Eugenia by Darcy Clare

Author:Darcy, Clare [Darcy, Clare]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

The problem of finding Captain MacGoff was being discussed by Gerald and Richard over ham and toast and buttered eggs in the kitchen of Old Nan's cottage on the following morning when Eugenia arrived, having herself had an unfashionably early breakfast in Grosvenor Square. They were expecting her, as Gerald had informed the others of her intention of paying a visit to her old nurse that morning, so that her appearance occasioned no surprise; but her own astonishment at finding Richard there, apparently sharing an amicable breakfast with the man he had been seeking with the grim intention of turning him over to Bow Street, was obvious.

“Richard! What are you doing here?" she exclaimed, and, without waiting for a reply, turned anxiously to Gerald. "Is he going to turn you over to the Runners?" she demanded. "And what has happened to your head?"

“One question at a time," Richard said calmly. "First, I am here because the Runners made a visit last night to the Fighting Cock. Second, I have no present intention of turning your cousin—”

“And yours!" Gerald interpolated, grinning.

“—over to the Runners. And third, the court-plaster is decorating his head because we had a slight disagreement upon his arrival."

“A slight disagreement!" Old Nan put in, sniffing. "I'd have another word for it, Miss Eugenia! Turned my parlour upside down, they did, and broke that green-and-yellow vase Minchinton brought me back from Yarmouth, to say nothing of putting a great nasty gash in Master Gerald's forehead." She surveyed with an appearance of grudging admiration Eugenia's elegant frock of almond-green cambric muslin and her flat-crowned Villager hat. "I dessay you'll be too fine a lady now to sit down in my kitchen," she said. "There's ham left, and plenty of hot buttered toast."

“Oh yes, please, Nan!" Eugenia said happily. "I've already had breakfast in Grosvenor Square, but it is the fashion to be thin, you know, and people do look at you so if you do more than nibble at things in a ladylike way!"

“If you was to get any thinner, you'd blow away altogether," Old Nan said scornfully. "I've no patience with people who grudge a growing girl a decent meal"

“Well, I expect I won't grow any more now, but I would like some of that ham," Eugenia said, sitting down between Gerald and Richard as Old Nan piled a plate lavishly high. She turned to Gerald. "I'm sorry about your head, but I did tell you that Richard was very strong," she said to him seriously. "And I'm sorry, too, that I haven't good news for you about Cecil. I tried mentioning your name to him very cautiously last night as we were driving back to Grosvenor Square from the masquerade. I only said I'd been talking to someone who thought you might have been seen in London. And Cecil said that the sooner Bow Street caught up with you the better, because then people might stop bibblebabbling about you and forget the whole disgraceful business. And when

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