“Yes.” He sounded surprised that she knew it. “I was curious, because I’d heard he wrote it in the midst of fever, and so I sought it out. One sees the most remarkable things in the midst of fever dreams.”
There was a silence.
“Go ahead, dear,” Mrs. Pariseau sighed. “I can feel that you’re fair quivering to make some sort of point.”
“Here is the partIfind most compelling, Lord Bolt,” Angelique said.
“And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.”
She punctuated her delivery with an eyebrow launch.
He’d heard the “beware, beware” bit precisely as she’d intended him to. Their gazes met and his eyes were virtually dancing. He was entirely undaunted. His lips curved just a very little.
To her horror, she imagined drawing her tongue along the long swoop of the bottom one.
“Mrs. Breedlove, please don’t lookdownsuddenly like that or your chin will turn out very odd indeed. You are as wriggly as a toddler.”
Thusly Angelique was forced to look straight at Lord Bolt again, much to his amusement. He took unchivalrous advantage by staring unabashedly straight at her.
Surely Mrs. Pariseau couldn’t object if she aimed her eyes sideways.
“Demons, dread,” Delacorte mused. “Sounds as thrilling as a horrid novel, that poem. I should like to read the whole of it. I only know one poem by heart, and it’s shorter.”
“Perhaps you’ll favor us with it, Mr. Delacorte,” Delilah encouraged, trying to distract him because she needed a little more time to choose her pillikin.
“Well.” He cleared his throat, flattered and a little bashful. “You should not expect a performance quite as impressive as Lord Bolt’s, but I shall do my best.”
He rose and put a hand to his chest, and in stentorian tones he declaimed:
“Six times did his iron by vigorous heating,
Grow soft in her forge in a minute or so,
And as often was hardened, still beating and beating,
But each time it softened, it hardened more slow.
With a jingle bang, jingle bang, jingle bang, jingle,
With a jingle bang, jingle bang, jingle, hi ho!”
Every single jaw in the room dropped as though their hinges had collectively snapped.
Mr. Delacorte took the gaping as a tribute, and beamed. His smile gradually faded when he took in the expressions above those gaping jaws. Shock, horror, and rueful resignation (Cassidy), and gleeful hilarity (Bolt).
It was Bolt who spoke first. “Not a poem, I’m afraid, Mr. Delacorte,” he said lightly. “It’s about a woman whose husband is no longer virile and she meets a young blacksmith who—”