Free Pure Dead Frozen by Debi Gliori

stuff,” Ludo said, pushing through into the kitchen and beaming at the assembled company. “I believe congratulations are in order?”
    â€œYes,” said Titus flatly, his voice devoid of both color and enthusiasm. “We’re very pleased.”
    I don’t
think
so,
Ludo decided.
I don’t think you’re pleased at all, young sir. What’s up with this chap? Jealous? Surely not.
Ludo pressed on, “And where’s the happy paterfamilias?”
    â€œThe
what
?”
    â€œOh, come
on,
Titus,” Pandora interrupted. “Stop being like this.” She turned to Ludo and said, “Ignore my brother. He’ll improve once he’s eaten something. Just think kindly of us all: you only have to endure this for one day in every seven;
we
have to put up with Mr. Grumple-Snurk every day of our lives….”
    â€œYeah, right,” mumbled Titus, the return of the nagging pain in his injured eye causing him not to rise to the bait. “If you mean Dad, he’s upstairs, working out.”
    Pandora rolled her eyes and groaned. “They’re not called dumbbells for nothing, you know. I just
so
don’t get it, all that huffing and puffing….”
    Perhaps it’s to stop a wolf from blowing your house down,
Ludo thought, smiling at the children and standing aside as Minty came into the kitchen from the garden, a breath of freezing air rolling in behind her. Damp stamped in behind her, her voice raised in determined inquiry.
    â€œWhy is newbaby coming home? Why not leave it in hostiple with Aunty Naytil?”
    Minty wisely ignored this, merely assisting Damp out of her fleecy jacket, unwinding her scarf, and tucking both mittens into a pocket.
    â€œNot wantit anyhow. Not like
boys
.”
    â€œThanks,” muttered Titus, shooting Damp a look out of his uninjured eye that ought to have freeze-dried all her internal organs. Minty tried to hide a smile by turning away to set the kettle on to boil, and thus found herself face to face with Ludo.
    Months later, on honeymoon in the far northwest of Scotland, both Minty and Ludo agreed that they had fallen in love in that instant, in front of the unaware Strega-Borgia children in the kitchen at StregaSchloss. Ludo felt the floor tilt under his feet, and was assailed by such a feeling of vertigo that he grabbed the towel rail of the range for support. He closed his eyes briefly, utterly at a loss to explain what had just happened to him. Minty’s hand holding the kettle trembled so violently that water slopped out of the spout and fell, hissing loudly, onto the stovetop. Ludo’s eyes opened, and without hesitation he reached out to take the wildly shaking kettle from Minty’s grasp. Smiling, he looked at her, really looked, marveling as he did at the blueness of her eyes, just as Minty came to the realization that Ludo’s face was exactly the face that she wanted to wake up to every morning for the rest of her life.
    â€œYeah, Damp,” Titus snarled, blissfully unaware of the momentous events unfolding over by the range, being more concerned with exacting revenge for his youngest sister’s blanket condemnation of all things boyish. “When
you
came along, both Pan and I took one look in your cot and went, ‘Eeeyew.
Babies
. Not like it, babies.’ Fat lot of difference
that
made. They didn’t take
you
back to hostiple either, no matter how many times we begged them to.”
    Damp was saved from further unpalatable truths by the arrival in the kitchen of Luciano, fresh from exercising, aglow with sweaty virtue and in need of coffee, a second breakfast, and a more effective form of deodorant. Pandora took one look at her soggy father and rolled her eyes so hard that for a moment she resembled an extra from
Night of the Living Dead
. Damp clamored to be picked up for a hug, but once in her father’s arms, she batted him away, wrinkling her nose and informing everyone