If the donkey had a name, the man who delivered her was unaware of it. Hogarth had won her from the Earl of Kildere’s third son.
Mrs. Pariseau went off to her planned visit to a museum; Delilah, Angelique, Dot, and Mr. Pike returned to their chores; and Mr. Delacorte went off to get the donkey settled at the livery stables.
That left Mr. Marchand and Ginny in the courtyard.
Ginny suddenly felt a little shy.
In the bright daylight, he looked tired. Her heart twinged. She recalled how pale he’d gone before he’d abruptly departed the sitting room the previous evening. She studied him for other signs of languishing, but apart from faint shadows beneath his eyes, he was his usual intimidatingly splendid self.
“You might as well add one pound and a shilling to my brother’s debt total,” she finally said.
He smiled. “Already done.”
She gave a short, pained laugh. “I wonder if this is the last of the so-called whimsical gifts Hogarth won.”
He cleared his throat. “About that... Miss Woodville, I have something important I feel I should share with you. You may want to sit down for it.”
Alarm surged through Ginny. Perhaps hewasdesperately ill.
He gestured to the bench in the little garden, and she stumbled over to it and sat down warily.
He sat across from her on the other bench, at a chaste but still pleasantly disturbing distance. She was aware of but perilously unconcerned about the fact that they were both growing comfortable with this sort of proximity to each other. Her mother would have keeled in a swoon.
She breathed in, and the scent of the nearby blossoms plus eau de Marchand—bay rum and soap, a dash of tobacco—made her head briefly light.
“Miss Woodville...” He leaned toward her like a doctor about to deliver difficult news. Her heart slammed. “I’m wondering if it’s time to consider the possibility that your brother might just be a little, well...” He paused suspensefully. “...stupid.”
She froze.
His eyes were glinting. The devil.
“Oh, myGod,” she breathed in mock wonderment. “You’ve hit upon it! That’s precisely it! He’sstupid.”
He nodded slowly.
She laughed, but her laugh evolved into a despairing groan. “What I can’t be certain of is whether it’s a permanent, fatal sort of stupid, or just a young man sort of stupid, because aren’t all boys a little stupid until a certain age?” She turned to him beseechingly.
“The aristocratic ones are, of a certainty,” he agreed equably.
“You weren’t, naturally.”
“Oh, I was stupid. But there’s a sort of grandeur to the way Hogarth is going about being stupid. A purity. An innocence. A divinity.”
“Have a care, Marchand.”
“Sorry,” he replied insincerely, stretching out his legs.
“How on earth will he survive, let alone raise a family? How can I stop him from doing stupid things now that he’s started? What if he does it again, even if I actually ever find the vase, which doesn’t seem at all likely anymore?”
“Here’s the paradox: You stop him from doing stupid things by not stopping him from doing stupid things.”
“I assure you, that’s not an option.”
“Miss Woodville, you—emphasis onyou—cannot keep the young earl in cotton batting the whole of his life. And that is part of the problem, I’m afraid. He seems to have saved up all the stupid things he’s never done before and done them in one night.”
She bristled. “But IpromisedI’d look after him. And besides, Iwantto look after him. I’m good at it. It’s what I’mbest at, in fact.” Was this true, or was she just reflexively arguing a point?
“But I suspect Hogarth has probably been very, very careful not to put a foot wrong in order not to let you down in any way for all these years, too, and this, believe it or not, could be in part the result.”