How to Marry a Duke (A Cinderella Society 2)

Chapter Sixteen

Meg might not obsess over Ancient Rome like her godfather, or Ancient Egypt and ghost stories like her friends, but she had to admit that the abbey was growing on her.

Dougal, of course. But the house too. That last part was a surprise.

And probably a good thing too. Anything to distract her from the memory of his fingers and his mouth. Not that she wanted to be distracted exactly. But she couldn’t moon about feeling tingly all the day long either.

Well, she could. She discovered she was perfectly capable of it. That was the problem.

The faded mural of St. George and the Dragon which she had found over a walled-in window might have been a replica of an earlier medieval stained glass. She longed to brighten the colors, to make it shine again. There were figurines carved into the posts in the main chapel area, now the front hall: ladies with long braids, men praying, a Green Man with a mouth full of oak leaves. She was charmed with every dusty, secret corner.

Except for perhaps “Neptune’s Parlor.” Charming wasn’t quite the right word.

She poked her head in, hearing the sound of voices. The older ladies sat with Charlie, a fully stocked tea cart nearby. Behind them, stampeding from every corner, were fierce white horses, their huge painted teeth bared. White seafoam flung from their manes and the sea boiled with all the colors of a bruise under their hooves. The background was black clouds and silver glints of light. Stars were hard pinpricks of silver above. More stars, of course. But mostly, teeth.

“Gah.” Meg couldn’t help a small start.

Charming definitely wasn’t the right word.

It was dramatic, overdone, mildly violent. Bordering on awful.

She loved it.

“We’re having tea,” Lady Marigold said, sweetly, as if she wasn’t in very great danger of being trampled by angry mythical horses.

“Speak for yourself. Ahoy!” Lady Blackwell waved her empty teacup at the footman, who already knew the lay of the land and rushed to fill the cup with whisky.

Charlie met Meg’s eyes and mouthed “Ahoy?”

Meg grinned. Charlie grinned back, caught herself, and shuttered her expression.

“Do join us,” Lady Marigold said. “You must be tired. I see you all day, drawing away. My hand would cramp.”

“Sometimes it does,” Meg admitted. She took a seat because she had never refused tea in her life, and she wasn’t about to start now. She looked around. “Was your brother an art aficionado, Lady Marigold?”

Lady Blackwell followed her gaze. “Clearly not.”

“It’s… unique.”

“It’s hideous,” Lady Marigold said, cheerfully. “But my father was so proud of the art in this house, and my brother after him. Father told us stories about the horses of the sea. That’s why we named this parlor for Neptune.” She lowered her voice. “We used to doodle on the murals when we were younger. My brother went through a phase where he would eat nothing but strawberries and he painted them everywhere. If you look in that horse in the corner there, you’ll see strawberries in his teeth. Father was furious.”

Although Meg could understand that as an artist, she still found the sketches charming.

“Did your sister Dahlia also sketch on the walls?” she asked casually.

“I think so,” Lady Marigold replied. “But she was a bit older than I was, and I was away at school the last time she visited. She didn’t stay long.”

“Bah,” Lady Beatrice said. “Why would she? You were the only one who could stomach your father’s temper.” She scowled. “He tore a hole through my favorite embroidery hoop once.”

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”

“He absolutely did mean it. But you’re sweet, my dear. You always have been.”

It might not be much to go on but at least it was becoming clearer as to why Lady Dahlia might have gone to the trouble of finding a treasure only to hide it away again.

“Was he as keen on the Tudor treasure as they say?” Meg prodded gently.

“I’m afraid so,” Lady Marigold said. “It broke his heart that he didn’t find it, even though he did find several packets of old letters and a chest of gold candlesticks.”