“Daniel, pet, don’t bother the gentleman while he’s reading,” his mother said vaguely.
“He’s not a bother,” Mr. Marchand replied.
Everyone forgave Mr. Marchand for this bald lie. It was his first evening in the sitting room. He would learn.
“Those are head bones.” Daniel pointed at Marchand’s skull ring.
“Indeed,” Mr. Marchand agreed. “It’s called a skull.”
“Askuuuullll,” Daniel crowed.
Lord Bolt surreptitiously dropped his head despairingly into his hands.
“I have bones inmyhead.” Daniel knocked with a fist on his pate.
“Well, that’s a very good thing,” Mr. Marchand told him. “Otherwise your head might collapse like a blancmange. You need something in there to hold it up.”
Someone in the room hissed in a revolted breath, but Daniel convulsed into giggles.
Ginny begrudgingly conceded the point to Marchand. Little boys loved disgusting things. Hogarth was all that was proper and polite now, but when he was seven years old, he had once skewered dog excrement with a stick and chased her with it.
“Can I hold it?” Daniel was emboldened to ask Mr. Marchand.
“My ring?”
Daniel bobbed his head.
“If your mother says it’s all right.”
Marchand glanced at Daniel’s mother, who nodded her permission.
To Ginny’s astonishment, he pulled that ring—probably worth a few hundred pounds—from his finger. “Be careful with it,” he admonished.
Daniel accepted it with breathless care into his little hand, his mouth a perfect “O” of wonder.
He brought it up to his eye like a spyglass and squinted at it.
“It’s made from the bones of pirates,” Marchand told him.
“Cor.” Daniel was impressed.
From peering at it with his eyes, he moved it toward his nose and, for reasons known only to him, sniffed it. He paused speculatively, then darted a sneaky glance at Marchand.
“Do not put that in your mouth,” Marchand said firmly.
“I wasn’t going to,” Daniel lied passionately, his eyes luminously aggrieved.
Marchand held out his hand, and Daniel obediently deposited the ring into his palm.
“Have you got any babies?” Daniel asked him, as Marchand pushed the ring back onto his finger.
Ginny was intrigued when Mr. Marchand didn’t immediately reply.
“I do not have any babies,” he said.
“Lucky.I’ve got a baby bruvver.” This revelation positively thrummed with regret and disgust.
“I see. And how do you feel about that?” Mr. Marchand asked ironically, since how Daniel felt was clear.
