Scandal Meets Its Match (The May Flowers #7) - Merry Farmer Page 0,44

his way with a look of melancholy. “Does it matter? Whether he’s aware of anything going on around him or not, it helps the girls to pretend he’s still in there somewhere.”

Phin took another drink of his tea to swallow the lump in his throat. “And how about the girls?” he asked. “Are they keeping up with their schoolwork?”

Hazel sent him an even warier glance as she tightened her hook, then moved to the pile of laundry to sort it. “When they actually make it to school.” She paused, then added, “The truant officer has been around three times already this autumn.”

Phin grunted. “I should really pressure Lionel into paying a visit. Those girls would walk to the moon and back if Lionel asked them to.”

“Have him write a letter instead,” Hazel suggested. “You know what happened last time he was home.”

Phin’s mouth twitched into a grin. They had all been together as a family at Easter the spring before. Hazel had entreated Lionel to strike the fear of God into their unruly younger sisters. Instead, the three of them had ended up letting the chickens out, frightening the neighbor’s pigs, and causing so much of a disturbance in church that they were summarily cast out of the Easter service. Lionel was the biggest child of their entire family.

“And that brings us to you,” Phin said, moving to sit at the kitchen table while Hazel worked. He reached across, taking her good hand and interrupting her work by holding it for a moment. “How are you?”

“Oh, I’m delightful,” Hazel said, sharpness in her voice. “I am the queen of all I survey. I spend my days eating French pastries and sipping champagne. And I have an entire string of handsome suitors lined up out the door just begging to marry me, all of them wealthy as sultans.”

Phin’s chest constricted. Hazel had been a popular beauty, in spite of her young age, before the fire, and before their father’s health was shattered. She put on a brave face, but he knew her well enough to know she longed for love as much as anyone else did.

“Mark my words,” he said, leaning back in his chair and pretending to be as casual as she was being. “You’ll have to construct a stick attachment for that clever arm of yours, because you’ll be beating young men off with it soon.”

She laughed, though she couldn’t hide the pain in her eyes. “I’m not the one who has a beau,” she said, then paused her laundry sorting to grin at him. “Or is a female sweetheart called something else?”

There was absolutely no point whatsoever in hiding his emotions from Hazel. There had never been any secrets between the Mercer siblings, except, of course, for the younger ones. Phin knew all of Lionel and Hazel’s secrets, and they knew all of his.

“I adore her,” he said, as silly as a schoolboy, no need to mention Lenore’s name. “Hazel, she is perfection. She’s witty, intelligent, and doesn’t give a fig for the opinions of others.”

“And I’m assuming she’s wealthy on top of all that.” Hazel flickered her eyebrows to tease him.

“As it happens, she is,” he admitted, leaning back in his chair and propping his feet on the corner of the table. “But I’d adore her even if she was as poor as…well, as poor as us.”

“Were you raised by wolves?” Hazel scolded him, catching the toe of one of his boots with her hook and dropping it to the side so that he was forced to scramble to stay upright.

“You and Lionel are rather wolfish sometimes,” he replied, chuckling.

“And does Princess Lenore know this?” Hazel arched one eyebrow.

“She knows that I am progressive in my opinions and that London society has greatly underestimated my prowess.”

“Does she know about Nocturne?” Hazel asked, leveling him with a flat stare.

“As a matter of fact, she does.” Phin sat straighter, setting his tea on the table and leaning forward. He searched for the right words to say what he needed to, but all he could come up with was, “I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to keep that up.”

Hazel was smart enough to look worried. “Why? What’s happened?”

Phin winced. “I based a character on the wrong lady, and now her mother has hired a private detective to sniff me out. Whether he discovers my identity or not, I’m not sure I can risk continuing to publish. Jameson has one more issue to print and distribute—which will be