And Then Comes Marriage (11 page)

Oh no.

Oh yes.

Chapter Nine

Miranda answered her own door the next afternoon, positive that Mr. Poll Worthington would be standing on her step and not wishing to miss a moment of his presence. His brother she did not look forward to seeing again. At all.

Instead, there stood a skinny little girl of perhaps twelve years.

“Ah. Hello.” Miranda cast a glance about the street for any sign of a governess, nurse, or mother. Goodness, the poor little thing was all on her own! “Do you need help, little one?”

“I’m not little. I’m twelve and three quarters.” The girl strode into Miranda’s house without invitation. Once in the entrance hall, she stood with her arms crossed, sharp green eyes taking in every detail of the house.

Miranda frowned at her little intruder. “Is there something I can do for you?” Although she would wager that this self-assured little person did not require anyone’s help.

The girl turned to her. “I’m Atalanta Worthington.”

“Oh!” Miranda smiled. “I should have known it by your lovely green eyes. I’m delighted to make your acquaintance!” The little girl shot her a sour glance. Miranda tried again. “I’ve heard a great deal about you!”

Mr. Poll Worthington had perhaps mentioned that he occasionally feared for the life of anyone who made an enemy of Attie Worthington—but Miranda couldn’t see how that was possible. She was just a wee little thing! Not very tall, and as thin as a straw. She looked as though she might break in a strong wind!

Miranda held out a hand, gesturing welcome. “Please, come and sit with me. I’ll ring for some tea and cakes, shall I?”

Little Atalanta settled on the sofa with her gawky ankles askew beneath her slightly too long dress and her hair quite frankly a mess under that many-times-crushed bonnet. Miranda had to wonder who had the care of the child. To not only let her wander the streets of London, but to send her out in such a state as well!

Miranda’s untapped maternal instinct bubbled up and she found her fingers absolutely twitching to take a hairbrush to the girl’s untidy mop of amber-red curls.

“Have you any interesting news to tell of your family, Miss Atalanta? I’ve heard so many tales now, I feel as if I know you all.”

Attie glared at her with such ferocity, Miranda fought the urge to scan the room for weaponry that might be used against her. She dealt with the children from the home often enough to know a sad, bereft child when she saw one, no matter how furious or frightening they might think they appeared to others.

Miranda wanted Attie to like her—she didn’t dare ask herself why—but she sat opposite the child without the slightest notion how to get through to her.

*   *   *

Attie sat across from her enemy. She was quite horrible looking … in a pretty sort of way. The ladylike way she sat reminded Attie of Ellie when she was on her best behavior, which made Attie want to sit straighter and move more gracefully. Which urge, of course, made her want to squat like a frog and screech like a chimpanzee.

Callie said she was incorrigible. Orion said she was developing a large bump of antiauthoritarianism.

Orion was terribly smart, but he didn’t know everything. He didn’t know what lived inside Attie’s mind. He couldn’t know that she was frightened that her family might be ever so slightly broken and that Attie had no idea how to fix it.

He didn’t know that inside she wasn’t fierce or strong or dangerous, like they all thought. He didn’t know she was really terrified. No one could.

“I recall being your age. I think I spent a great deal of time being quite frightened,” Miranda Talbot said softly. “I know how lonely life can be, even in a house full of people.”

Oh, no, you don’t!
Attie scrunched up her face and prepared to put a hex of hate upon Miranda’s shining dark head.

It would be worth it, Attie thought, as she wondered what terrible thing was about to happen.
Except when the roof falls down, I’ll probably be under it.

Then Miranda’s prune-faced butler came in with a tea tray filled with iced cakes and cream and early summer raspberries in a bowl—

Well, perhaps I’ll hex her later, after tea.

*   *   *

Atalanta Worthington wasn’t normally one to dawdle when it came time for action, which was why she astonished herself by waiting nearly an entire afternoon after her visit to the she-devil’s house before climbing out from under her bed (Ellie was in a mood) and wrestling herself into her slightly too large walking dress (Ellie had grown a bosom at a very early age) and sneaking out through the kitchen while Philpott was in the larder, secretively concocting the blend of herbs for her evening “tea.”

Attie didn’t know what herbs the cook used in the teapot, but the one time she’d managed to sneak a taste, she’d felt like a piece of paper on the wind and had actually begun to write words on herself before she lost track of the thought in a sudden urge to eat pickles and cheese and chocolate cake together.

Once out on the street, she clomped confidently along the sidewalk, ignoring the astonished glances of strangers. It wasn’t more than half a mile to her destination, though she did take a side venture for a stop at a confectioner’s. She even paid for the sweets, for they were a gift and one couldn’t give a gift if one didn’t actually own it.

On the Strand, she lingered across the street from a discreet and tasteful doorway, sucking noisily on a sweet. Eventually, a lady left the establishment, escorted to her waiting carriage by a very handsome young man. His sharp eyes caught Attie’s presence at once. With a twitch of his cheek, he told her to go to the back of the shop. Attie nodded and placidly made her way around through the alley.

Cabot let her in. “He’s very busy.”

“He’s never too busy to see me.”

Cabot didn’t bother denying it, because it was quite true. Still, he eyed her sticky hands and face and sighed. “I’ll be right back.”

Since she adored Cabot, mostly because he never, ever treated her like a child, she waited with uncharacteristic patience. He returned with a bowl of steaming water and a towel. There was a very pretty little soap, pressed into the shape of a fish that Attie promptly dropped into the bowl so she could watch it swim to the bottom. Then she scrubbed her face and hands until even the grime under her nails was gone.

There was no point in rebelling against Cabot. He was the only person in the world who was actually more persistent than she was. And she felt sorry for him.

Clean at last, she dried off with the luxurious bit of toweling and handed it back to Cabot, grimy streaks and all. “It’s really important.”

He didn’t seem impressed. “It always is.”

Still, he led her down a silk-papered hallway to a simple painted door and tapped on it. “It’s the littlest one,” he announced through the wood.

In response to a murmur from the other side, Cabot opened the door and ushered Attie through.

The man at the small cluttered desk turned to greet her with a sweet smile. “Ah, the lovely Atalanta! What a fetching frock.”

Attie looked down at her dress and plucked indifferently at the deflated bodice. “It was Ellie’s.”

The man tilted his head. “I imagine it was. I would be happy to make up one new for you, you know.”

Attie shrugged and plunked herself down on the faded needlepoint footstool at his knee and happily contemplated the tiny, cluttered office of the renowned Lementeur, the greatest and most expensive dressmaker in all of England. “No need,” she said. “I’ll likely get a bosom eventually.”

She loved to come here. Being in this little room, with its piles of papers and fabrics on the desk and bits of trimming pinned up on the walls that nearly covered the hundreds of drawings layered beneath them—why, it reminded her of Worthington House!

Wrapping her arms around her knees, she rocked gently to and fro. “I have a problem.”

Lementeur, or Mr. Button, as he was known to the Worthington clan, nodded sagely. “I could tell the moment I saw you. You must be extremely distressed to have forgotten—”

“Oh!” Attie sat up and dug into her pocket. “Here. These are for you!”

Button beamed as if he’d been handed the Crown Jewels. “Ah! You did remember! How very kind!” With utmost care, he took the slightly grubby paper packet that had gone just a bit sweat-soft in her pocket and untwisted it with an expression of delighted expectation.

“Lemon drops! How did you know?”

Attie chuckled, for he always said that. When he offered her one, she graciously accepted and popped it into her mouth. For several minutes they sat in companionable silence sucking on the sweet-tart hard candies. Then, with a sigh of satisfaction, Button carefully redid the paper twist and stored the gift carefully in the chaos of his desk.

Then he dusted his hands in a businesslike fashion and turned back to Attie. “Tell me everything.”

Attie did, relating the fight between the twins, her visit to Mrs. Talbot, confessing even her eavesdropping without hesitation, for Button understood that in a world of misbehaving adults, a child did what a child had to do.

“Oh, dear” and “oh, heavens” were his only responses as he let her tell the entire tale without interruption.

She really, truly loved Button.

When she finished with a sigh, Button nodded. “I see. It is indeed a pickle.” He leaned forward eagerly. “What do you propose to do about it?”

Attie scratched meditatively at her nose. “Well, I thought about poison, of course. I think I could really do it properly this time.”

Button pursed his lips. “Oh my. Is she so terrible?”

She wrinkled her nose. “No, actually. She’s really rather nice, as it happens. I mean, she must be removed from between Cas and Poll, obviously, but this time I don’t see any immediate need for murder.”

Button let out a breath. “Well … that’s a relief,” he said faintly.

Attie nodded in agreement. Her last attempt at homicide had not gone very well at all. She really wasn’t ready to attempt it again. Not that she’d lost her nerve or anything. Simply … not ready.

“I thought and thought, and then I had the answer. We must make her beautiful!”

“Ah!” Button brightened at once. “My favorite thing!”

Attie nodded quickly. “Yes! If she’s beautiful, then she’ll have lots of suitors—exceedingly good ones, with lots of money and titles and such—and she’ll forget all about Cas and Poll … at least, I think she will.” She frowned. “They are terribly handsome, though. And nice. And funny.” She straightened. “You’ll just have to make her really, truly gorgeous!”

Button nodded. “Yes. It is an excellent plan, truly an ingenious solution to an impossible fix. I should assume, I suppose, knowing the twins’ tastes in the past, that she is already quite pretty?”

Attie scrunched up her face in thought. “Well, her dress wasn’t much to look at … a bit dull. And she’s quite modest. You’ll have to do something about that. But she has a figure like Ellie’s … and hair like Aunt Clemmie’s used to be before the silver came … and her eyes are sort of…” She waved her hand in search of the perfect word. “… green-gold, like the sun shining on the sea.”

Button made an impressed face. “That sounds promising.”

“So you’ll help?”

Button smiled and spread his hands. “Need you even ask?”

*   *   *

There weren’t many invitations in Mrs. Talbot’s post on a usual day—none, to be exact.

Until the next morning, when a subtly striped mauve envelope was brought to her door.

The deliverer of this mysterious epistle was a quite unbelievably handsome young man in an exquisitely fitted suit of gray superfine that perfectly matched his eyes. When Miranda stepped into the front hall in anticipation of her suitor, she found the fellow coolly refusing the protests of her butler, Twigg, who was accustomed to being the first to lay hands on the mistress’s mail.

Twigg was very aware of his rank and defensive of his privileges. He was also on the managing side. Miranda stepped forward to resolve the stalemate.

“Twigg, I shall handle this matter. Please return to your duties.”

Her butler-cum-guard-dog cast a dismissive sniff in the elegant young man’s general direction and hustled away, perhaps intending to give the impression of much more important things to attend to. Miranda waited for him to be gone, then turned to her visitor with a smile.

“I suppose one cannot overdo on a virtue such as diligence.”

He gazed down at her impassively. So tall. So very decorative …

“My master would likely say, ‘Why do when one can overdo?’”

Miranda, who was, after all, on the brink of a rather “overdoing” adventure—twin suitors—oh my!—could only concur with that philosophy. “Your master sounds delightfully wise.” She gestured with one hand. “Won’t you come sit, Mr.—?”

He bowed with courteous precision. “Please, forgive my imposition, madam. I am Cabot. I am here on behalf of my master, who would like to extend to you this invitation. He desired that I personally place it in your hand.”

He handed her the elegantly embossed envelope with another bow. Upon taking possession of it, Miranda was driven to caress the heavy, expensive paper ever so slightly with her fingertips. Goodness, her senses were becoming most unguarded, weren’t they?