Jules smiled, remembering Mia’s courage. “She fled when I told her to run, and came to get you. Lucky for us you were here, by the way. I thought she might have trouble convincing anyone at the castle to take action.”
“Hmmm.” Aldridge picked up his fork and then put it down again. “Lucky for you, certainly. I could have wished she had not arrived in the middle of a—er—a garden party, shall we say?”
Jules could make no sense of that through the throbbing of his head. “A garden party? In the middle of the night?”
Aldridge raised an elegant eyebrow, his lips curving in a saturnine smile. “It was not the usual kind of garden party. Indeed, Miss Stirling’s common sense first impressed itself upon me when she refused to be distracted by the—er—activities taking place around her, and insisted on gaining my unfocused attention to her need.”
Oh. That kind of a garden party. The kind that got the Merry Marquis his reputation. “Her father was a classics scholar,” Jules explained. “She is rather more widely read than most fourteen-year-olds.”
“That may explain it,” Aldridge agreed. “It is unfortunate, Jules. I wish I could be confident that neither the servants nor the guests would speak of her arrival, but…” he waved one hand. “You know what people are.”
Jules frowned, but before he could comment, there was a knock on the door, followed by the entrance of a maid, who curtseyed to the Marquis and said, “The little Miss is awake, my lord. She is asking after Lieutenant Redepenning.”
“Of course she is,” Aldridge agreed. “Tell her the Lieutenant is awake, and is about to have breakfast. You would like breakfast, would you not, Jules?”
Would he? He wasn’t sure, but perhaps the hollowness in his middle was hunger rather than incipient nausea. Jules nodded as the servant scurried off, and Aldridge went to the door to give orders to someone outside.
Aldridge helped Jules don an ornate brocade dressing robe over the bandages that wrapped his naked torso from chest to hips. “For I can’t have you offending the sensibilities of my mother’s maids,” the Marquis explained, every bit as if he had not been holding an orgy in the garden just the previous evening.
“Where are your ‘garden party’ guests?” Jules demanded. He would not have Mia subject to insult.
Aldridge grinned. “Protective of our little lady, aren’t we?” he mocked. “It’s all right, Sir Galahad. I sent them into Margate. Miss Stirling is quite safe.”
A succession of servants interrupted before Jules could respond, bringing in enough food for a small army. Aldridge had them set it on the table, and was beginning to serve Jules a plateful when Mia arrived, the maid who had been watching over her fluttering in her wake.
With a huge smile for Jules, Mia curtseyed to the Marquis. “My lord,” she said, “Polly here said you and Lieutenant Redepenning were having breakfast, and that I have to eat too. So here I am, ready to have breakfast with you.”
Aldridge cast his eyes up to the ceiling. “It is probably too late to make a difference,” he observed, then fixed Polly with a stern look. “Polly, you will stay with Miss Stirling at all times.”
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