Kasey Michaels - The Bride of the Unicorn

“Peaches! Is that you? Oh, Peaches—I can’t believe it!”

Morgan looked down the hallway, following the sound of the female voice calling out the Irishwoman’s name, to see a thin snip of a girl dressed in little more than rags barreling at him full tilt, her well-shaped legs bare nearly to the knee.

Behind her, standing tall in the doorway, appeared a woman dressed from head to foot in brightest scarlet. “Dulcinea!” she cried, bracing her hands against either side of the door frame as if an invisible Something were keeping her from taking so much as a single step into the hallway.

“Caroline, you bacon-brained besom!” Ferdie shouted, beginning to jump up and down in obvious fury. “Her name is Caroline!”

“Silence, you doomsday Lilliputian! Dulcinea! Come back to me at once, you impulsive child! How many times must I tell you that well-bred young ladies don’t—Oh, pooh!”

As Ferdie unleashed a badly metered poem pointing out the flaws inherent in “batty biddies” who believed themselves better than they should be, and as the lady in scarlet stared owlishly at Morgan, then took a single step backward, to begin adjusting her slipping turban as if suddenly realizing she was in the presence of Somebody Important, and as the little blond waif and the weeping Irishwoman fell on each other’s necks, Morgan Blakely, Marquis of Clayton, searched in his pockets for a cheroot, which he stuck, unlit, into his mouth before leaning against the wall, an island of contemplative calm in the middle of the raging storm.

Her wit was more than man, her innocence a child.

John Dryden

CAROLINE SAT perched on the window seat, the index finger of her left hand to her mouth as she absentmindedly worried at the already badly chewed nail, watching the handsome, impeccably dressed Marquis of Clayton as a bird might watch a snake sliding through the tall grass.

His hair was as dark and glossy as the bottom of a wet wooden bucket, and his heavily hooded eyes were blacker than a stormy night. He had the smooth, tanned complexion of a man who saw the sun much more often than she did, and she removed her finger from her mouth to gaze down at her own too pale skin, whose only color stemmed from the chilblains spiderwebbing her hands and fingers.

Her intensive scrutiny, which had also taken in the vertical slashes in his high-boned cheeks—lines that spoke of a man who kept a tight rein on his emotions—his aristocratic nose, his beautiful, clean white teeth, and even the fact that his shoulders were as wide as his long legs were straight, concluded with a visual inspection of his clothing.

He was dressed all in midnight-blue, his linen snowy and exquisitely starched, and the ruby winking in the folds of his cravat tempted her to mentally cipher how many pairs of wooden clogs the stone would fetch for the inmates on the public side if she could just lift it from his person and take it to Seth Bosley, a storekeeper in the village who was not averse to dealing in such questionable transactions.

Not that she’d ever try such a thing. Peaches had taught her well, and Caroline had needed no more than one look to conclude that the Marquis of Clayton was no easy mark. The smartest way to deal with a man like him was not to deal with him at all.

“More tea, my lord?”

Caroline smiled as she watched Miss Twittingdon lift the crude jug and pretend to pour tea into the chipped tooth glass she had pressed on the marquis once the commotion in the hallway had fizzled to a stop and they had all adjourned to the old woman’s room.

“Thank you, no,” the man who had introduced himself as Morgan Blakely, Marquis of Clayton, replied, setting the glass on the tabletop. “I’ve had quite enough. And I must say, the cucumber sandwiches were extremely pleasing. It is always pleasant to indulge oneself in a hearty repast after a day’s journey, especially at this time of year.”

“And it’s clear as day that the man’s ta let in his attic,” Peaches whispered to Caroline, as the Irishwoman was sitting close beside her on the window seat. “I ain’t seen hide nor hair of any sandwiches—just them plates with spools of thread plopped on ’em.”

“It’s how we practice serving tea,” Caroline whispered back at her. “Sometimes Aunt Leticia gets confused. What I fail to understand is why our gentleman caller is going along with the sham. Kindness doesn’t seem to set easily upon his shoulders.”

“Don’t let the cove fool ye, Caro. If he’s bein’ kind, it’s only ’cause he’s loonier than her, that’s the why of it, and don’t ye know!” Peaches shot back at her. “I’ll tell you true. It was just leadin’ him on, I was, hopin’ ta gets a chance to see ye again, my dear darlin’ girl. Never believed his fairy tale fer a minute, I didn’t. Callin’ ye the lady Caroline and sayin’ ye was the daughter of an earl. Flippin’ batty, that’s what he is!”

“But he tells a plausible story,” Caroline said, tilting her head to one side and watching while the marquis appeared to listen intently as Miss Twittingdon told him of her plans for “Dulcinea’s Come-out.”

Peaches pushed a faintly disgusting sound through her pursed lips. “Plausibibble, is it now? And what sort of highfalutin word is that, Caro, I’m wantin’ ye ta tell me? I hardly know ye anymore, girl, and that’s a fact. Where did all m’good teachin’ take ye, if yer gonna be spoutin’ jawbreaker words no one can figure out?”

Caroline dipped her head forward slightly, then turned to wink at Peaches. “Ah, and it’s a glory to hear ye in a snit, don’t ye know,” she said, easily falling back into the lilting Irish brogue. “But it’s not ta go puttin’ yer hair in a twist ye should be, Peaches, m’love—yer Caro can still curse a fuckin’ hole in a copper pot at ten paces.”

“Ah, isn’t that lovely? Utterly charming.”

Caroline’s head snapped up. The marquis was now standing directly in front of her—and she hadn’t even heard the scrape of the chair as he stood. “Your veneer of civilized speech, as touted to me by Miss Twittingdon, slips with alacrity, Miss Monday, when you are confronted with the equally articulate—in her own way, of course—Miss O’Hanlan.”

“How did you do that?” Caroline demanded of him, not caring that the marquis had overheard her. “How did you get across the room without my hearing you?”

Morgan looked at her curiously for a moment, then smiled. “A veritable sponge, aren’t you, little girl? Sopping up the vernacular of the gutter, and the clipped accents of the gentry—and now planning to enlarge your education by requesting lessons in silent, economical movement from me. What new thievery are you planning, Miss Monday? Or am I incorrect in suspecting that our young miss of the pilfered oranges and stolen yard goods is at this very moment considering the benefits to be derived from being able to sneak up on unwary persons and filch their purses?”

Caroline pushed aside his words and his accusations with a wave of her hand as she concentrated on examining his feet—feet clad in high-top, hard-soled Hessians that certainly should have made some noise as he walked toward the window seat. “No, no,” she said dismissingly. “I was only thinking how wonderful it would be if I could learn to move so silently as I pass by the Leopard Man’s cell each morning. He always hears me coming, you understand, no matter how hard I try to be quiet, and it’s a considerable feat trying to race past before he can…um, before he can…”

“Yes? Please continue, as you have piqued my interest. Just what does this Leopard Man—is he spotty, to have earned such a name?—do as you pass by his cell each morning?”