“Anna, darling, come here, will you?” her mother suddenly called, startling Anna from her thinking. She glanced at Fynster-Allen, who, she couldn’t help noticing, seemed rather relieved, and walked to where her mother and Lucy and the Lying Scotsman had come to a halt.
They were laughing at some tale; Mother’s eyes were shining as she took Anna’s hand and squeezed it playfully. “What a funny little thing to tell you! Do you recall, darling, the spaniel your lady grandmother had?”
“Of course,” Anna said, looking at them all curiously.
“And do you recall that she used to call him Bo? ‘Out the door with you, you little Bo,’ she’d say.”
“Yes, I recall.”
“You will not guess what bo means in Lord Ardencaple’s language!” Mother said, barely able to contain her laughter. “In the Scottish Highlands, it means… cow!” she cried, and she and Lucy doubled over with laughter.
Anna missed the point of all the hilarity, and looked again at Ardencaple. He was laughing, his green eyes flashing. “I beg yer pardon, Miss Addison,” he said, his green eyes piercing her. “Do ye no’ find it amusing?”
“Not particularly,” she answered honestly.
“What’s happened to your good humor, darling?” her mother chided her. “Just think of it—an old woman who thinks she has made up some precious name for her little dog. And it means ‘cow’!”
The idea was so astoundingly funny a second time, apparently, that Mother laughed with girlish laughter all over again. Even Fynster-Allen was laughing a little. Slowly, Anna slid her gaze to Ardencaple again, watched one brow lift above the other, challenging her, daring her to laugh.
She merely smiled and thought that it was rather time she called on good Mrs. Merriman and inquired about her dear aunt, Lady Battenkirk.
Ten
T hat glorious day in the park was the last sunny one London was to see for a time, for over the next several days it rained relentlessly.
Grif, Hugh, and Dudley endured it like caged animals; Dudley’s gout was inflamed again, and Hugh was developing a rather disconcerting habit of stealing away in the night to gamble away whatever amount of their funds he could get his hands on. Naturally, Hugh’s behavior was a point of contention between Hugh and Grif, and in the passing of those few soggy days, they were locked in a battle of wills that eventually extended to fencing in the ballroom with swords taken from a decorative display.
The fencing solved nothing, however, and Grif knew he had to do something—Hugh’s restlessness was growing. Not that Grif could blame him, what with all the sitting about. No one knew better than Grif that this was not the sort of life Hugh aspired to—he’d always imagined himself a man-about-town, not a lowly housebound servant. Grif’s pleas that they stick to their plan were falling on Hugh’s deaf ears. They had been in London two months now—a month longer than they’d hoped—and Hugh swore he could not abide the idleness a moment longer.
Grif suspected that if he didn’t find an Amelia or the blasted beastie soon, he’d have the mutiny of one wretched valet on his hands.
But Grif’s hopes were growing dim. He posted another letter to Liam, hoping that Liam would know what to do, perhaps where to look for Amelia. And, he hoped, he’d know something of what the devil was about.
The devil being Miss Anna Addison, of course.
Aye, between Dudley’s worsening gout, Hugh’s restlessness, Miss Addison’s provocation, and what seemed like thousands of wrong Amelias, Grif was not having a very good time of it. In fact, he was beginning to fret that they’d run out of funds and be forced to return to Scotland before they ever found the blasted beastie.
And perhaps even without Hugh, by the look of it. Just this very morning, Grif had awakened to find him gone again and was brooding over it when he heard the pounding at the front door.
As Dudley was still recovering from the gout, Grif answered, pulling the heavy door open to see their neighbor, Lady Worthall, her cane raised to beat the door again, standing directly in front of one of her footmen, who held an umbrella over her head. Grif fought a grimace at the sight of her; her flaccid face seemed squeezed too tightly in the confines of that bonnet, and her gray ringlets were popping out.
“Good morning, Lord Ardencaple!” she said, and leaned to her right in an attempt to peer past him. “What a surprise to see you at your door, sir! Has your butler taken ill?”
“May I invite ye in?” Grif asked on a sigh of impatience.
“Why, yes!” she cried, and hopped up the entry and waddled into the foyer, her footman on her heels. “I’ve come to inform you that I’ve been delivered a letter from Lady Dalkeith.”
Grif steeled himself and drawled, “Have ye indeed?”
“Indeed,” she answered as she glanced curiously about. “She is rather determined to stay in Rouen until the end of the summer—”
That, at least, was welcome news.
“—at which point, she declares, she will return to London to open her house in time for the Little Season! I thought that a rather odd thing for her to say, don’t you?”