Page 44 of The Moonstone Marquess
Cormac burst out laughing.
Ella agreed, “Lady Phoebe did not like them because they were naked.”
Dear heaven! Had the girls overheard her ranting that first day? What had she told Chloe? She really had been angry, because their uncle had been so despicable. Drunk. Arrogant. Ridiculous.
“No, Imogen…I—” She coughed. “It…” She coughed again. “I don’t…”
She could not speak for trying to catch her breath.
Chloe was also laughing.
Cormac leaned toward the lieutenant. “Don’t ask, Brennan. It is a long story, one I do not wish to tell. Unfortunately, it is not over yet.” He turned to his niece. “Imogen, have you ever heard the expression ‘silence is golden’?”
“No, Uncle Cormac,” she said with heartwarming sincerity.
“What about you, Ella?”
His older niece cast him an equally honest, wide-eyed gaze. “No, Uncle Cormac.”
He grinned. “Well, I’ll tell you about it once I return you to Moonstone Cottage.”
Phoebe knew her face was in flames, although it ought to have been the marquess who was embarrassed. But he seemed unperturbed. When Chloe and the lieutenant went with the girls to refill their plates, he turned to her. “Phoebe, are you all right?”
She nodded, trying to hold back her laughter, which came out in an unladylike snort. “You warned me they were little sponges.”
“Indeed, they are.” His beautiful eyes were alight with mirth. “Ah well. Nothing to be done about it now. The lieutenant spent at least ten years of his life on the streets, probably more. This is tame compared to what he must have seen and heard.”
“You like him.”
He nodded. “I knew his mentor, Viscount Brennan, as I said. I heard him speak a time or two of the boy. He far outclasses the viscount’s relatives. Those heartless clots are a jealous lot. I’m sure they shut him out as soon as the viscount took his last breath. But he has brains, and his commission is secure. He’ll go far, make something of himself.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, nothing is certain in life. But it is easy to see a person’s character. Little things always give them away.”
“Such as?”
“Politeness. Small gestures of consideration. I can tell within a few minutes whether a person is someone I would ever trust.”
“Can you do it now?”
“Yes, usually quite easily. Point someone out to me.”
“That woman with blonde hair and wearing a dark blue dress.”
He studied her for less than a minute. “No, I would not trust her.”
“Why?”
“She denied the child seated across the table from her a slice of cake and ate it herself.”
“Well, perhaps the child is not hers.”
“Phoebe, would you ever deny a child?”
She shook her head. “No, but if that child had already eaten his fill and his parents did not want him to have more, then they would have been angry with me.”
“First of all, you are too charming for anyone ever to be angry with you. Second of all, if you felt that child was hungry, you would have given him your slice and taken the reprimand. You would have denied yourself to feed him.”
