She said, “Douglas, I’m not a mistress and you’ve bought me clothes and riding boots.”
“Well, naturally, someone has to dress you properly.”
James said, “Just as someone needs to dress Corrie properly, sir. She’s more boy than girl. If she does turn into a girl, she still has no notion of the way of things. She has no experience at all. She’s never been to London. I don’t think, Mama, that a book on deportment is going to be of much assistance if she doesn’t know how to dress and rig herself out.”
“Perhaps I can give her Aunt Maybella some suggestions,” Alexandra said. “I’ve wondered many times why Maybella hasn’t dressed Corrie properly. Both she and Simon have let her continue to roam around the countryside dressed like a boy.”
“I’ve wondered that too,” James said, and took a bite of his bread. “Maybe she doesn’t like gowns. The good Lord knows she can be so stubborn, her uncle’s probably given up and lets her rule.”
“No,” Douglas said. “That isn’t it. There is no one more stubborn than Simon Ambrose in all of England. It’s got to be something else.”
“Would you like a peach fritter, dear?” Both dears looked at her. “Isn’t that nice. I have your attention now, both of you. Would you two like to accompany me to Eastbourne this afternoon?”
Douglas, who’d wanted to go see a new hunter at Squire Beglie’s, chewed more vigorously on his shrimp patty.
“Er, it’s for your mother,” Alexandra said.
“Excuse me, Mother, Father, I’m off.”
“James is fast when he needs to be,” Douglas said, following his son’s speedy progress from the dining room. He sighed. “All right. What does my mother want?”
“She wants me to bring back at least six new patterns of wallpaper for her bedchamber.”
“Six?”
“Well, you see, she doesn’t trust my taste, so I’m really to bring as many as I can so that she can make her selection here.”
“Let her go herself.”
“Ah, and you would drive her?”
“What time do you wish to leave?”
Alexandra laughed, tossed down her napkin, and rose. “In an hour or so.” She leaned over, palms on the snowy white tablecloth, and said down the expanse of table to her husband, “Douglas, there is something else-”
Before she could get out another word, her husband said, “By God, Alexandra, your gown is cut nearly to your knees. It’s obviously a hussy’s gown, what with your breasts nearly falling out of it. Wait-you’re doing this on purpose, leaning over the table like that.” He smacked his fist on the table, making his wineglass jump. “Why do
n’t I ever learn? I’ve had decade upon decade to learn.”
“Well, not all that many decades. And I really do appreciate your admiration of my finer points.”
“You will not make me blush, madam. You are remarkably well put together-all right, I’m hooked good and proper, what is it you want from me?”
She gave him the sweetest smile. “I want to talk to you about the Virgin Bride. A serious talk, not one of your you’re an idiot to even mention that ridiculous ghost who doesn’t exist.”
“What did that bloody ghost do now?”
Alexandra straightened and looked through the tall windows toward the east lawn. “She said there would be trouble.”
He held the sarcasm in check for the moment. “You’re saying that our centuries-old resident virgin ghost, who’s never appeared to any man in this house for the simple reason that our brains don’t allow such nonsense, has come to you and told you there would be trouble?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“I didn’t think she spoke, just wafted about looking forlorn and transparent.”
“And lovely. She is really quite incredible. Now, you know she doesn’t really speak, she feels what she’s thinking to you. She hasn’t visited me in ages, not since Ryder got set upon by those three thugs that miserable clothing merchant hired.”
“But Ryder managed to fell one of them with an excellent throw of a rock to the gut. He stuffed the other into a half-full herring barrel. I don’t remember what he did to the third, probably because it wasn’t amusing.”