“That’s true,” said Marianne, nodding as Norbert buried his nose in his young master’s thigh. “Ever since the first day he found him half drowned on the beach, Norbert is hopelessly devoted to Felix. Trying to separate them will not end well.”
As if she agreed, or was too terrified of Norbert to try, Polly was already backing out of the door. Before she bolted down the hallway, Georgie took hold of the dog’s collar. “After Norbert misbehaved in here yesterday and almost destroyed my classroom, Norbert can enjoy his morning nap in peace while we do our lessons, and he and Felix will be reunited at luncheon. Isn’t that right, Norbert?” She addressed the dog in a soothing, coercive voice as she tried to lure him toward Polly and the door, but sensing shenanigans and his immediate eviction, he planted his big paws beside his young master and refused to budge.
“See.” Felix folded his arms, smug. “I told you he wouldn’t have it. Dogs are the loyalest animals in the entire universe. They have always been a man’s best friend, but when you save a dog’s life, he will never abandon you.” As a reward for that loyalty, Felix bent to stroke his best friend’s ears while he stared back at Georgie, defiant. “Never.”
She would not fall at the first hurdle because of a dog!
If brute force wasn’t going to work, and his master wasn’t going to help, there was always bribery. “I am sure Mrs. Rigsby has a nice treat for you in the kitchen, doesn’t she, boy? A little bit of sausage perhaps?” Norbert’s ears pricked up at just the mention of the wordsausage. “Would you like a sausage?” He tilted his shaggy head in canine indecision as he looked from Felix to her, and she knew he was wavering. “Would Norbert like a lovely sausage?” Georgie sauntered to the door herself.
The dog almost stood.
Almost.
The powerful muscles in his back legs quivered as he hovered somewhere in between a sit and a stand. But then he glanced at Felix again for approval, and when the boy offered no encouragement beyond a stern glare, returned his shaggy bottom to the floor with a thud.
“No, Norbert!” She marched back to him and tried to be commanding, pulling herself to her full but pathetic height and staring him dead in the eye. “You need to go to the kitchen.”
Norbert responded by turning his head away and pretending he could neither see nor hear her.
“Felix—take him to the kitchen now!” Georgie wagged her stern teacher finger and gave him her special patented schoolmistress’s stare. A stare so deadly it had brought more than one errant pupil at Miss P’s school to tears when they had dared to test her. Fortunately,it did not let her down today despite Felix’s unbreakable bond with his dog and, after several defiant seconds during which both Marianne and Grace gave him a stern look too, the eldest Pendleton withered on the vine.
“Yes, Miss Rowe.” The boy even bowed his head in shame as his sisters exhaled in relief. “Come on, Norbert. Let’s go get you a sausage in the kitchen.”
Wheresausagehad been the magic word mere moments ago,kitchennow had the opposite effect, and Norbert went from sitting to collapsing in a heap on the parquet. As Felix tugged on his collar, the dog went rigid, using his immense weight to glue himself to the floor. “No, Norbert!” The boy yanked the collar and the dog barely slid an inch. “You have to go to the kitchen!”
Georgie and Marianne rushed to help maneuver the beast out, and between the three of them, they managed to drag him another foot toward the door. Little Grace then joined in, pushing ineffectually from the rear, and while they all grunted from exertion, all Polly the scullery maid did was blink at them.
“Some help would be appreciated, Polly,” Georgie said through gritted teeth, and after yet another blinking pause, the girl entered the fray.
Finally, they had some purchase on the prostrate Norbert and managed to shift him another two feet before his carcass went from inflexible to floppy. It made no scientific sense, defying all the laws of gravity, but for some reason a floppy Norbert was now quadruple the weight of a stiffened Norbert, and no matter what the five of them tried, the lax muscles had rendered him immovable. Almost as if he were now part of the very fabric of the floor itself and there forever.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” Like a petulant child, Georgie stamped her foot, furious that she had been bested by a dog on only her secondday when he had been partly responsible for thoroughly ruining her first. As she racked her brains for an alternative means of moving him, she glanced at the looming clock and realized, with a start, that she had already wasted fifteen minutes of valuable lesson time. Any more and she would be woefully behind her new schedule, the blank sheets of paper atop the children’s desks would not be covered in reams of sums, and the lack of evidence of a rigorous and traditional mathematics lesson would hardly impress the captain when he came to inspect her later.
If the dog refused to compromise, someone had to.
“Norbert can stay for this morning.” She consoled herself that it was only a temporary surrender while she regrouped. “But he will not be allowed into this room this afternoon under any circumstances.” She would barricade the door with her own body if necessary because when the captain returned at the end of the day, there would be no dog to spoil her tidy, disciplined oasis of quiet. This time she would pass muster.
She would pass it with flying colors!
On that she was resolute.
ChapterEIGHT
Harry could hear Norbert’s plaintive howling the second he turned onto Hanover Square a little before five. It was so loud he didn’t need Lady Flatman to flag him down to inform him of it, yet she did anyway.
“He hasn’t stopped for three hours, Captain Kincaid.Three.Whole. HOURS!” His most disagreeable neighbor clasped her hands beneath her ample bosom as she glared at him while he dismounted so he could be admonished on her level. “It is wholly unacceptable, sir, to expect the other residents in the square to be forced to listen to that commotion while you are off gallivanting.”
There was no point in clarifying that trying to get the bloody useless layabouts on the bloodyBoadiceato finally finish boarding the deck so the rest of the urgent work on it could commence was not gallivanting. And the less said about the new and urgent situation with supplies in Portsmouth, the better. Lady Flatman wouldn’t care if a ship full of sailors set off across the Atlantic with nowhere near enough food to keep them alive until they arrived in Nova Scotia. Shewasn’t a fan of men in general. Something she had made more than plain, repeatedly, ever since he inherited the house. They were all libertines, chancers, and despoilers as far as she was concerned, and nothing would shake her of that rigid opinion. But she had taken an instant dislike to him the day he had moved in simply because he had the affrontery to be not only a man, but an unmarried one, to boot. For apparently, bachelors were all in league with the devil and his very presence was enough to turn the genteel tranquility of this tiny corner of Mayfair into Hades.
“You are quite right, Lady Flatman. I will do my utmost to ensure that it does not happen again.”
He knew that was a promise he couldn’t keep, but he made it anyway. It had been a long day already, and Harry had only left the Admiralty for an hour so that he could check on his equally useless layabout governess. Incessantly wondering about her today had been more of a distraction than he needed, and she had invaded his concentration too many times in the worst possible way. Thanks to her, and blasted Flora’s blasted children, there was a mountain of work he still had to attend to when he returned. So tall it would be a bloody miracle if he saw his bed before midnight again tonight. If he wasn’t careful, at this rate, he would keel over from exhaustion before the month was out. A man in his prime wasn’t meant to survive on five paltry hours of sleep a night. When he was admiral of the fleet, he would issue a directive insisting that all sailors should get at least eight as standard. They’d be more efficient as a result, so that was hardly an indulgence.
“That dog is a menace, Captain Kincaid. Amenace!” He nodded because he couldn’t argue with that—and because there was little point in doing anything but nodding. When Lady Flatman wanted to tear him off a strip, there was nothing to be done except take it onthe chin, look contrite, and settle in for the duration. “My poor maids have still not been able to eradicate the stain of his mishap from my doorstep.” She pointed to it and Harry dutifully glanced that way.
“I apologize again for that… um… mishap. Sincerely.” The white stone looked spotless as far as he was concerned, and by his own admission he had higher standards than most, so he would have noticed any hint of a stain, but he composed his expression to one of penitent solemnity anyway. Then tried to maintain it without wincing as Norbert let rip again with a cry so tragic one would think he was in the midst of having his tail sawn off with a blunt blade.
“If that incessant howling wasn’t enough outrage for your unfortunate neighbors to have to endure, you also seem determined to bring the entire neighborhood intodisreputetoo.”
