Chapter Sixteen #3
“Oh, I’m certain.” Walking over, he put his hand on the top of the box.
“We’ll say I wanted to show you something, so I went out into the hallway while you dressed.
And then we went downstairs, and I’ll accidentally drop the box right outside the breakfast room.
You scream and open the door, and then … a ruckus.”
“But I’m already dressed.”
“Yes. That’s just our story, though, so it makes sense. A gentleman can’t be in a lady’s bedchamber while she’s dressing.”
“Thank you, Master Edmund,” Mrs. Brubbins said, keeping an eye on the box. “You are a very considerate young man.”
He grinned. “Make certain you tell my mama that when she’s sending me upstairs without dinner for the next ten years.”
They waited for twenty minutes, taking turns pulling the strings and sending Becks’s wooden tops spinning about the floor. Then the big clock downstairs chimed the half hour, and he stood up again. “It’s time.”
“Oh dear,” Mrs. Brubbins muttered, folding her hands together for a few seconds like she was praying before she left the room to fetch soup.
He and Becks made their way down the stairs, and he jiggled the box just a little as he went.
Becks knew he had a red squirrel inside, but she didn’t know all of it.
And that was better, because he wanted everyone to be surprised.
Finally, they stopped just short of the open breakfast room door.
Inside he heard Lord Hentrose’s low voice, and the higher, sick-sweet Masquerade answering him.
“Ready?” he mouthed.
Becks nodded, then took a breath. “I want to see what’s inside,” she said, not too loudly, and not too quietly.
“No,” he answered in the same tone. “You have to wait until we get outside.”
“But I—”
“Wait, Becks! Don’t—”
He tossed the box in the direction of the breakfast room.
The lid popped off, and three red squirrels exploded into the hallway.
One immediately darted into the breakfast room; Becks screamed as she was meant to do; another squirrel headed for the foyer; the third one veered between Edmund’s legs and then followed the first one.
That was better than he’d hoped for. Remembering to curse, he picked up the box again and ran into the breakfast room, Becks on his heels. “Look out!” he yelled, grabbing for the squirrel running up the length of the table and missing it by a foot.
“Papa, don’t hurt them!” Becks shrieked, and jumped up on a chair. “How many are there, Eddie? Oh, they’re everywhere!”
“Three. They were very hard to catch.”
Masquerade—Lady Pauline, as he needed to remember to call her to her face—jumped to her feet, her glass of orange juice tipping over and cream from a cup spattering into the air. One of the squirrels leaped for the window, grabbing on to the green curtains and climbing up to the rod across the top.
The other squirrel dodged back along the tabletop, toward Becks.
She yelped, bent down and pulled off a shoe, and threw it in the general direction of the squirrel.
The animal bounced down to the floor and beneath the table, and the shoe bounced, too, hit the teapot, and knocked it sideways. Hot water splashed everywhere.
“What the devil is this?” the marquis asked, shooting to his feet and grabbing hold of a napkin.
“They got loose!” Edmund shouted, waving the box lid under the table. “It took me forever to catch them!”
“Look out, Butler!” Bradley swung a platter at the nearest squirrel and knocked over a stack of oranges.
The curtain squirrel jumped, bounced onto the table, jumped again—and landed on Masquerade’s shoulder. “Get it off me!” she shrieked, shaking her arm like she wanted to throw it across the room.
The squirrel climbed up, digging its tiny feet into her very careful, intricate hair, dug its teeth into the stuffed bird there, and tried to yank it off her head.
“Oh no!” Becks wailed, covering her mouth even though for a split second Edmund could see her laughing.
“Help me, for God’s sake!” The lady flapped her hands at the marquis while her head kept getting yanked sideways.
“Right.” Lord Hentrose stretched out the napkin he held, strode forward, and wrapped it around the squirrel. With it squirming in his hands he tugged until it let loose of Masquerade’s hair, though it kept the bird. “Open the window, Butler.”
The butler scrambled over flung plates and cups and utensils and oranges and shoved open the window.
Holding the squirrel at arm’s length, the marquis flung it outside into the garden.
At that moment Lady Pauline’s lady’s maid charged into the room with a broom, Mrs. Brubbins behind her.
She waved it at the other squirrel until it dodged away from her and out the window after the first one.
Leaning out, Butler grabbed the wood-framed glass and pulled it shut with a loud bang.
“Cheeky little devils,” the maid exclaimed, lowering the broom again.
“Never mind that, Betty. My hair!” Lady Pauline wailed, holding the dark brown, lopsided tangle with both hands like she expected it to run away and jump out the window, too.
“Oy! There’s another one!” Edmund charged back out the door into the hallway.
George, the second footman, hopped about in the foyer, the squirrel attached to one leg. Moving in beside him, Edmund tossed the box into the corner. At the loud noise the squirrel froze for a second, giving him time to grab it by the scruff of the neck.
“Open the door, George!” he yelled.
Stumbling, the footman complied, and Edmund tossed the squirrel toward the willow tree. Together he and George slammed the door shut and then leaned back against it. “By all the holy ghosts, thank you, Master Edmund,” the servant said, reaching over to offer his hand.
Edmund shook it. “You’re quite welcome.”
Becks ran up the hallway, one shoe in her hand. “Did you get it?”
“We did. It’s outside.”
“Oh, thank goodness. That was mad!”
“Yes, it was,” her father said, walking up behind her. “What, precisely, happened?”
“Edmund brought a surprise—”
“I wanted to show Becks what I’d found this mor—”
The marquis lifted one hand. “One at a time,” he said crisply. “Edmund.”
“I caught three squirrels this morning, in the Grove House attic. I brought them to show Becks, but we weren’t supposed to open the box until we got outside.
I thought they could live in your garden instead of the attic.
But she bumped me because she didn’t know what was in the box, and I dropped it. ”
He said it all in a rush, then looked up at Lord Hentrose. Only little bits of that were lies, but Becks’s papa had a very good ear for hearing them. Instead of responding, though, the marquis looked at his daughter. “Rebecca?”
“I didn’t feel good, but Eddie said he wouldn’t open the box inside. So I got dressed while he waited out in the hallway, and then we came down and I shook his arm and asked him what it was again, and he dropped it, and a hundred squirrels burst out.”
“Three squirrels,” Edmund corrected.
“Are they gone?” Her hair still a dreadful, lopsided tangle, Lady Pauline walked quickly into the foyer.
“Yes, I believe they’ve all been removed,” Lord Hentrose said. “I am very sorry, Pauline. It was an accident, but in a household with children, I’m afraid—”
“Yes, yes, such things will happen,” she finished, managing a crooked smile. “I’m only … startled. Thank you for your conversation and a lovely half a breakfast. I hope we’ll finish the conversation we began very soon. You already know how I’ll answer.”
Her maid hurrying behind her, she went out the door the second George opened it, and then she pulled it shut herself. Lord Hentrose looked at the closed door for a moment, then faced them again. “No more squirrels in the house,” he said. “Is that clear?” He lifted one eyebrow.
“Did you start to propose to her, Papa?” Becks asked, her eyes widening.
“We’re discussing squirrels, and how they are not to be in the house ever again. Yes?”
“Yes, my lord,” Edmund piped up. “I’m very sorry to have ruined your breakfast.”
“So am I.” The marquis turned around, his jaw jumping. “Come help clean up the mess in the breakfast room, both of you. And then you will play, quietly, until time for us to leave for the menagerie.” He turned and went up the stairs.
As soon as he was out of sight, Becks plunked herself down on the bottom stair.
“Did you hear that?” she whispered, her lower lip shaking.
“He half proposed to her. We only have half a proposal between us and horror. Thank goodness you found three squirrels, Eddie! She didn’t faint or run screaming from the house, but she looked funny, and Papa didn’t finish asking her to marry him. ”
“She tolerated the squirrels much better than I reckoned she would. Barely squawked at all except for the mess to her hair. But it stopped your papa, so that’s good.” Edmund faced George again. “I am sorry you were attacked, George.”
The footman shrugged. “Once, one of Dowager Marchioness Hentrose’s cats got loose in here, and bit me in the ear. This wasn’t so bad. It did startle me.” He touched his finger to the tip of his nose. “You did get Masquerade to jump a bit though, didn’t you?” he whispered, and smiled.
Oh, everyone was a Biscuits now. Except for Masquerade and Old Moldy and Whiskers.