“And kippers. Lots and lots of kippers. Oh, and eggs. Can we eat in bed, Mama?”
“Coffee! What are you teaching these young women? You are not fit—”
She’d crossed the line. Brock grasped the door’s edge, one foot going over the threshold.
“Oh, Nancy, there you are, dear. Please send up a breakfast of tea, coffee. And lots of kippers and eggs. Add bacon and toast if you will. We are all famished.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ginny pushed the door shut on her mother’s outraged sputtering. It latched with a distinct click and twist of the lock. She huddled in on herself, her forehead against the heavy oak, her shoulders shaking with a violence that spurred Brock to sprint across room and take her in his arms. Children or no, he would not have Ginny sliding to the floor in a fit of tears. “Don’t cry, my darling. I’ll toss her to the street. You never have to see—”
“Mama,” Irene said from his side. “You can stop laughing now. She’s gone.”
“Laughing?” He pulled back, raised her chin to check for himself. “You’re laughing.” Relief poured over Brock. “You’re wrong, Lady Irene. She is crying, but ’tis only a case of histrionics.”
Cecilia’s giggle tickled his skin. “CanI have coffee?”
“It’s ‘may I,’” Irene calmly corrected her. “And no. Of course not. Children do not drink coffee.”
Ginny pulled out of his hold, leaving him curiously empty. “I’m the mother, Irene, in case you’ve forgotten. But she’s right, Celia. No coffee for you.”
Ginny flashed him a quick grin. “I hope you like kippers, my lord. Lots and lots of kippers.”
The girls’ laughter filled the air, Ginny’s and Cecilia’s, not Irene’s, of course. Right then John Brown, the Marquis of Brockway fell in love. For the second time in his life.
Tossing her parents out on their pointy little ears was proving more difficult than Ginny had anticipated. She’d forgotten how relentless her mother was. Which is how she found herself at the milliner’s shop on Bond Street. So far, she’d been able to circumvent every probing question her mother threw at her.
The baroness picked up a small confection with foot-high plumes of teal sprouting from its top. “Tell me about the house party you attended,” she said, setting the hat on her head. She faced the mirror and angled her head from side to side.
“I left early.”
Her mother stopped, mouth gaping, hand poised above her head. Her hand dropped, and the hat drooped. “Good heavens, Virginia. Why? Don’t you have the slightest care for your reputation?”
Ginny almost laughed. “Not particularly.” She was a little giddy with how she’d managed to hide the fact that John Brown had stayed the night in her bedchamber. She picked up a pair of ivory lace gloves. She meandered to the parasols, selecting one in a fine light pink edged in a darker pink leaf-like trim.
“Do you see something you like, Lady Maudsley?”
Ginny opened the parasol and spun it like a top. “Do you have this more fitting for a child?”
“Virginia.” Her mother’s exasperation had Ginny studying the inside of the canopy to hide her amusement.
“Not in that specific shade,” the shopkeeper told her. “We have beautiful lacy white for the younger ladies, however.” She went to a thin barrel, pulled out a shorter handle, and opened it.
“Oh, it’s lovely.” Ginny ran her fingers over the stretched fabric. “I’ll take two.”
“Shall I have them wrapped?”
“Please.”
Things were working out nicely, she thought. The goal with this outing was to allow Brock to work with the girls on safeguarding themselves and be out of the house before she returned with her parents. Her father was at the tobacconist’s down the street. She shuddered. If she ever caught Brock with snuff, she’d walk away and never look back.
Brock was stunned. He’d had no idea young ladies were so energetic. And by young ladies, his thoughts expressly targeted Lady Cecilia. Extreme emotions from Lady Irene, he was quickly learning, simply did not exist. He found her austerity impressive, her patience enduring, her self-control unnerving.
Irene followed his directions to the nth degree, yet her dress remained unmarred while Cecilia’s sported tears and smudges of dirt, the toes of her shoes scuffed, her stockings bunched around her ankles until she stripped them off and tossed them aside and stood before him in her bare feet.
Cecilia took up a makeshift stick and poked him in the stomach. “And I’ll carve out the knave’s heart.” He fell into a crouch, gripping the end of her stick lest she did damage besides that to his ears. They were in a cavernous ballroom, and her shouts echoed as if the stood at the top of the Swiss Alps.
“Lady Cecilia, you should probably lower your voice. In the event your grandparents return, as these lessons are…are—”
