Kasey Michaels - The Bride of the Unicorn

“Heavens yes, Ferdie,” Caroline seconded, caught between apprehension and a real enjoyment of Miss Twittingdon’s strict rules for receiving visitors in a madhouse. “Do tell them that Miss Caroline Dulcinea Monday regrets that she is not receiving today. She receives only on Tuesdays, and this, after all”—she began to giggle—“is already Wednesday. Can you do that for me, Ferdie—with so many days to remember?”

“Levity is not called for at this dark hour, Caroline, even if that loony red crow over there can’t see it,” Ferdie told her portentously, slowly shaking his too-large head. “Your visitors are an odd pair—an Irish drab and a great, large gentleman dressed in London clothes. Has eyes black as pokers and talks like he’s used to being listened to. Maybe you didn’t steal another orange. Maybe you’ve broken a big law this time. Maybe he’s come to take you away and brought a keeper with him to tie you up. Maybe—”

“Maybe I’ll hang, Ferdie,” Caroline snapped, her usual good humor evaporating under the uncomfortable heat of the dwarf’s melancholy suppositions. “Well, Aunt Leticia,” she proposed airily, turning to look at the older woman, “shall I trip off downstairs and do my best to stare down this well-dressed hangman, or will you stand firm beside me here while I…Ferdie! Did you say an Irishwoman?”

Frederick Haswit nodded with some vigor, then puffed up his barrel chest, folded both his hands over his heart, and recited importantly:

“A winsome damsel she is not,

with scrawny breast and lackluster hair,

her teeth numbering little more than a pair.

I saw her there, and must tell you true;

She peered at me, and laughed—hoo, hoo!

The man, he silenced her mirth with a look,

showing she’s naught but this black king’s rook.

It is in him I see the menace, the danger,

deep in the eyes of this intimidating stranger.

So come now, sweet child, we’ll hie away to

the sea,

the ridiculous Miss Twittingdon, Caroline—

and me.”

“Your meter worsens with each new, excruciatingly uneven couplet, Ferdie, and I for one wouldn’t cross the street with you, let alone run off to sea in your company,” Miss Twittingdon told him flatly, reaching into the sleeve of her scarlet gown to extract a lace-edged handkerchief and lift it to her lips. “Red crow, indeed! It’s no wonder you’ve been locked up. I would have had you put in chains and fetters myself. But enough of this nonsense. There is nothing else for it—show the gentleman upstairs.”

“And the Irishwoman as well, Ferdie,” Caroline instructed, sure that the dwarf had described Peaches. She hadn’t seen her in over a year, since the day the woman had left her, weeping uncontrollably, behind the locked gates of Woodwere.

Caroline frowned. What could Peaches be about? Certainly she hadn’t found a protector for her, some London swell who would, according to Peaches, set her up in a discreet apartment on the fringes of Mayfair, then use her for his convenience until he tired of her. Peaches had always thought such an arrangement to be the pinnacle of success—especially if the woman was smart enough to ask for diamonds at regular intervals and talented enough to lift coins from the man’s purse each night after he’d taken his pleasure on her and fallen to snoring into his pillow.

“Come sit here, Dulcinea,” Miss Twittingdon commanded, indicating the best chair in the room which, as there were only two chairs in the room, both of them as hard as the bread served in the servants’ hall, was not much of a recommendation. “And don’t cross your legs, even at the ankle. It is a deplorable habit. And pull this brush through your hair. You look as if you’ve been tugged backward through a hedge. And—”

“I thought no woman of breeding began her sentences with ‘and,’ Aunt Leticia,” Caroline interrupted, hating the fuss the woman was making over her. She had no time to think of her ankles, her hair, or even her grammar. She had to rack her brain for a way to rid herself of this London gentleman and not injure her friendship with Peaches, who the good Lord knew probably only meant well.

“A woman of breeding is also never impertinent, Dulcinea,” Miss Twittingdon intoned solemnly, arranging her own skirts neatly after depositing her lean frame in the other chair. “Now hold your chin high—ah, just so—and fold your hands in your lap. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see how you’ve gnawed your nails to the quick. And don’t say a word, my dear. I, as chaperon, will be in charge of this interview. Do you think our London gentleman likes red? I do hope so. I’m considering dyeing my hair to match my turban. His reaction, the opinion of a man of the world, a man who moves in the first circles, will be most helpful, don’t you think?”

“Ferdie says he’s a hangman,” Caroline pointed out, curling her hands together so that her bitten nails were hidden against her palms. “He probably would like you to dye your hair black.”

“Oh, pooh!” Miss Twittingdon said, shaking her head so that the scarlet satin turban slid forward, to hang suspended drunkenly over one eye.

Caroline bit her bottom lip, fearful that if she laughed, her giggles might easily turn to tears.

MORGAN WAS HAVING MORE than a little difficulty believing himself to be where he already knew he was—in the small, stuffy office of the owner of the Woodwere Asylum for Lunatics and Incorrigibles. He was having even more trouble reconciling himself to the fact that he was accompanied by a wizened, foul-mouthed Irishwoman named Peaches—for the love of Christ, Peaches!—who had eaten with her hands when they stopped for nuncheon at a nearby inn, and then strolled outside to the innyard, moved her skirts to one side, spread her feet wide apart, and relieved herself beside the closed coach, like some stray dog lifting its leg against a tree trunk.

“Coo! Not bad for a loony bin, is it, yer worship? Bet ye a bit of this would be like a torchlight procession goin’ down m’throat.”

Morgan, shaken from his reverie by this rude interruption, looked to where Peaches was standing beside a well-supplied drinks table, fondling a lead-crystal container filled with an amber liquid he supposed to be brandy. “You will oblige me by removing your grimy paws from that decanter at once, Miss O’Hanlan.”

Peaches pulled a face at him, but moved away from the drinks table. “No need to put yerself in a pucker, yer worship. And it was just a little nip I was after, don’t you know. That beefsteak at the inn was tough as the divil and left m’gullet dry as a bleached bone.”

Morgan sat very straight, his right calf propped on his left thigh. The woman had been trying his patience all day, but he refused to be baited. “I’m sure there is a pump out in the yard, if you’re in need of liquid refreshment. I believe I can handle things from here without your assistance.”

Peaches swaggered across the room to stand in front of him. “Oh, and is that so, yer high-and-mighty worship? Like I keep tellin’ ye, Caroline won’t give ye the time o’day without me here to vouch fer ye. Not that it’s much of that I’ll be doin’, still not knowin’ what ye’re about and all.” She marginally relaxed her threatening pose. “Is our Caroline really rich? Always thought there was somethin’ special about the wee darlin’. Raised her up m’self, I did—raised her up proper—and fed her outta me own bowl. Wouldna had a whisker of a chance without me, and don’t you know. Now, yer worship, if we could talk a little mite more about that reward?”

Morgan ignored her questions and asked one of his own, not of Peaches, but merely rhetorically. “Where is this fellow Woodwere? That dwarf said I should wait here for him. I doubt I should tarry too long, for this is such an insane quest that it would be no great wonder if I ended the day locked inside this madhouse myself.” He turned to look at Peaches, still unable to believe the woman was proud of what she had done. “A madhouse. How could you have steered Caroline—any child—into employment in such a pesthole?”