Page 75 of Duchess Material

He held the old, glossy thing out for all to see. Charlotte was safely absorbed in a book about navigation.

Patrick grabbed and flipped through it with Natalie staring over his shoulder. “BAPS? Really?”

Natalie laughed. “What’s the provenance of this?”

“Someone gave it to me.”

“You didn’t steal it off your dad?” Ed joked.

“Fuck. No. I am pretty sure our dad would have a heart attack with anyone suggesting he ever looked at such a thing.”

Natalie snickered, knowing George was right. “Well, Georgie, you have to tell us.”

“Do I?” George looked offended.

“Yes,” they said in unison.

Charlotte played with the cabinet door, slamming it back and forth. The mechanism fascinated her.

George groaned loudly. “More than likely… it was Winston.”

Patrick almost toppled over with laughter. “Oh my God! You’re killing me!”

Natalie gestured at her chest. “It’s come full circle then. Your shared love of baps.”

“Leave Lucy’s tits out of it,” George groaned.

Charlotte now hid under the bed as Patrick carefully thumbed through the ridiculous magazine. “Why naming them after buns? ‘Baps’ is not sexy.”

“Men are daft,” Natalie said.

Patrick shook his head. “Not for me. I can’t say any of this ever titillated me. I tried to care. My older cousin left me a couple in a strategic location once when he went off to college. I thought if I studied them, something would change. Oops.”

George said, “I wouldn’t have left anything in here too incriminating. The Internet was too tempting. If someone found this, they would have ignored it. Mum never would have brought it up. Dad would have buried it.”

“I had a computer in my room. Nuff said. Honestly, the threat of being aroused in a swimsuit probably scared me off admitting I was attracted to anything. Puberty is a fucking disaster,” Ed said.

“With you in your tiny shorts?” Natalie giggled.

“Stop. You’ll make him cross, sister!”

Ed blushed red like a Christmas bow. It made Natalie smile.

“Charlotte! Come back here!”

“She’s fine, Pat. There’s nothing she can hurt here we haven’t already tried to destroy. My parents raised four of us here.” Natalie said.

“But it’s your new house.”

Natalie shrugged. “Meh. It’s meant to be lived in.”

Charlotte popped out from beneath the bed, hair a mess. “Papa! I found a hole!”

George got down on the floor to see what she was pointing to. “Darling, that is just a vent. Don’t put things down there.”

“You should mind the laundry chute,” Natalie said.

George said from beneath the bed, “Uh-huh.”

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