Free Carola Dunn by Mayhemand Miranda Page B

glance at Miss Carmichael, and looked disappointed. “Hello, Peter. I must just do the Fish to straighten out my neck. It is nothing to gape at so you may both take yourselves off. Miranda, ring for Baxter to my chamber, pray. I shall be there in a trice.”
    Peter followed Miss Carmichael out into the passage. Closing the door, he said, “I fear Aunt Artemis was disappointed not to show us a perfect Candle.”
    “She only failed at the very end. I hope I am half so vigorous at her age. Is she not amazing?”
    “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” he vowed with a grin.
    * * * *
    Seated behind her tea-table, Aunt Artemis was once again the gracious hostess. Peter devoutly prayed she would not take it into her head to demonstrate the Candle for her guests for the sake of disconcerting Miss Carmichael. Surely now she was wearing a gown such a display was too shocking even for her.
    “Mr. Potts, my lady.”
    Daylight Danny tramped in, made his clumsy bow. “Arternoon, m’lady. My Mary sent her...her...”
    “Regrets?” Miss Carmichael suggested.
    “Ta, miss, them’s her very words. Her sister’s took poorly, see. Got a bun in the oven, she has, her seventh.” He turned to Peter as the ladies absorbed this information without a blink. “What cheer, mate? Ow!” He winced.
    “What is the matter, Danny?” Aunt Artemis asked. “You have not been fighting, I trust.”
    “Not me, m’lady. Blow me if I didn’t feel my Mary’s elbow in me ribs, and her a mile orf. What I oughter’ve said’s ‘Howjer do, sir.’“
    “Mate will do very well,” Peter assured him.
    He shook his head mournfully. “She’d have me liver and lights, she would, sir. Well now, who’s yon flash cove?”
    Peter followed his suspicious gaze towards the door, as Twitchell announced, “Lieutenant Bassett, my lady.”
    Bassett, smart in his dress uniform, recoiled before the combined assault of Daylight Danny’s ferocious scowl and the ladies’ questioning looks.
    “A friend of mine,” Peter hastened to inform Danny, going to meet him. “Aunt Artemis, as I told you last night, Bassett sailed with Sir Bernard.”
    “Only briefly, ma’am,” the sailor stammered bashfully, “and I was only a midshipman at the time.”
    Aunt Artemis gave him a warm welcome and a cup of tea. Several more people came in just then. Peter lost sight of Bassett for a while, and when he next saw him he was chatting quite happily with Miss Carmichael and Daylight Danny.
    In fact, Miss Carmichael, who was looking particularly delightful in yellow-spotted muslin, appeared to hang on his words. He must be impressing her with tales of his exploits at sea, grossly exaggerated, no doubt. Peter frowned.
    At that moment, his aunt signalled to Miss Carmichael to relieve her at the tea table. Whatever her interest in Bassett’s boasts, she had never ceased to observe her ladyship, and at once she excused herself. Her way took her close to Peter.
    Pausing beside him, she said with a smile, “Mr. Bassett is charming. I am glad you invited him. One may turn up one’s nose at girls who run after any man in uniform, but I must confess there is something prodigious dashing about it, all the same.”
    She moved on. Peter wished he at least had his new coat, since he could not aspire to the glory of a uniform.
    Devil take it, what did he care? As long as she was willing to help with his book, Miss Carmichael might admire a thousand sailors with his good will! He went to talk to a comely young actress whose wages his aunt supplemented in an effort—probably doomed—to dissuade her from taking a lover.
    When the girl discovered Peter was Lady Wiston’s nephew, she hung on his words almost as keenly as Miss Carmichael had hung on the lieutenant’s. However, noticing a tendency for her eyes to stray to that damned dashing uniform, he soon moved on. He happened to be quite close to Aunt Artemis when Bassett came to take his leave and thank her for her