“I’m afraid you must do as she says,” Phillip said.
“So many sacrifices,” Oliver grumbled, shaking his head as he hauled himself up the steps.
Phillip coughed to cover a laugh.
“Are you coming, too?” Oliver asked.
Hell, no,Phillip almost said, but managed to catch himself in time to change it to, “I need to remain outside to watch the carriage.”
Oliver’s eyes narrowed. “Why does the carriage need watching?”
“Er, strain on the wheels,” Phillip mumbled. “All our packages, you know.”
He was unable to hear what Eloise said under her breath, but the tone was not complimentary.
“Run along, Oliver,” he said, patting his son on the back. “Your mother needs you.”
“And you, too,” Eloise said sweetly, just to torture him, he was sure. “You need new shirts.”
Phillip groaned. “Can’t we have the tailor come out to the house?”
“Don’t you want to choose the fabric?”
He shook his head and said, quite grandly, “I trust you implicitly.”
“I think he needs to watch the carriage,” Oliver said, still hovering in the threshold.
“He’s going to need to watch his back,” Eloise muttered, “if he doesn’t—”
“Oh, very well,” Phillip said. “I’ll come in. But only for a moment.” He found himself standing in the women’s half of the shop, a frilly, feminine place if ever there was one, and shuddered. “Anything more, and I’m likely to perish of claustrophobia.”
“A big, strong man like you?” Eloise said in a mild voice. “Nonsense.” And then she looked up at him and motioned to him with her chin to come close.
“Yes?” he asked, wondering what this was all about.
“Amanda,” she whispered, nodding toward a door at the back of the room. “When she comes out, make a fuss.”
He looked about the store doubtfully. He might as well have been in China, so out of place did he feel. “I’m not very good at fussing.”
“Learn,” she ordered, then turned her attention to Oliver with a: “Now it’s your turn, Master Crane. Mrs. Larkin—”
Oliver’s groan would have done a dying man justice. “I want Mr. Larkin,” he protested. “Like Father.”
“You would like to see the tailor?” Eloise asked.
Oliver nodded vigorously.
“Really?”
He nodded again, although without quite as much conviction.
“Even though,” Eloise continued, with enough inflection to put her on the Drury Lane stage, “not an hour ago you vowed that wild horses could not drag you inside a storefront unless there were guns or toy soldiers in the window?”
Oliver’s mouth went slack, but he nodded. Barely.
“You’re good,” Phillip murmured in her ear as he watched Oliver drag himself through the doorway that separated Mr. Larkin’s half of the store from Mrs. Larkin’s.
“It’s all a matter of showing them how much worse the alternative is,” Eloise said. “Getting fitted by Mr. Larkin is tedious, butMrs. Larkin—now, that would be wretched.”
