Chapter Thirteen #3
Mr. Fredericks cleared his throat and slid a paper across the table to Eddie. “If you would, sir, read what I’ve written there for her.”
Eddie sighed. “He always makes me read instructions if he can’t find a way to make them all rhyme.”
The tutor frowned. “Master Edmund, you’re mistaken; it’s your reading skills I’m attempting to waken.” He gestured at the paper.
“If you don’t want to read it, I will,” Rebecca said, reaching for the paper.
“I’ll do it. I just wanted to point out that he doesn’t rhyme everything.”
“Master Edmund, have you been wagging your tongue? I assure you, once said, words cannot be undone.”
“That doesn’t rhyme. Well, it does a little, but I think you’re just showing off now.”
“Read the instructions, Eddie,” Rebecca urged.
“Fine.” He set the paper on the table and smoothed it out with his hands. “‘For today’s lesson, each child will choose a noun, i.e., a table, a bird, a fox hunt. The other child will then incorporate that noun into a sentence or two, and a rhyme must be involved.’”
Oh, this was going to be marvelous. Immediately she began casting about for nouns that wouldn’t be too difficult to rhyme. If Eddie started throwing words like “oranges” at her, though, they were going to have a fight. “Who goes first?”
“Ladies first,” Edmund said, then grimaced. “Do your worst.”
She laughed. “What if we begin rhyming and can’t stop?”
“We’ll have to risk it.”
“Very well.” She nodded, facing Eddie. “My word for you is ‘coffin.’”
“That’s the first noun you thought of?” he asked, his brows bunching together. “I knew I liked you, Becks.”
“Come on now. ‘Coffin.’”
Eddie took a big breath. “‘Coffin,’” he repeated. “No one likes a coffin; at least we don’t have to lie in one often.”
She clapped. “Magnificent!”
“Well done, young man; make note of the different spellings but same pronunciation if you can.”
Mr. Fredericks made a note on the paper in front of him, probably so they couldn’t cheat and repeat a word they’d already used.
He was clever, Mr. Fredericks was. She would have to ask Eddie if he should be included in their plot, or if he would carry tales to Mrs. Silbern.
At least they would rhyme. What rhymed with “marriage,” anyway?
“My word for you, Becks, is ‘marriage.’”
Oh! She’d just been thinking that one! She almost told him, but then Papa would think she was starting to like the idea of him marrying Lady Pauline, and that was the last thing she wanted.
She would have to be careful about the sentence she chose, anyway.
“‘Marriage,’” she repeated. “‘I have no objection to marriage, unless I’m dragged to the church in some rake’s carriage. ’”
“Sterling!” Eddie shouted, laughing.
“Excuse me, young lady,” her papa said, the sound of one eyebrow lifting in his voice, “but what, precisely, do you know about rakes?”
“Only what I read on the front page of the newspaper while you’re reading the inside pages.”
“Clearly I’m going to have to stop reading the Times at the breakfast table.”
“No, you shouldn’t. I learn so many things that way!”
“I think, Master Edmund, that around Lady Becks, all the men here should watch their necks.” The tutor put a hand over his mouth.
“That’s enough of that, Mr. Fredericks,” Papa stated, the amusement leaving his voice. “We have children here.”
Immediately the tutor stood up and bowed nearly double. “I apologize, my lord.”
Rebecca waited, but other than straightening, Mr. Fredericks didn’t move or say anything else. Then he sat down again, stacking his papers in front of him. “I think you broke him, Papa,” she said, twisting in her chair to look at her father.
“I broke him,” he grumbled, frowning. “I’m only establishing rules.” Then he cleared his throat. “I believe Mrs. Brubbins is more than capable of managing the lesson. Is Mrs. Silbern about, Edmund?”
Beneath the table Rebecca grabbed Eddie’s hand and squeezed it. If her papa was looking for his mama, that was a very good thing. “I hope you’re going to apologize about Delilah,” she said, squaring her shoulders and releasing her partner again.
“I alrea … Yes, that is what I’m going to do, as a matter of fact.”
“I think she’s dressing so she can push Aunt Lady Margaret at a luncheon party.”
“Well, then. Perhaps I’ll have a chat with Lord Harold.”
“Don’t rhyme to him,” Eddie cautioned. “He threatened to take a broom to Mr. Fredericks last week.”
Papa inclined his head. “Thank you, Edmund, for the information. I try to avoid cranial inflammation.”
Edmund snorted, then fell out of his chair and onto the floor. “He rhymed! You rhymed, my lord!”
Rebecca laughed, too. It was quite funny, even if her father wasn’t going to be able to chat with Mrs. Silbern and fall in love with her this morning.
There would be dinner tonight, and the next day she was going to ask to go to the Tower Menagerie before they had to go to the theater with Lady Pauline.
If Mrs. Silbern was scared of lions, she might just leap into his arms, and that would take care of several things at once—if they were lucky, and the missus wasn’t too plucky. Ha ha.