“Bedchamber activities are not for recreation. They’re for procreation.”
“Ha!” Finn exploded. “I knew we’d get to the meat of the matter. You want the chit in your bed.”
It was better to let Finn think his interest was entirely carnal. That couldn’t be further from the truth. “Bed, corridor, against the wall,” he said as drolly as he could, pretending to ponder his hand. “It matters not where.”
Finn shook his head slowly. “You’re a terrible liar.”
“Am I?” Ashley asked innocently. Let Finn figure it out for himself. His imagination was much more entertaining than Ashley’s life. “Let’s finish up this hand,” he directed. “I have to go and deliver a gift to Anne.”
“Isn’t she asleep?”
“She should be. But that German governess we had a few months ago told her tales of a faerie that comes and takes a tooth from beneath a child’s pillow and leaves a gift in return.” Finn looked at him like he had two heads. “Some fluttery little being.”
“The German governess? Wasn’t that the one who found frogs in her bed?”
“I don’t recall.” Ashley scratched his head. Anne had done so many terrible things to the people charged with her care that they began to run together after a time.
Finn threw his cards down when he saw that he’d been beaten. Then he rose, took one long swallow of whiskey, draining his glass, and said, “I’ll see you tomorrow. Mother has threatened my life, not to mention my stones, if I should dare to desert her during the party. I think it’s ballocks, since it’s your house and I am the one being made to suffer.”
“Better you than me,” Ashley said as he watched Finn slip out the door. It was much better that his mother call upon Finn to entertain her guests. Anyone would be better than Ashley himself.
***
Sophia sighed heavily as she closed the door to her bedchamber and discarded her wrap. Margaret gave her a scolding glance. “How many times do I have to ask you not to throw your things on the floor?” the house faerie said with a disgusted shake of her head.
“I thought dinner would never end,” Sophia groaned as she sat down on the edge of the bed and began to unlace her shoes. “You’ll have to help me get out of this gown,” she warned, just in case Margaret had decided to leave. “I don’t know why they make their clothes with so many hooks and loops and layers.”
“Perhaps they like all the layers to warm their icy hearts,” Margaret said as she spun Sophia around none too gently and began to work at the fastenings on the back of the gown. Sophia was well aware that Margaret held a severe dislike for the human world and those who occupied it. But she had no idea why.
“Are you going to tell me what has you tied up in knots? Or will you force me to suffer along with you?” Sophia shoved the gown down over her hips and stepped out of it. Margaret made a move to pick it up. “What is it about this world that has you up in arms?”
“It’s not that I dislike it here,” Margaret began with a sniff. “But Ronald says—”
Sophia held up a hand to cut her off. “You’ve been talking to Ronald?”
“He came to see you a little while ago, but you weren’t back from dinner yet.”
Sophia shook her head. That gnome would be the bane of her existence.
“He means well,” Margaret said. “And I think he may be right.”
Well, even if he was, Sophia would never admit it.
“He says the duke wants you in his bed.”
He wanted no such thing. They’d barely spoken more than a few words to one another. Sophia scoffed. “He doesn’t even know me.”
Margaret sent her a pointed glance. “A man does not have to know you to want you in his bed, miss,” she informed Sophia.
“How did Ronald get up here?”
“He climbed the trellis. He was in the foulest of moods.” Margaret covered a giggle. “I did hit him with a fireplace pok
er when he tried to lean his body out the window and take down those chimes.”
“I’m very proud of you. What made you do it? I know you hate the chimes as much as he does.” Everyone worried about Sophia and chimes. Or music of any kind.
“I assumed the duke would be none too happy to see his silver balls smashed to bits on the garden floor.”