Chapter Fourteen #2
“I—yes, how do you do?” I managed. “I’ve been hoping to meet you and thank you for all of the delicious meals you’ve provided.”
Mrs. Silver placed a hand over her heart in an utterly Gallian pose. “Oh, what a dear you are, but I fear the pastries this
morning may have been a touch over-browned—”
“They were as flawless as always,” Foxcourt said dryly. “Modesty may be the only thing that doesn’t suit you, madam.”
She clucked her tongue at him, eyeing him with a surprising amount of censure. Foxcourt seemed surprised by it, too, his lips
parting.
“And this exhaustion does not suit you, mon chou,” she told him, with a thread of ice running through the words. “Though perhaps you deserve it?”
Admittedly, my grasp on Gallian was shaky at best, but had she really just called him—the Earl of bloody Foxcourt—my cabbage?
Foxcourt blinked, clearly taken aback by Reddy’s sympathetic look. Obviously, I’d missed something.
“Ah,” he said after a moment.
Mrs. Silver whirled back toward the stove with a sharp noise of disapproval as Reddy tried to sneak another taste of the soup.
“If you want more you must stay and eat like a civilized young man,” she told him, shooing him away from the pot.
“If only I could,” he said mournfully. “Would you see me out in the streets, staggering and delirious with hunger as I conduct
my business? I know your heart isn’t so cruel, Mrs. Silver.”
She stared at him a moment longer, her lips pursed as she fought her smile. Finally, the cook let out a soft harrumph and told him, “I shall make something for you that you can carry as you scurry about, then.”
Reddy gave her his most beatific smile. “You are a goddess, Mrs. Silver.”
“And you are incorrigible,” Foxcourt said.
“I’m incorrigible?” Reddy scoffed, nodding toward Theo. “I’m not the one who seems to have picked up Foxcourt’s unfortunate habit
of bringing home strays. What’s the plan for this one, then?”
“He’ll be washed, fed, and become your hall boy,” Foxcourt said, drawing Theo forward by his shoulders. “I hope you don’t
mind another mouth to feed, Mrs. Silver.”
She smiled. “I would be glad to.”
“My—” Reddy seemed flabbergasted by this. “I’ve no need of help. I have old Aimes and Mrs. Porter.”
“Aimes sleeps most of the day and Mrs. Porter brings you food only once a week,” Foxcourt said. “You need to build a household,
and Theo needs work that doesn’t involve him being suffocated within a flue or tragically falling from a roof.”
Reddy’s eyes narrowed. “You cannot appeal to my compassionate heart because I don’t possess one.”
Mrs. Silver swatted him on the shoulder with a rag.
“He thinks if I have my own household I’ll stop turning up at this one,” Reddy told her. “You’d really deprive yourself of my delightful company?” He turned to Theo. “Say, wouldn’t you much rather work in a great big palace? I know a princess.”
Theo swung his gaze up toward Foxcourt so quickly he sent a shower of soot down onto the floor. Brigadier sneezed.
“That is a possibility,” Foxcourt told him. “It’s your choice.”
The boy seemed to consider this, then shrugged. “It’s working for one toff or ’nother. Less to clean in a smaller house.”
Reddy shot him a look of utter betrayal before turning to Foxcourt. Suddenly he seemed altogether more serious. “He is a child.”
And in a perfect world, a child would need not ever work. In our world, however, working in a household like Reddy’s would
earn Theo a good wage, grant him the opportunity to learn more valuable skills, and provide a safe bed to sleep in.
“I’m not!” Theo insisted, jutting his chin out. “I’m grown enough to know I’ll work harder than the likes of ye ever has!”
Reddy sputtered.
“There will be no decisions made until after dinner,” Mrs. Silver said firmly.
Her declaration was underscored by a door scraping open again. The Longmount brothers emerged from the servants’ hall, hastily
straightening their livery.
“There you are,” she said, stirring one of the pots. “Willie, Tommy, can you please see that this young man is scrubbed within
an inch of his soul and find him something better to wear?”
“Of course,” Willie answered, exchanging a curious look with his brother. As he shifted a crate, his coat sleeve rode up,
revealing a curious hint of a black tattoo snaking down over his forearm.
“Cor!”
The room’s attention swung back to Theo, whose focus had latched on to the footman’s arm. His eyes widened until I feared
they might truly bulge out of his skull.
“Language,” Foxcourt chided.
“Cripes,” Theo amended, still staring at Willie. “You’re—”
“Going to scrub you until you’re as pink as a wee piglet,” Willie finished, gripping the boy’s shoulder.
Satisfied, Foxcourt looked to the cook again, who seemed to be doing her best to ignore him. “Mrs. Silver—”
“Yes, I will send up a tray to you both so that you may rest and change,” she said tersely, tossing a small scrap of fish to Brigadier. “And you will allow our guest a moment to rest.”
Between the dying King and the narrowly foiled attempt on my life, there was simply no rest for the weary, or a woman impatient
to get on with it. I was more than keen to pore over the Treasury and start my work. The sooner Immortal Rose was complete,
the sooner I’d be out of this house and out of harm’s way.
“I’m fine, truly,” I said. “In fact, I think—”
Mrs. Silver turned to me, her eyes glinting as they reflected the fire burning in her stove.
“All right,” I said meekly.
After a moment, Foxcourt gave a stiff bow.
“My lord,” Mrs. Silver said coolly, “a member of the staff would like to speak to you in your study, after.”
“I expect so,” he said with a small sigh.
“Looks like the day was a success, at least?” Reddy said, nodding to the Treasury as I retrieved it. He leaned a hip against
the worktable, crossing his arms over his chest. “I had quite a busy day as well, I’ll have you know. First, I treated myself
to a few flavored ices—the shop on Bow Street was so overflowing with ladies in their finery, I was nearly swept away by a
tide of pastel skirts and just about lost my eye to a parasol—”
“Really?” Theo asked, intrigued. “Which one?”
Fleming chose that moment to enter the kitchen. “Oh! Good evening, my lord, Miss Lockwood.”
Theo wheeled around, his jaw falling open. “Miss?”
Unable to resist a well-timed bit of theatrics, I pulled off my topper. Theo gasped like a society matron, nearly keeling
over.
“Why didn’t ye tell me?” he demanded of Foxcourt. “I’m no rantipole. I’d’ve doffed my hat to the lady!”
“You aren’t wearing a hat,” Foxcourt reminded him, sitting on the edge of the staff’s table.
“Still!” Reddy said, in mock outrage.
“Still!” Theo echoed, in genuine outrage.
“I’ll just go up, shall I?” I said, edging toward the door. I was desperate for a moment to myself, if only to escape the
nightshade coiling in my lungs.
As the door swung shut behind me, I freed a breath, passing a hand over my face. And still, the scent of the nightshade clung to my skin, and I wondered then if there was even poison in the cabinet at all or if it had been Mrs. Silver’s essence all along.
A cook named Mrs. Silver. A housekeeper named Mrs. Keyes. A maid chosen for her immunity to magic. And Theo’s reaction to
the Longmount brothers . . .
“Cor,” I heard the boy swear again from inside the kitchen, “what sort of house is this?”
I gripped the banister, forcing myself to climb.
Yes, I thought, unease spreading in me like a spill of poison, my question exactly.