An Improper Arrangement

He’d already held the door open for her, but she paused on the threshold, to look back at him. “Excuse me?”

“I said, Gabriel. Or, as I most prefer, Gabe. After all, we’ve gotten to know each other so much better this evening.”

“Oh, I don’t think so. We are neither relatives nor friends. And, after getting to know you so much better this evening, as you say, I highly doubt we will ever be either.”

Gabriel put his palm to his cheek and winced. “Ouch! Congratulations, Miss Neville. I believe that was your most telling blow of the evening.”

She rolled her eyes. “You are impossible, you know. And thoroughly unlikable.” Considering hers a stellar final shot, getting at least a little of her own back, Thea wheeled about on her heels and was first to enter the madhouse.

“Shut the doors, Mr. Sinclair! Shut the doors! Caspar got himself loose again and is headin’ your way!” The footman shouted the warning as he ran toward them, what looked to be a huge, sturdily built butterfly net in his hands, his warning nearly overcome by the squawking and screeching seemingly emanating from every cage in the aviary—as if the other birds were cheering somebody on.

“Oh, good God in his heaven, not again.”

The door shut firmly behind her just as an incredibly large white bird swooped down from the catwalk, clearly on a bid for freedom. Thea ducked down, her eyes squeezed shut, her hands protectively pressed to her head as the thing flew past her, his escape surely about to end in tragedy now that the door was closed. The bird couldn’t possibly pull up in time, and although she didn’t know all that much about parrots, she was definitely sure that, unlike carriages and such, they didn’t come equipped with a brake.

She waited for the crash, or the sickening thud, only to hear Gabriel say, “Behave yourself, Caspar, if you please. This is a fairly new jacket.”

Thea turned around to see the man standing at his ease, his right arm raised shoulder level…and the parrot sitting on that arm, bobbing its head as if promising to behave.

“How…how did you do that?”

Gabriel grinned, raising his other arm so that the parrot could walk up and across his shoulders, stopping only to rub its head against Gabriel’s cheek.

“Damned bird, damned bird. Awk! Make a stew, make a stew!”

Thea clapped a hand to her mouth to hide her smile. “It speaks?”

“He repeats, mimics. Caspar and I are old chums. Aren’t we, Caspar? He was one of my gifts from the duke and duchess, a type of parrot called a cockatoo, but now he resides here. Caspar, give Gabe a kiss.”

The parrot complied, touching its curved blue beak full on Gabriel’s pursed lips, and then performed the most astonishing act—raising a crest of dark yellow feathers behind its head.

“Parlor tricks? And I suppose you taught it that?”

“What can I say in my defense? I was the only child of the house, alone in the nursery, and needed someone—something—to talk to, tell my secrets. Damn. Caspar, don’t.”

It was, of course, impossible, but Thea would have sworn the parrot—cockatoo—had just mimicked the sound of human crying. A child crying.

“Did Caspar just—Was that—?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Surely I’m not mistaken.”

“Come along, you pernicious bird. Time to put you back in your cage. Are you coming, Miss Neville?”

Thea followed along, considering her only other choice was to remain where she was, and she was entirely too curious to do that. “Caspar—secrets.”

Once again the bird opened its beak and the sad sound of a child crying came out. The overwhelming sadness struck at her heart. “I’m so sorry. I won’t do that again,” she whispered, but Gabriel gave her no hint that he’d heard either Caspar or her.

A proud man, a proud man whose dearest friend as a child apparently was a cockatoo, something he probably didn’t want anyone to know.

Gabriel stopped in front of one of the larger cages, this one made of brass, the shape and the size of a small gazebo. At quick count, there were five other birds, probably all different types of parrots, waiting inside for Caspar’s return.

Caspar wasn’t to be alone, the only bird in his own lonely aviary.

“I’ll get the door for you, sir,” the footman said, stepping forward. “I’m that sorry, sir. He was being good as gold, paying me no never mind, and then he was gone, nipping out right over my head.”

Mouth and beak bumped again, and then Caspar spread his wings and half leaped, half flew to the topmost perch. “It’s all right, Wiggins. He’s had a lot of years to practice his escapes. Miss Neville? If I might escort you to the stairs? Wiggins here will soon be drawing the drapes, leaving the aviary in darkness. And before you ask, we use the doors through the music room to enter and leave after dark, which really doesn’t matter, as there hasn’t been an evening visitor or party here since the duke first commenced dying.”

“That’s sad.”

“I agree. Until that time, this was quite the lively place. Have you ever seen grown men sliding down a banister? They had races, every Christmas, I’m told. But then, although they never lacked for banisters, they did eventually run out of racers. The fourth duke only looks somber in his portrait because a smile would have shown his sadly broken front teeth. Some say that’s why he never married, although it’s more generally believed it was because he was a drunken sot who couldn’t be interested in anything or anyone that didn’t involve cards, horses or wine cellars. His whistle was exceedingly impressive, however.”

Thea laughed, allowing herself to be amused, and then politely turned away from the subject of Caspar the cockatoo. “Did you ever slide down the banisters?”

“Only once, I’m afraid, earning myself a sound caning that would have prevented another go at it, at any rate, as well as causing me to eat my mutton standing up for at least a week.”

They reached the head of the staircase that climbed up to the west wing and the long, wide hallway leading to another staircase and the guest chambers. She wasn’t at all sleepy but knew it was time to say good-night, to end this strange, awkward, yet oddly entertaining and enlightening evening.

Perhaps they were friends now. Or at least something less than enemies. She dropped him a small curtsy. “Good night…Gabe.”

His smile wasn’t triumphant—which was lucky for him—but actually friendly. “Good night to you, Thea. Tomorrow morning we’ll fish, as promised, and in the afternoon we’ll see how well you dance.”

“Really? I rather thought dancing was the purpose of tonight’s lesson.”

And with that, while she was still at least slightly in charity with the infuriating man, she left him standing where he was and took off for her bedchamber, her chin held high, even if it did wobble a time or two as she finally got in the last word with him.

CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_8d700d35-fde8-59db-9665-a1b9556b0390)

GABRIEL ARRIVED IN the entrance hall a good ten minutes before Thea was due to meet him.

Except she was already there. “Are we having a contest?” he asked by way of greeting. “If so, soon neither one of us is going to be able to get to bed at all.”

She waved off both question and comment. “I was too excited to sleep past dawn. Am I dressed appropriately? I thought a riding habit and boots best, as Clarice opened a window to discern a chill and saw dew on the grass below. She considers herself an expert in predicting the weather with merely a cursory look round and a quick sniff of the air.”

He watched as she drew on her gloves, paying inordinately close attention to how the soft kid encased each finger. Nervous? Was she actually nervous to be in his company? And wasn’t that a thought to cheer a man who’d made a total ass of himself not quite a dozen hours previously.

He should keep her talking, show an interest in this maid of hers, demonstrate how pleasant he could be, how she shouldn’t feel threatened by him.

“Please, tell me more. This Clarice of yours sounds like a unique treasure.”

And there was that laugh again, quick and charming. “Unique? Yes, I suppose you could reasonably see Clarice as unique. She once predicted a terrible snowstorm, which everyone pooh-poohed, as we were halfway through March and many of the trees had already begun to bud. So she hid everyone’s boots and made them pay her a large cent apiece when they needed them the next morning to set a foot outside into the blizzard.”

“She’d predicted not just a snowstorm but a blizzard?”

Thea nodded. “Clarice does little by half measures. It didn’t stop snowing for three days and nights. There were drifts nearly to the rooftops, and where there weren’t, the snow rose up above my knees. Since then, one of Clarice’s main sources of pocket money is charging the local farmers and such to tell them when it’s safe to sow their crops and when it’s necessary to harvest them in order to beat the rain, you understand. And, of course, no mama plans a wedding before consulting with her, just to be assured her daughter will be one of those lucky brides the sun shines on all day. For that service she charges double, and everyone willingly pays.”

“Not only gifted but resourceful, this maid of yours,” Gabe commented, beginning to think he’d like to meet the woman. “Didn’t you also tell me she has ways of finding out information? Is it possible you brought a witch with you to England, Miss Neville?”