To Beguile a Beast (Legend of the Four Soldiers #3)(33)

She drew away, panting, and looked at him. His eye was half-closed, his face flushed and sensuous with a darkened beard of whiskers.

She tried to think of something to say. “I…”

In the end, she merely pressed her fingers to her lips and ran from the room like the greenest virgin.

“ROVER,” JAMIE SAID. He was squatting in the grass behind the castle, watching as the puppy sniffed at a beetle he’d found.

Abigail rolled her eyes. “Does he look like a Rover to you?”

“Yes,” Jamie said, and then added, “Or perhaps Captain.”

Abigail carefully lifted her skirts and found a bit of dryish grass to sit in. Most everything was soaked from the storm the night before. “I think Tristan would be nice.”

“That’s a girl’s name.”

“Is not. Tristan was a great warrior.” Abigail frowned a little, not entirely sure of her facts. “Or something. Certainly not a girl, anyway.”

“Well, it sounds like a girl’s name,” Jamie said stoutly.

He picked up a twig and held it in front of the puppy’s nose. The puppy bit the twig and took it from him. He flopped on the ground, back legs splayed behind him, and started chewing the twig.

“Don’t let him eat it,” Abigail said.

“I’m not,” Jamie said. “And, anyway—”

“Oy!” a familiar voice called. “Wot have you there?”

Behind them stood Mr. Wiggins. His head blotted out the morning sun, and the red hair standing up around his face seemed to be on fire. He swayed just a little on his feet and frowned down at the puppy.

“He’s Sir Alistair’s dog,” she said quickly, afraid he’d try to take the dog. “We’re watching him for Sir Alistair.”

Mr. Wiggins squinted, his little eyes nearly disappearing into wrinkles in his face. “Lowly work for a duke’s daughter, innit?”

Abigail bit her lip. She’d so hoped that he had forgotten Jamie’s words from the day before.

But Mr. Wiggins was thinking about other matters. “Juss make sure it don’t piss in the kitchen. Have enough work about here as it is, don’t I?”

“He—” Jamie started, but Abigail interrupted him.

“We won’t,” she said sweetly.

“Huh.” Mr. Wiggins grunted and walked off again.

Abigail waited until he’d disappeared into the castle; then she rounded on her brother. “You mustn’t say anything to him again.”

“You’re not the master of me!” Jamie’s lower lip trembled, and his face was growing red.

Abigail knew that these were signs of an imminent fit of screaming or crying or both, but she pressed, anyway. “It’s important, Jamie. You mustn’t let him tease you into saying things.”

“I didn’t,” he muttered, which they both knew was a lie.

Abigail sighed. Jamie was still very young, and this was the best she’d get out of him. She held the puppy out. “Would you like to hold Puddles?”

“He’s not Puddles,” he said, but he took the puppy and squished it against his chest, hiding his face in its soft fur.

“I know.”

Abigail sat back on the grass and closed her eyes, feeling the sun on her face. She ought to tell Mama what Jamie’d said. She ought to go right now and find her. But then Mama would become cross and worried, and it’d spoil this new happiness. Maybe it wouldn’t matter, anyway.

“Puddles hasn’t seen the stables,” Jamie said beside her. He seemed to have recovered his good temper. “Let’s show him.”

“Very well.”

Abigail stood and trailed her brother across the wet grass toward the stables. The day was lovely, after all, and they had a sweet puppy to take care of. Something made her look back over her shoulder in the direction that Mr. Wiggins had gone. He was nowhere to be seen, but black clouds hovered in the distance, ominous and low, threatening the sunshine.

She shivered and ran to catch up with Jamie.

“THEY SAY WHEATON will propose another soldiers’ pension bill this next parliament,” the Earl of Blanchard said, leaning back in his chair until Lister feared he’d break it.

“The man never gives up,” Lord Hasselthorpe said with contempt. “I predict we’ll dismiss it with hardly any debate. What do you say, Your Grace?”

Lister contemplated the glass of brandy he held in his hand. They were in Hasselthorpe’s study, a pleasant enough room, even if it was done in purple and pink. Hasselthorpe was a sober man with a cool head on his shoulders and the ambition of obtaining the prime minister’s seat—perhaps very soon—but he had a nitwit for a wife. She’d probably done the decorating.

Lister looked at his host. “Wheaton’s bill is pure nonsense, of course. Think what a pension for every idiot who’s ever served in His Majesty’s army would cost this government. But there may be some popular support for the thing.”

“Come, sir, you don’t truly believe it might pass?” Blanchard looked aghast.

“Pass, no,” Lister said. “But there may be a fight. Have you read the pamphlets circulating on the street?”

“The rhetoric of pamphleteers is hardly sophisticated,” Hasselthorpe scoffed.