absolutely did not make her look sweet. “I can think of several far more handsome men.” She then opened her mouth and swallowed whatever hell was on that plate. “But then, I’m sure he has a winning personality,” she added, looking like she wanted to throw up now.
“No, he doesn’t,” several Nightingales called out in unison.
“That’s a hard one, Mrs. Varney,” Theo said, still trying to work out the riddle.
But Mungo kept his eyes on the woman beside him. She swallowed several times, fighting to keep the food down. Miss Downing then pressed a gloved hand to her mouth and burped.
“Oh dear, excuse me.” She looked around, horrified, as if she’d committed an unpardonable sin.
“Burping is allowed,” Mungo said.
She gave him a tight smile before looking at Theo. “The answer is hearth.”
“Brilliant, Miss Downing. Now let us be off.”
Mungo threw back his drink, this one far better than the last would have been. The alcohol burned its way nicely down his throat.
Theo took Miss Downing’s hand, and Mungo refused to acknowledge how much he wanted to reach for the other one.What was wrong with him?
“I cry foul!” Ram roared as ahead of them, his wife, Flora, who was not in his team, stuck out her foot and sent him flying.
Theo hurdled the fallen Hellion, and the governess nimbly dodged him.
“Hurry it along, you lot,” Ivy said. She was tapping her foot.
“Mama says hurry up!” Lottie shrieked, her face sticky with sugar plum juice as she ran beside them.
“Please don’t make me eat anything that wobbles,” Eliza whispered as he stopped at her side.
Mungo studied the table as Mr. Peeky, who was manning it with his granddaughter, waved a hand over the contents. Cam stood there now, eating a biscuit.
“What’s that, Cambridge?” Ivy jabbed a finger at him.
“A superb ginger biscuit, Ivy. Tabitha Varney rushed into her house and came back with it for me.”
Ignoring the grinning idiot behind the table, Mungo said, “Theo, eat the jellied eel. Miss Downing, the macaroon, and Ivy do the riddle. I will drink.” He passed the plate to Eliza. She didn’t argue with him this time.
“I never was, am always to be. No man hath ever looked on me, yet all shall feel me, slow or fast. For I am coming—last of last. What am I?” Mr. Peeky asked.
“Bloody hell, that’s a hard one too,” Charles said.
“Exceedingly,” Cambridge agreed. “But as Sinclairs are a great deal smarter than Nightingales, it will come to me.”
Mungo braced Gray as he stumbled sideways.
“Stop that woman!” Alex roared pointing at Mavis, who was already on her way to the next table.
