Page 26 of Rules for a Bastard Lord
“Yer associates? What about yer friends?”
“Your associates. Your friends,” he corrected.
“Yer…your. Your. Your friends.”
He nodded and didn’t answer. He thought of his best friends Benjamin and Jared, both trapped in the airless rooms of an office, and yet pleased as punch with their lot. “I don’t see them much.”
“Who are they?”
“A solicitor and a banker.”
She sighed. “Not what do they do? Who are they?”
He twisted to look at her, wondering if this was some northern way of speech that he didn’t understand. “What?”
“Who are they t’ you?”
“Speak slower,” he ordered. He still didn’t understand the question. “Ladies have all the time in the world to be heard, and they like the sound of their own voices.”
“You don’t have a ’igh opinion of ladies, do you?”
“You met Clarissa, didn’t you?”
She nodded, her expression rueful. “But what of yer mates?” He arched a brow, and she thought over her words. “Your mates.”
He nodded because she’d found the error. She was a quick study, he’d give her that. “They’re my friends from school.” Then, before she could probe deeper into things he never discussed, he gave her his back as he again sighted the tree.
Draw,thunk.
Draw,ping.
Draw—
“Wait!”
He stopped his motion midswing, but he’d been holding the knife loosely. It flew out of his hand—in the wrong direction—as a blur of yellow hair and light blue dress rushed forward. To his horror, the knife thunked within a few yards of Bluebell as she ran forward. God, a split second later, and he would have got her hard in the gut.
“What are you doing?” he bellowed, his heart thumping painfully in his throat.
He started forward, only to be pulled up short by the sight of her standing with hands on her hips over an enormous pig. It was probably black, but with all the mud on it and that enormous wet snout, he couldn’t decide if it was a bog fairy come to life or something mundane, like a small, bloated cow.
“Mr. Periwinkle, wot are you doing out here?”
He noted absently that she’d remembered herhbut then grimaced as the creature stepped on the hilt of one of his knives. Oh, bloody hell, those were expensive.
“What is that?” he demanded.
“It’s Widow Dwight’s pig. He’s a prizewinner, you know.”
“And you call him Periwinkle?”
“Because of the bow.” She gestured to a massive ribbon tied about the thing’s neck, which was many colors, none of them periwinkle.
Meanwhile, the thing started to snuffle off, foraging for whatever he ate, but she grabbed at the ribbon and wrapped a firm hand around it.
“Oh no, you don’t,” she said. “It’s back to yer pen, it is.”
He stared at her. Forget that she’d risked her life running in front of his knives to catch that thing. The absurdity of her hauling on a ribbon to drag a five-hundred-pound pig to its pen was ridiculous.
