Marquesses at the Masquerade(91)
“Do you read much Shakespeare?” she asked.
Thor set the empty plate on the floor to the side of the bench. “I’m a literate Englishman, so I’m supposed to say yes. The truth is, I haven’t had time to read for pleasure in years. Now, I’m called upon to read to my children occasionally, and they seem to like that. If I have a choice between brushing up on Romeo and Juliet, or spending an hour in the nursery, I’ve lately chosen the nursery.”
He was married. This revelation should not have disappointed Lucy—she’d be back in her own bed in little more than an hour—but his marital status reminded her that this was a masquerade. He wasn’t Thor, she wasn’t in search of an adventure, or a unicorn.
“Romeo and Juliet isn’t exactly light reading,” Lucy said. “You’re better off enjoying the company of your own children rather than reading about somebody else’s doomed offspring.” She’d never liked the tragedies, particularly tragedies that left the stage littered with dead adolescents. “Your children will thank you one day for reading to them.”
He relaxed back against the wall, stretching long legs before him. “Have you children, that you can offer me such an assurance?”
“I had a papa. He read to us.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.” Those quiet words, spoken not by a bantering deity, but by a very human man who was himself a father, nudged Lucy’s mood in a sad direction.
“Papa was a god,” she said. “Jovial, wise, bigger than life, kinder than kind. He knew what to say, he knew when to say nothing. I miss him.”
Which was why she grasped the world of a grieving child.
“I miss my wife,” Thor said. “Trite words, and we had a trite marriage. We’d known each other since childhood, had always expected to marry one another. We suited wonderfully, and yet, we barely knew each other. There’s nothing trite about grief, particularly when bewilderment and guilt get into the mix.” He laid his hammer across his lap. “My apologies for burdening you with such conversation. Loneliness makes fools of us.”
Why couldn’t Lord Tyne be this insightful? He was a good man, an honorable man, but sometimes, Lucy wanted to shake him. Perhaps his lordship needed some enchanted creature to kiss him, to waken him from his parliamentary bills and estate ledgers.
The wiggly widows would allow Tyne to stay lost in his politics and accounting, and that would not be a happy ending for Lucy’s employer.
“What would help?” Lucy asked. “What would ease your grief and rekindle your joie de vivre?”
He lifted his hammer and considered the battered weight that made it an effective tool. “Joie de vivre is in short supply at Valhalla. As you doubtless know, we go in more for gory sagas, epic wrestling matches, and kidnapping maidens who don’t belong to us.”
He had a very nice smile, though Lucy wished he wasn’t wearing a half-mask. She’d like to see his eyes more clearly. His voice was that of any well-educated Englishman, much like Lord Tyne’s voice, but Thor’s conversation included humor and honest emotion.
“The wrestling matches sound interesting,” Lucy said as a satyr galloped past with a giggling nymph in tow.
The gamboling couple apparently didn’t notice Lucy and Thor sitting in the shadows, for the nymph allowed herself to be caught, then pressed against the wall for a protracted kiss. The sight should have been ridiculous—the satyr’s horns sat askew on his head, the nymph’s golden wig was similarly disarranged—but the sheer glee of the undertaking made Lucy cross.
The nymph wiggled free, gave the satyr a smack on the bum, then darted off down the gallery.
“Ye gods and little fishes,” Thor said, rising and shouldering his hammer. “I do believe it’s time I kidnapped a maiden.”
He took Lucy by the hand and led her off into the shadows.
Chapter Two
* * *
What consenting adults got up to was no business of Tyne’s, but he’d be damned if he’d be made to watch an orgy.
“I apologize for that… that… scene,” he said, ducking out of the gallery and into the corridor that would take them to the front of the house. “I’ve overstayed my tolerance for the evening’s entertainments. I will find your escort and take my leave of you.”
He didn’t want to. The lady was easy to talk to and sensible. Miss Fletcher, who answered to the same proportions as Madam Valkyrie, though with fewer curves, was also sensible. So why did Tyne feel as if he had to mentally prepare for every interaction with his children’s governess?
“Are we in a hurry, sir?”
“A tearing hurry. Outside the purview of the chaperones in the ballroom, first the wigs fall off, and then clothing starts flying in all directions. I should have known better, but one loses track of time. Why otherwise rational human beings, who will nod to one another cordially in the churchyard, must comport themselves like—”
The Valkyrie planted her booted feet and brought Tyne to a halt. “You are not responsible for their folly, and I’m hardly an innocent maiden to be shocked by kisses and flirtation.”
Tyne peered at her, but the damned masks made interpreting an expression futile. “I was shocked. Some kisses are meant to be private.”