The Bridgertons Happily Ever After - By Julia Quinn Page 0,78
Or consume it.”
True. But Violet’s ambitions for the pie had not required utensils of any kind. She was already in deep, though, so she dug herself further in by replying, “I couldn’t carry it all. I was planning to go back for a spoon.”
“And leave the pie in the garden for the crows to ravage?”
“Well, I hadn’t really thought of that.”
“Hadn’t really thought of what?” came the deep, booming voice that could only belong to her father. Mr. Ledger walked closer. “Violet, what on earth are you doing in the drawing room with a pie?”
“Precisely what I am presently attempting to ascertain,” Miss Fernburst said stiffly.
“Well . . .” Violet stalled, trying not to glance longingly at the French doors that led to the lawn. She was sunk now. She’d never been able to fib to her father. He saw through everything. She didn’t know how he did it; it must have been something in her eyes.
“She said she was planning a picnic in the garden with her dollies,” Miss Fernburst reported.
“Really.” Not a question, a statement. Her father knew her far too well to make it a question.
Violet nodded. Well, a little nod. Or maybe more of a bob of the chin.
“Because you always feed actual food to your toys,” her father said.
She said nothing.
“Violet,” her father said sternly, “what were you planning to do with that pie?”
“Ehm . . .” Her eyes couldn’t seem to leave a spot on the floor about six feet to her left.
“Violet?”
“It was only going to be a small trap,” she mumbled.
“A small what?”
“A trap. For that Bridgerton boy.”
“For—” Her father chuckled. She could tell he hadn’t meant to, and after he covered his mouth with a hand and a cough, his face was once again stern.
“He’s horrid,” she said, before he could scold her.
“Oh, he’s not so bad.”
“He’s dreadful, Father. You know that he is. And he doesn’t even live here in Upper Smedley. He’s only visiting. You’d think he would know how to behave properly—his father is a viscount, but—”
“Violet . . .”
“He is no gentleman,” she sniffed.
“He’s nine.”
“Ten,” she corrected primly. “And it is my opinion that a ten-year-old ought to know how to be a good houseguest.”
“He’s not our houseguest,” her father pointed out. “He’s visiting the Millertons.”
“Be that as it may,” Violet said, thinking that she’d very much like to cross her arms. But she was still holding that accursed pie.
Her father waited for her to finish the thought. She did not.
“Give the pie to Miss Fernburst,” her father ordered.
“Being a good houseguest means that you don’t behave horridly to the neighbors,” Violet protested.
“The pie, Violet.”
She handed it to Miss Fernburst, who, in all truth, didn’t look like she much wanted it. “Shall I take it back to the kitchen?” the governess inquired.
“Please do,” Violet’s father said.
Violet waited until Miss Fernburst had disappeared around the corner, then she looked up at her father with a disgruntled expression. “He put flour in my hair, Father.”
“Flowers?” he echoed. “Don’t young girls like that sort of thing?”
“Flour, Father! Flour! The kind one uses to bake cakes! Miss Fernburst had to wash my hair for twenty minutes just to get it out. And don’t you laugh!”
“I’m not!”
“You are,” she accused. “You want to. I can see it in your face.”
“I’m merely wondering how the young fellow managed it.”
“I don’t know,” Violet ground out. Which was the worst insult of all. He’d managed to cover her with finely ground flour and she still didn’t know how he’d done it. One minute she’d been walking in the garden, and the next she’d tripped and . . .
Poof! Flour everywhere.
“Well,” her father said matter-of-factly, “I believe he’s leaving at the week’s end. So you won’t have to endure his presence for very much longer. If at all,” he added. “We’re not expecting to visit with the Millertons this week, are we?”
“We weren’t expecting to visit with them yesterday,” Violet replied, “and he still managed to flour me.”
“How do you know it was he?”
“Oh, I know,” she said darkly. As she was sputtering and coughing and batting at the flour cloud, she’d heard him cackling in triumph. If she hadn’t had so much flour in her eyes, she probably would have seen him, too, grinning in that awful boy way of his.
“He seemed perfectly pleasant when he and Georgie Millerton came for tea on Monday.”
“Not when you weren’t in the room.”
“Oh. Well . . .” Her father paused, his lips pursing thoughtfully. “I’m sorry to have