Page 6 of Dropping the Ball

“I can assure you,” he said to Lady Bernadette in a confidential tone, “I am quite sane.”

“You are not,” Cedric protested. He huffed, then let go of Lady Muriel’s arm to turn in a circle. “This … this used to be the ballroom, did it not?”

“It did,” Alden answered.

Cedric focused his gaze on Alden with a sharp stare. “Alden, how do you propose to host a ball at which you intend to find a wife to put up with all this if you no longer have a ballroom?”

“Oh.” Alden hadn’t thought of that when he’d designed and built the terrarium. He hadn’t thought he’d have any need to host a ball to begin with.

“I am certain we can come up with a solution,” Lady Bernadette said, her voice slowly regaining the strength it had had when they’d greeted each other in the parlor. “If the weather holds, the dancing could be held outside.”

“I am quite certain that the weather would not dare to spoil any event you might plan, Lady Bernadette,” Alden said with a smile.

Lady Bernadette blushed modestly for a moment … which was every bit as beautiful as the delicate pink dewlap of theanolis carolinensisin springtime.

She then drew in a deep breath and squared her shoulders, as if she’d come to some sort of internal conclusion. She let go of Alden’s arm at last and said, “Well, if you intend to host a large, weekend house party, that will require that your guestrooms be presentable. Perhaps I should make a quick survey of those rooms so that I might determine what is needed before we discuss a timeline for the happy event.”

“An excellent suggestion, Lady Bernadette,” Alden said. “I’ll find Mrs. Pettigrew so that she might take you on a tour of the house.”

They left the terrarium, the ladies sighing in relief once they reached the hall, where Mrs. Pettigrew was conveniently standing by, perhaps knowing her services would be needed. Mrs. Pettigrew was more than happy to take Lady Bernadette and Lady Muriel off to the upper floors so that the three of them might inspect the guestrooms together.

“Would you care for a bit of sherry, cuz?” Alden asked, gesturing for Cedric to walk with him to the far end of that wing of the house, where his study was located.

Cedric went with him, but before they even reached the study, he growled, “You demolished part of your house in order to build that monstrosity of a hothouse?”

Without ladies present, Alden felt he could be a bit more unguarded in his responses to his cousin. “It’s my money,” he said. “My father left it to me.”

“And to Dunstan,” Cedric pointed out.

“Yes, and Dunstan has done as he wished with his half of our inheritance, as have I.”

Cedric huffed impatiently as Alden poured them two glasses of sherry from a decanter on the shelf behind his desk. As he poured, Egbert decided he’d had enough of nestling against Alden’s chest. He skittered out through the undone buttons of Alden’s jacket and made his way to the sunny patch at the far end of the bookshelf.

“I will concede that the terrarium you have created is a marvel of engineering and zoology,” Cedric said after the first swig of his drink. “But you’ve made the task you’ve set before Lady Bernadette next to impossible.”

“She had a brilliant idea of holding the ball out of doors,” Alden said with a shrug, gulping his own drink.

Cedric scowled at him as if he’d missed the point. “What woman in Wessex, in all of the New Heptarchy or beyond, is going to want to marry a man whose house is crawling with snakes?” he asked. “What other horrors do you have waiting for a new bride? Are there crocodiles in that pond of yours?”

“No, do not be ridiculous,” Alden said. He took another drink, swallowed, then muttered, “They’re alligators.”

“Alligators!” Cedric exclaimed. “Are you mad, Alden?”

“They aresmallalligators,” Alden defended himself, then winced. “That is why I will need to build another terrarium or garden house of some sort in a few years. I may need to separate some of the … hungrier species from the animals they tend to prey on.”

“And what if they prey on humans?” Cedric demanded.

“They wouldn’t dare,” Alden said, pretending to be deeply offended.

The truth was, he shouldn’t have brought the alligators back with him. But he was already in conversation with the Herpetological Society in London, who had expressed interest in providing new homes for some of the more unwieldy species he’d brought home from his travels. The Mercian Zoo had expressed interest in some of his pets as well. It wasn’t as if he was the only man in Britannia who had an interest in creating exhibitions of exotic animals. His book would be a guide to teach those who were interested to keep those sorts of animals in humane conditions.

There was one thing he’d forgotten about entirely, though.

“You have a house full of dangerous reptiles and a curse hanging over your head, and now you’re proposing to fill the house with unsuspecting women, one of which you intend to make your wife?” Cedric asked. “That, my friend, is a recipe for disaster.”

“Oh,” Alden said. “I hadn’t paired the curse and the reptiles together in my mind.”

Cedric merely stared at him.

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