LITMIR.BIZ

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can be, if I want. I simply don’t always want. Now, to continue. We have, as you might say, struck a bargain, much the same as the arrangements I have with Mrs. Bell the milliner, the shoemaker Mr. Wood—pricey, that man! There are others. Oh, and I’ve established an account for you with Mr. Weston, who vows that you’d be poorly served by Stolz, who hires only ham-fisted tailors. I wasn’t able to manage any sort of arrangement there, but he’s still the best, or so I’m told. You have a fitting at eleven tomorrow. Now thank me.”

      Coop had long ago learned that, when it came to his mother, there existed no hole deep enough to throw himself into and pull the dirt back on top of him, so he simply said, “Thank you.”

      “Good, and as I’ve finished saying what I had to say, poor Rose can stop coughing like a consumptive, yes? Now, what’s not your problem, darlings? From the tone of your voices as I entered, I believe you may be thinking something you’re not saying. Come on, spit it out, and you know I can see through a lie, Cooper. You’ve much too much conscience to carry it off, which is why, Darby, you won’t speak unless requested.”

      Darby raised his hand, waggling his fingers. “May I please be excused?” he asked cheekily.

      “You most certainly may not,” Mrs. Townsend told him sternly, and the viscount looked to Coop for help. Which he didn’t get, damn it, for if Darby couldn’t be considered reinforcements, at least Minerva Townsend might marginally mind her tongue while he was present. No, that wouldn’t happen, but as long as Coop was stuck here, he didn’t see any reason to allow his friend to escape unscathed.

      “Really, Mrs. Townsend, it’s nothing to concern you,” Darby said, but there was little hope in his voice.

      “It didn’t sound like nothing. Whatever the problem, I have no doubt you’re responsible for it. You, and those two other scamps, dragging my poor Cooper into your constant mischiefs. Now, I’m going to sit down—Rose, for pity’s sake, are you still standing there? Go on, shoo, and put your feet up. You look totally fagged. And with me twenty years your senior and still not in the least deflated.”

      Make that thirty, and the number might be reasonably close. Oh, yes, Cooper McGinley Townsend knew an Original when he saw one. He’d grown up with one. Give Miss Foster another forty years of practice, and she’d be more than capable of taking up his mother’s banner, to become the Terror of Society.

      “Minerva, we were just speaking in general terms. Weren’t we, Darby? Nothing to set your nose to twitching.”

      Mrs. Townsend adjusted her spectacles on her splendid, hawk-like beak. She didn’t need them, or so she swore, and only employed them as a prop to give her gravitas. Coop had to admit that whenever she looked at him overtop the gold frames (not to mention the hawk-like proboscis), gravitas commenced to spew out all over the place as would hot lava on the unsuspecting villagers below in the valley.

      She turned her stare on the viscount once more.

      “I surrender,” Darby said after a few seconds, smiling apologetically at his friend. “In my defense, she had a one-eye advantage on me. Tell her, Coop, or I’ll be forced to squawk like one of Gabe’s blasted parrots.”

      “Why not? Apparently I’m already standing in a hole of my own making that resembles nothing more than a grave.”

      “Cooper! You’ve never been so dramatic. A hole as deep as a grave? Where do you hear such nonsense? Are you reading poems again? I have warned you against them, again and again. They’re all frippery and unrequited love and sad tales of woe no sane person would swallow whole. A thick volume on farming, that’s what you need. You’ve got an estate to run now, you know. Learn to grow a proper turnip, that’s what I say. Can’t go wrong with turnips.”

      “Couldn’t have said it better myself, Mrs. Townsend. Turnips, that’s the ticket. Commit that to memory, my friend.” Darby retreated to the drinks table, probably to pour a bracing glass of wine.

      Coop was hard-pressed not to join him, but he’d ignore the glass and gulp straight from the decanter. His father had known how to handle Minerva. He’d learned to ignore her because, as impossible as it seemed, everyone save her husband and son found her vastly interesting and amusing.

      Still, actually handing Minerva information she’d do God only knew what with? Coop didn’t see how any good could come from that.

      The blackmail threat, the chase through the alleyways, Miss Foster. Now this? He looked at the mantel clock and inwardly winced. It was only a few minutes past three? And he still had to run the figurative gauntlet of meeting with Miss Foster a third time. Was there anything else to go wrong for him today?

      “And another thing,” Minerva said, finally settling herself in a chair so that the gentlemen could sit, as well. “This Minerva business. That was all well and good before, but I realize the heavy mantle of responsibility now thrust upon me, thanks to your heroics, and believe it only commonsensible for me to once more take up the mantle of...” She sighed. “Mother. Or perhaps Mama?”

      “You hate when I call you Mother. You have to be joking.”

      “I most certainly am not. Henceforth, at least in public—not that I consider this scamp’s presence as anywhere near public—you will address me as Mother.”

      “The gifts heaped on your shoulders just keep mounting, Coop, you lucky dog. Either that, or this figurative hole you spoke of is growing deeper.”

      “Shut up, Darby. All right, Mother, since you insist. Now why don’t you retire to your chamber, where I’m certain Rose has laid out some sort of refreshment.”

      “Perhaps even turnip pie,” Darby said quietly. Too quietly for Minerva to hear, but close enough for Coop to not only hear but be forced to manfully repress a laugh.

      Minerva looked from one to the other. “He said something, didn’t he? Something amusing. What did he say?”

      “Nothing Min—Mother. Darby’s mouth moves, but he rarely says anything of importance.”

      Minerva smoothed the front of her gown, clearly settling herself in for the duration. “Well, at least we agree on something. Now, shall we travel back to the problem that isn’t your problem, because it definitely seemed very much your problem when I arrived? Come on, lads, one of you open your mouth and say something important, because I’m not leaving here until you do.”

      “Race you to the door,” Darby whispered, careful not to move his lips. “Unless you can come up with a convincing fib? Because you’re wrong about the countess’s retirement to her bedchamber, Coop—you need Miss Foster out and about in Society.”

      And that, Cooper was to tell himself later, was how Darby helped him dig that lifelong figurative hole even deeper, until he thought he could see a Chinaman’s straw hat.

       CHAPTER SIX

      DRAT THE MAN, Dany thought, standing in front of the pier glass in the hallway just outside the drawing room, slapping her gloves against her thigh. And drat Mari, so firmly sunk beneath the covers that it would take an expedition to find her.

      Does one have one’s gloves on before her escort’s arrival? Does one appeared gloved and hatted and panting like a puppy eager to be put to the leash? Does one race back upstairs, only to descend—gracefully, of course—when the gentleman is announced? Which would be past ridiculous, since that would mean his horses would be left standing while he waited for her to become gloved and hatted and fill the awkward silence with inane chatter such as, “Oh, dear, how the time has flown,” or “Gracious, I had entirely forgotten I’d agreed to drive with you in the park.”

      Whopping great help Mari had been, only lamenting, “For the love of heaven, why won’t she go away,” when Dany had sat herself on the bed and asked these questions.

      So here she stood, still not gloved, although she’d decided the military-type

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