“AViking!” Mrs. Cuthbert yelped, and clapped a hand over her bosom. “Now it’sVikings?”
“I’ve never known anyone to be so frightened of thehypothetical,” Mrs. Pariseau muttered.
“I would pick up this entire table and hurl it at the Viking, sir,” Corporal Dawson said at once.
An impressed, total silence honored the unique and exceptional violence of this solution.
“There’s a good lad,” Brightwall said contentedly.
Mrs. Dawson beamed meltingly at her husband, who was scarlet with pleasure now.
“What about you, Colonel Brightwall?” Mrs. Pariseau asked.
“Oh...” He tipped his head back in thought. “I’d probably subdue him with a stony look of displeasure or an icy silence.”
Alexandra stared at him. He was quotingher, from their earlier discussion.
It was fascinating, and just a little gratifying. Because it seemed clear that this had somehow gotten under his skin.
He didn’t glance her way. But his eyes had a challenging gleam, and the corners of them were crinkled ever so slightly.
No one seemed to know how to respond to this. Tentative smiles were the default response.
Delilah leaped gratefully into the lull.
“Speaking of stone, I understand a statue is being erected in your honor in Holland Park,Colonel Brightwall, and there will be a ceremony in honor of it. We read about it in the newspaper.”
Which is where, presumably, they’d read all about Alexandra’s alleged jail stay.
“Indeed, I am to be so honored,” Magnus told Delilah. “I’m given to understand it’s me, on a horse. Entirely made of cold, hard stone, of course.”
Alexandra pressed her lips together.
“The king sent Captain Hardy and Mrs. Hardy a silver cup as a wedding present. It’s about this big,” Dot volunteered. She held up her hands.
“A cup is nice, too,” Brightwall said politely, somewhat mischievously, to Captain Hardy. Who nodded, amused.
“If a statue was going to be made commemorating you, what would it be?” Mrs. Pariseau asked the group at large.
Delilah and Angelique exchanged glances. They were a little winded from the unpredictable nature of the discourse tonight, but this question seemed a trifle safer.
Although one never knew, of course.
“Mrs. Dawson?” Mrs. Pariseau aimed her bright, inquisitive gaze at the young woman.
Mrs. Dawson flushed furiously. “I don’t know. I’m just a girl.” Her volume was scarcely more than a squeak. “It would be a statue of a girl.”
Alexandra was fairly certain Mrs. Pariseau was suppressing a sigh.
“And I’m certain you would make a lovelystatue, dear,” Mrs. Pariseau replied patiently, finally. “What about you, Mrs. Brightwall?”
Alexandra liked these sorts of questions. “Oh, I think I’d like to be a statue in the middle of a fountain, the kind of fountain with tiers. So every kind of creature could come and have a drink—birds and bees and butterflies and deer and squirrels, and the like—and I could greet everyone, and see all the visitors.”
“Oh,lovely,” Mrs. Pariseau approved, beaming at her.
Something—a shift in thefeelof the room—made Alexandra glance at Magnus in time to see an expression of something like longing fleeing from his face.
Stunned, she stared at him.
