My Lady's Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel(87)
“Hello, Mac,” you say softly. His eyes twinkle—and perhaps peer a bit longingly—at you.
“Aye, lass,” he returns, as soft as his body is hard. “If you aren’t jest a sight for sore eyes. I have oft wondered what ye were getting up to out there, in the great wide world. And if, perhaps, were needin’ helpin’.”
“Does the lady need help? May I be of assistance? Would the lady like a glass of brandy? I have fetched you brandy, my lady, here is, oh, oh my!” The excitable voice belongs to none other than the hopelessly goofy, awkward, and adoring Nigel Frickley. He stumbles all over himself (and several others) to hand you a glass of brandy.
Unfortunately, the proffered refreshment ends up all over your dress, instead of in your mouth. “Thank you, Nigel,” you demur. “But really, you shouldn’t have.”
“Yes, he should!” Sir Charles Burley-Fanshaw leers at you from across the room. “And he should do it again!” The old coot’s eyes dance with delight at the sight of your clinging gown, and you and most of the ball’s attendees shudder with deep disgust.
“Where the devil is my sherry?!” the Dragon shouts. Despising yourself for it, you scurry toward her with the drink outstretched.
“Here you are, my lady,” you say, extending the glass to her. She snatches it, and in front of all of the ton, throws the drink full in your face!
“Oh…oh my,” Nigel stammers. “I shall fetch my lady another napkin—”
“You shall fetch nothing of the sort!” the Dragon spits. Nigel freezes in his somewhat adorably goofy tracks. She turns her nigh-villainous gaze on you and narrows her already beady eyes. “I have longed for the moment you would come crawling back to my employ. I have longed for it expressly because, in turn, I longed for the moment I would teach you a valuable lesson. You do not bite the hand that feeds, my dear, and you most certainly do not caress longingly the hands that are related to the hand that feeds. You have invited scandal into my family, and for it, you shall pay. You are a terrible, ungrateful, spiteful little chit. You have disgraced yourself and my family with your life choices, and you shall pay for your actions. You, my lady, are fired.”
Ninety percent of the ton gasps, scandalized. Eighty percent of that ninety percent do so with cruel delight.
Your heart drops to the floor. You are now penniless, jobless, beauless, and drenched in two types of aperitif. Clearly, the Dragon took you back only to publicly humiliate you, dismiss you, and leave you with neither income, home, nor dry change of clothes.
“Get thee hence, harlot!” she cries, casting her beady eyes about for more cocktails to heave at you. Benedict locks eyes with you and takes a deep, shivering breath before stepping forward and gathering your hands in his.
“This harlot is my fiancée!” he says, loud enough for everyone, even those at the fringes of the ton, to hear.
Several members gasp so hard they need to sit down to catch their breath.
“Benedict,” you say, burning partly with desire, partly with humiliation, “you do not need to marry me to save my honor.”
“No,” he responds, and his eyes search yours in that intense back-and-forth way that future generations will know only by watching romantic comedic narratives on a sort of moving screen. “I need to marry you to save myself. From a life of boredom, from a life of mediocre sex, from a life of grinning and bearing it when all I want is to sass around. I need to marry you to save myself from a life spent without you. Any moment I continue to live without you as my wife is one moment too many.”
Your eyes widen, your blood thrums. Benedict drops to one knee.
“Marry me, my lady,” he asks, breathless, and in love.
“No! No! NOOOOO!” the Dragon screams.
One hundred percent of the ton awaits your response, none with more eagerness than Benedict. You see Mac look down at his boots. Nigel’s eyes shine with terror. Sir Charles Burley-Fanshaw mimes groping your chest and buttocks.
Lady’s choice. What will it be?
Benedict, duh! You are totally in love and you want to find some rainy garden and kiss on him all over it. Get thee hence to this page, you damnable woman!
Benedict is great but…you just can’t resist throwing your tiny scrap of remaining caution to the wind and get back to orphan-helpin’ with your favorite rugged Scotsman, Mac. Turn to this page.
The children really could do with a wash, you think to yourself as you head out to the collection of junk and scrubby grass that passes for the castle’s garden. But how would one be able to use that single tin bath to clean all of them effectively?
Perhaps some of these spare parts thrown haphazardly in a pile might help? Digging in, you find an old pump mechanism, a leaky watering can, a long piece of piping, and a rusty but usable spring. Together, they remind you of something…a device you once saw in an exhibition back in London that you attended with your dear papa when he was still alive.
You have an idea. You haul your finds into one of the rooms near the kitchens and set to work. Assembling the pieces with your nimble fingers and ingenuity, within a short time you have made a makeshift shower.
The water you put on to heat earlier is now, thankfully, hot. You haul it in, pour it in the tub, and start testing your invention. The mist on your previous walk has left you already drenched and caked in mud, so you decide to keep your dress on.