side in the reception room again.
“I don’t know what he is, but he’s quite nice,” was how Dot had described the newest potential guest when she’d raced up the stairs to fetch them. “And loud.”
Dot was a savant, as it turned out, when it came to describing their arrivals. She was absolutely correct on all counts.
“I know I’m an unprepossessing sort.”
“Nonsense, Mr. Delacorte,” they lied prettily, in unison.
Perched on the settee, his feet just barely touched the floor. His black-and-gray hair was unevenly trimmed, and tufted out about his ears, which made him look incongruously like a baby bird. The toes of his boots were well creased, but they’d been polished, and the buttons on his waistcoat were nearly audibly straining. Delilah imagined the threads holding on to them groaning like tree branches stressed by a windstorm. One in particular looked moments away from launching.
She canted ever so slightly to his left, lest it take out her eye.
But the tailoring was good and his hat was brushed and tended and his greatcoat was new. Dot had taken them from him and laid them over a chair.
His clothes clearly had not kept up with his appetite.
His smile was vast, genuine, and rueful.
His eyebrows were bushy affairs.
His blue eyes were twinkly.
And his speaking volume suggested he was standing on shore shouting a farewell to travelers sailing away in a ship rather than sitting across from two ladies on the settee.
They quickly established that he wasn’t hard of hearing. Though demonstrating proper volume hadn’t yet encouraged him to calibrate his own.
“I like my food, you see.” His stomach gave a resonant thud when he smacked it.
Delilah kept a weather eye on the waistcoat button.
“We’ve an excellent cook,” Angelique told him. “And nothing makes her happier than watching someone enjoy her food.”
“I saw your advertisement in the apothecary and I thought, well, that’s the place for me! I like rules. I want a bit of civilizing, as you can see.”
“We could all use a little help now and again,” Delilah soothed.
“And I wanted a place what feels like home. Until I have a home of my own.”
“Well, that’s precisely what we offer our guests, Mr. Delacorte,” Angelique told him warmly. “And we feel the ten pounds per week is worth every penny.”
He didn’t blink, which meant he’d passed that particular financial test.
“I’ve longed for a bit of looking after, but it’s hard to find a wife, you see, when I travel so much for my work. A fine, sturdy woman who wouldn’t mind coming along with me sometimes, but who keeps a home waiting for me. I’d like a bit of domesticating, perhaps.” He sounded wistful.
“It sounds like a lovely dream, Mr. Delacorte. May we ask what line of business you are in?”
“I import cures for ailments and I sell them to surgeons and apothecaries up and down the coast of England. Chinese herbs and bits and bobs from India with unpronounceable names, ground-up horns and testicles of exotic animals and the like,” he said cheerily. “Make a fair penny, or two.”
Delilah and Angelique were startled rigid.
Mr. Delacorte twinkled at them.
His smile began to dim as the silence grew by seconds.
“If we may make a suggestion?” Delilah said gently.
“It was testicles, wasn’t it?” he said disconsolately. “It’s just that all I ever talk to is men, surgeons and apothecaries and the like, and one begins to forget how to speak to women.”
“Well, here at The Grand Palace on the Thames we’ve a jar in the drawing room, and we ask gentlemen to put a pence in when they slip up and say a word that might be a bit rough in the presence of the ladies. We know how difficult it is, sometimes.”
“Oh, aren’t you clever! You see, a little bit of help now and again to knock off my rough corners, if you know what I mean. I don’t mind a bit of nagging at all, if I’m to win over the right sort of wife for me one day.”
Despite themselves, they were charmed.
“Why don’t you enjoy your tea, Mr. Delacorte, while Mrs. Breedlove and I have a quick word about the availability of accommodations.”
Angelique and Delilah stood in tandem and walked together across to the opposite drawing room.
They stood in thoughtful silence.
They could hear Mr. Delacorte slurping his tea.
“Ahh!” he said, with great satisfaction.
“I think I would enjoy,” Delilah said slowly, finally, “seeing Mr. Delacorte and Captain Hardy in the same room.”
Angelique smiled slowly.
They returned to Mr. Delacorte, who looked up hopefully.
“Welcome