Marquesses at the Masquerade(87)
Miss Fletcher was about as sedentary as a lightning bolt, though she spouted rules—at her employer.
You shall tuck Sylvie in on the nights that you are home.
You shall kiss both girls on the forehead before departing on the evenings you go out.
You shall recall their birthdays, and you shall most especially note the anniversary of their mother’s death with a family outing to some location their mother enjoyed.
You shall resume socializing, so your daughters know that life moves on and they need not surrender to grief forever.
You shall bestow on your daughters the occasional bouquet of flowers, for how are the young ladies to know what to expect of a gentleman if their own papa doesn’t comport himself as one?
For a small woman, Miss Fletcher had an endless store of commands and warnings. By the time she’d arrived, Tyne had been grateful for anybody who brought a sense of competence and order to his children’s lives, and her approach had borne fruit.
Sylvie hadn’t had a nightmare for months. Amanda was playing the pianoforte again.
“I did not shave,” Tyne informed his daughter, “because Vikings were a rough lot. I’m trying to be authentic to my role.”
Sylvie’s solemn gaze said she was considering whether this excuse would wash. “You need a name, Papa. Vikings had grand names.”
Oh, right. Sven Forkbeard. Harold Battleax. Ivan Bignose. All quite barbaric. “If I had an eye patch, I could be Tyne One-Eye.”
“Not Tyne,” she said, wiggling out of his grasp. “Then everybody would know who you are.”
Lately, Tyne himself had felt a sense of his identity fading. He was the marquess, of course. He voted his seat in Parliament, he dined at his clubs, he made the occasional speech in the Lords regarding economic matters. At Yuletide, planting, and harvest, he opened the ancestral hall to the neighbors and tenants.
The year was a succession of predictable moves, like an old-fashioned court dance: Holidays in the country, remove to Town. Opening of Parliament, beginning of Lent. Polite invitations during the Season to make up the numbers, waltzes with wallflowers.
A restful lot, the wallflowers. He liked them and envied them their anonymity.
Then came grouse season, which he usually spent at the family seat, pretending to tramp about with a fowling piece on his shoulder, while searching for a place out of the wet to read for a few hours.
Harvest, the opening Hunt Ball. The holidays in the country… All the while, his daughters grew taller and more articulate. His estates prospered, and he… he missed Josephine, though he hadn’t known his marchioness all that well.
“You should be Thor,” Sylvie decided. “You need a hammer.”
“How shall I waltz while carrying a hammer at Lord Boxhaven’s masquerade?”
“You set the hammer down, Papa, just as you’d set down a cup of punch. Or you could hang it from your belt.”
An untoward image came to mind of Thor’s hammer swinging from Tyne’s belt and smacking a dancing partner in an unmentionable location. This was what came of wearing crossed garters and a fur cape.
“To bed with you, darling Sylvie,” he said, picking her up again and carrying her into her bedroom. “Miss Fletcher will not tolerate even a Norse god keeping you up past your bedtime.”
The nursery maid rose from the rocking chair next to the hearth and ducked a curtsey.
“Doesn’t Papa look dashing, Helms ?”
“Very dashing, Miss Sylvie.” The woman was likely twice Tyne’s age and silently laughing at him. Perhaps he did need a hammer. “Sweet dreams, Sylvie,” he said, kissing her forehead. “If I see any unicorns, I’ll capture one for you.”
“I want a blue one,” Sylvie said, scooting beneath her covers. “With a sparkling purple horn.”
How could this fanciful child be his offspring? “Blue with a purple horn, of course.”
“Sparkling purple, Papa.”
“Your wish,” he said, making her the sort of court bow that always earned him a smile. “Now say your prayers and go to sleep, or Miss Fletcher will hurl thunderbolts at us.”
He escaped the nursery to the music of Sylvie’s giggles. He had bid good night to Amanda before donning this outlandish costume. She’d grown too big to cuddle or carry about. She was acquiring the knack of a rational argument, which too few people practiced on a marquess.
Soon, she’d put up her hair.
Soon after that, Tyne’s hair would sport some gray at the temples. Life was passing him by, which ought not to be possible when he was wealthy, titled, in great good health, and content in every particular.
Thirty-three was hardly ancient.
Perhaps he’d stop by the livery and find himself a convincingly stout mallet to carry about the ballroom. Anything to put off attending the masquerade for even an additional five minutes.
*
“He’s gone,” Lady Amanda said, watching the coach pull away from the front drive two stories below.
She was thirteen years old, too young to have her own sitting room, but Lucy Fletcher had found the marquess to be a creature of habit rather than convention. When he gave an order—such as “Move my older daughter into her own bedroom.”—he was in the habit of being obeyed. The largest bedroom on the nursery floor other than Lucy’s had a sitting room; ergo, into that bedroom, Lady Amanda had been moved.