Page 52 of Never a Duke
Walden smiled, a flash of mischief that made him resemble his younger brother. “Of course.”
“Then if you’ll excuse me, I will return to Lord Stephen’s abode, and dream of summer on the Yorkshire dales with my favorite picnic partner.”
Walden laughed, a rusty, dry sound, but it was laughter, and thus Robert graciously quit the field of argument, having clearly won the contest, foot, horse, and cannon.
***
Ned had seen His Grace of Walden glowering down from his window at the bank.
That familiar sight had provoked dueling impulses. The first was to stop the horse, repair hotfoot up to the duke’s office, and explain that every scrap of the day’s work was done and the assistant manager was similarly caught up and ready to handle emergencies.
Ned’s other impulse was to stick his tongue out at His Grace and urge the horse to a faster trot.
Ned had given in to neither, but of the two…the second kept his thoughts occupied until he was handing Lady Rosalind up into the curricle.
“You are prompt,” she said. “I treasure that about you.”
“What else do you treasure about me?”
From behind the bench, Artie snorted.
“I treasure how wonderfully discreet your tiger is, and how easy it is to forget he’s even with us.” Rosalind softened that rebuke with a smile over her shoulder.
“Sorry,” Artie muttered, which was more than Ned had heard him say for three days.
“Artie is new to his post, and tact is not a skill easily acquired. I hope you’re hungry.”
“Famished,” Rosalind replied, “and so grateful for an excuse to be out of doors on this glorious spring day, that I could nearly burst into song.”
“What would you sing?”
“Scottish ballads. They are so melodious and robust. What’s in the basket?”
“Nectar of the gods, ambrosia, the water of life.”
Artie shifted on his perch but held his peace while Ned guided the horse through a tollgate.
“Did your widow friends put that picnic basket together?” Rosalind asked when they’d finally cleared the worst of the metropolitan congestion and reached the quieter surrounds of Chelsea.
“They did. I try to patronize my customers’ businesses when I can. My tailor is a bank client, as is my bootmaker.”
Rosalind opened a parasol, and what a pretty picture she made, with the breeze tugging at her curls and sending her bonnet ribbons dancing.
“You don’t buy from Hoby?”
“Hoby employs scores of cobblers, cordwainers, and apprentices. I’d rather do business with a fellow who knows me and values my contribution to his livelihood. I get boots just as good as or better than Hoby’s and I don’t have to pay nearly as much for them.”
Rosalind undid the bow holding the lid of the hamper closed and peered inside. “And this feast will be as good as what Gunter’s prepares?”
“Better. The ladies test their recipes and are always making improvements to their menus. They prepare to order, so they don’t end up with excess inventory, and they don’t maintain a shopfront in one of the most expensive neighborhoods in Town. If this Season goes well, they will expand to holiday baskets at Yuletide.”
“They could also make baskets to give new mothers and baskets to send off to scholars at public school or finishing school.”
“Himself has ladies making parasols too,” Artie announced. “And there’s widows that will do readin’ and writin’, all tidy and proper. And there’s—”
Ned sent a pointed look at his tiger, though Artie was only trying to aid the course of true love.
“The parasol shop is Lord Stephen’s idea,” Ned said, “and the literary service is a new venture, but off to a good start. The women who began it realized that in every post as companions, they’d had to serve as amanuensis and scribe. One widow had spent years making fair copies of her playwright husband’s dramas and realized that could also be a paid service.”
