Miss Percy's Definitive Guide (to the Restoration of Dragons) (A Miss Percy Guide Book 3) by Quenby Olson

Author:Quenby Olson [Olson, Quenby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

COVENT GARDEN - Such a crowd last night in the house, as many came out to witness Mr. and Mrs. Parry, the latter sporting her famed white dragon on one arm and her husband on the other. Mrs. Siddons performed an admirable Lady MacBeth, to much applause.

-from The Morning Advertiser

It was always the lulls that Mildred distrusted more than anything else. Three days passed after their visit to Carlton House. Three days of the same stories repeated over and over in the morning and evening papers, until there was little else to glean from them and the beginnings of another scandal (Had the Duke of Clarence fathered yet another illegitimate child previously unaccounted for?) began to seep into the foundations of the latest headlines, displacing what had come before. Three days of continued invitations and gifts from the Prince Regent, who sent special delicacies from the palace kitchens for Fitz and Morgen. Mildred ignored the invitations, and when they ceased to come on the fourth day (along with the treats for the dragons) she worried that they had offended him.

“A change in the wind would offend him,” Rhiannon commented sourly as she poured a healthy dose of milk into her tea.

They took their breakfast in the drawing room, where they had begun to take all of their meals of late. Ever since their arrival in London, the servants had slowly abandoned their posts, one by one as the rumors of Mildred and the dragons spread through the papers, leaving all of them to fend for themselves when it came to the cooking and cleaning and general running of the household. Mrs. Babbinton ruled the kitchen (of course) while Owen took on the task of building up the fires while Mr. Wiggan and the children helped with the task of keeping up with the worst of the cleaning. Mildred tackled the laundry, thankful for something to occupy her hands and her mind while they continued on in a cloistered kind of existence, hiding away in one of the largest cities in the world. Only the butler remained, presiding over an empty servants’ quarters, shuffling in and out of the shadows like a cobweb that needed to be swept away.

“Where is Mrs. Merrick?” Mildred asked between bites of porridge. “Is she still downstairs?”

Mrs. Babbinton brought in a platter of sausages that was immediately set upon by humans and dragons alike. Mildred tried to prevent Fitz from helping himself, but his appetite had increased (again) and she could only warn the children to watch their fingers as the sausages hastily disappeared. “I haven’t seen her for two days now. Mari Wynn crops up every now and again, putting together a few things for them to eat, but the both of them have been hard at work down in that cellar both night and day.”

Mildred wanted to know what they were doing down there, but was almost too afraid to seek them out and ask. She thought she had seen Mrs. Merrick slip

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