Madcap Miss

“No, I don’t suppose it is,” he said and chuckled.

Earlier, however, she had been pleased to hear him complaining to his sister, “Daffy, do but look at all the damned puppies drooling over her. Dashed annoying.”

“Annoying? How so?” Daffy had answered. “She is a hit. It is quite wonderful, brother, quite wonderful.”

“None of them will do for her,” he had snapped.

Felicia smiled to herself. He might be her guardian, yes, indeed, but he was also a man, and she was sure he had been jealous this evening. It was on this very pleasant notion that she finally fell asleep.

* * *

Felicia uncurled herself from the sofa and threw down the boring book she had been trying to read when Rebecca Wilson was announced.

They rushed one another and squealed with delight as they hugged, and then Felicia set her aside and said, “My, my … look at you, all fashionable and ready to take on London and, oh, all your bruises healed. I am so glad.”

Her friend’s tawny locks had been slightly trimmed and curled beneath the pretty straw chip bonnet with its blue ribbon. She wore a blue silk walking ensemble and did, in fact, look very fashionable.

Felicia made her swirl around in front of her and clapped her hands before saying, “I know what. We shall go out. We can’t keep all this beauty of yours locked up inside, and I have so been wanting to get some air.”

Within a short span of moments, Felicia had on her dark green velvet Spencer and set her own pretty matching bonnet in place over her cascading black curls. She gave herself a quick look in the mirror, pulled on her kid gloves, and took her friend’s arm.

“Where are we going?”

“To walk in Hyde Park.” Felicia smiled.

Their heads together, they found they could not stop chattering about this and that, and they giggled so happily that the distance to the park was traveled in no time.

A young boy no more than ten held up several posies of flowers and with wide, round eyes begged Felicia, “Please, loidy, would ye loike to buy m’flowers … pretty flowers.”

“Oh, my, they are lovely. I can’t carry them now, but I tell you what. Here is enough for the lot of them, and if you go to 810 Kensington Square, Waverly House, and tell Cook I sent you with these flowers and that I want you fed, she will give you a meal. How is that?”

The boy seemed so overcome that he went down on one knee. “Oi will be yer knight … forever. Oi will serve ye if ye let me, miss.”

“Will you? Well, if you would like to work for me, I think I have a job for you,” Felicia said as she looked the scrawny but sweet-faced boy over. How could she allow this poor young man to wither on the streets when she had so much? “Do you know anything about horses?”

“Oi do, that Oi do, and Oi will learn whot Oi don’t.”

“Then don’t forget, 810 Kensington, and tell Cook Miss Felicia asked for you to be fed and then wait for me in the kitchen.”

“Oi will, that Oi will.”

“Tell them Miss Felicia has hired you, and you are not to be turned away. Will you remember that?”

“Oi.” He nodded his head vigorously.

“What is your name?”

“They call me Bean.”

“Bean? Is that your last name?”

“Only one Oi have, seeing as Oi be an orphan.”

Felicia felt her heart turn over. “Right then. I shall see you later at Waverly House.”

After the lad raced off, Becky eyed her friend and hugged her. “I love you, Felicia Easton.”

Felicia blushed, but before she could respond, a hackney horse rose up on its rears as an elderly man had slapped it hard with a cane and shouted for the driver to get out of his way.