Cardiff Siblings 01 - Seven Minutes in Devon (12 page)

The ladies could paint all they liked,
and she’d never say a word against a single one of them for it,
however much they deserved it. Not even Lady Portia. So why should
they care that she shunned the activity and chose to read
instead?

She and Serena had begrudgingly left
Morgan with her brothers, who claimed they would find an
appropriate entertainment for her.

While Morgan would have likely gone
along with the rest of the ladies without complaint, sitting in the
warm, clear weather outside as they painted, she couldn’t very well
participate in the activity herself.

Not only that, but the gentlemen
planned to take some of David’s boats out to the estuary and try
their hands at fishing today. Morgan couldn’t go along with them
and be the only lady present for such a thing. That just wasn’t
done.

Besides, Emma doubted either Lord
Trenowyth or Mr. Cardiff wished to allow their sister to encounter
any more reminders of what had happened there than absolutely
necessary.

She didn’t know what they intended to
do with her this afternoon, but she and Serena couldn’t very well
keep Morgan all to themselves during this fortnight. And if they
did, how would Emma possibly find a husband? She’d be forever
surrounded by the two other ladies, forming a bit of an
impenetrable shield which would inadvertently keep the gentlemen
away.

Serena set up her easel near Emma,
placing a canvas upon it in a position which should allow for her
to have a nice view of the folly. Emma smiled at her and then
delved back into her book.

She’d read a few pages and was almost
fully engrossed within the story, when a disturbance coming from
the main house interrupted her reading. A footman was carrying yet
another easel and a board of some sort. Not too far behind him, Mr.
Cardiff had one hand full with vellum and a box of pastels, with
Morgan holding the other.

Emma frowned and then
turned her eyes back to her book. It was one thing for her to be
out with the other ladies while they were painting. After all,
she
could
choose
to pick up a brush and try her hand at watercolors. It would be
disastrous, but that would be her choice.

But Morgan couldn’t see, so she
clearly couldn’t paint. Unlike Emma, she couldn’t read to entertain
her mind. If they were just going to bring Morgan out to sit with
the ladies, why had the brothers insisted on separating her from
Emma and Serena?

And then it struck her. It
hadn’t been the
brothers
who’d insisted, but just
one
brother. Mr. Cardiff. He’d done
it because he didn’t want Morgan to be with her, without a doubt.
That rankled more so now than it had before, because of supper last
night.

Emma attempted to concentrate on her
book, but she couldn’t focus on it. Her eyes roved over the same
paragraph at least four times, and still hadn’t even the slightest
inkling what it said. She could only think about how Mr. Cardiff
seemed to hate her so much, and yet he also seemed to be watching
her in a different way, as well. His manner of expression left her
bewildered, to say the least. But did she want him to change his
mind, to stop hating her? She didn’t know any more.

Looking up again, she saw that Mr.
Cardiff had situated his easel to where Emma was directly in his
line of vision. But surely he didn’t intend to do a portrait of
her. No, he must be preparing to sketch the vista behind
her.

Morgan sat on a blanket at his feet,
well away from the other ladies. She fidgeted with a flower she’d
plucked from the lawn. She pulled a petal free, and it floated out
of her fingers to land next to her feet. Emma had never seen Morgan
look so bored. Distraction had always been common for her—she’d
stared off into the ether all of those years ago, far more often
than she did anything else, but her mind had been fully engaged in
her wayward thoughts. One couldn’t simply pull her out of her head
back then. Now, it seemed even the slightest little provocation
would allow her some excitement.

Yet her brother had brought her here,
sat her down, and left her with nothing to engage her mind save
plucking the petals from a flower. Insolent man.

Emma was overly tempted to give him a
piece of her mind, but she had already caused enough damage by
speaking plainly last night. She bit her tongue—literally—when a
dog’s bark broke through her thoughts.

Her head whipped around behind her
just in time to see a mangy, brown mutt loping toward her with its
tongue lolling out of its mouth.

A chorus of screams and scandalized
squeals sounded all around her, and two easels fell to the ground
as the other ladies rushed to move out of the dog’s
path.

“
Does Lord Burington have a
dog?” Morgan asked tentatively.

“
No,” Mr. Cardiff growled,
even as he hauled his sister to her feet and stood between her and
the animal. He ignored Morgan’s indignant huff, simply shoving her
behind him…and within moments, almost every lady present had
followed her of their own accord.

All of them but Emma.

“
Emma, do come this way,”
Vanessa called out from her position of safety next to Morgan. “It
could be rabid.”

“
Could be might be the
understatement of the century,” Mr. Cardiff grumbled.

Emma’s head shot up to
stare at him. “For all the indications you’ve given, Mr. Cardiff,
you
could be
rabid
as well.”

He leveled her with a stare and placed
himself between all the other ladies and the dog.

The animal didn’t seem even the least
bit dangerous to Emma. Dirty and unkempt, certainly, and possibly a
bit flea-ridden. She’d been rather unkempt more than she ought to
have been in her life, too, and she wasn’t even remotely dangerous.
Granted, she was a human and not a wild animal. But still. Emma
held out her hand as the animal came closer to her. He shoved his
head into it straightaway.

She scratched behind his scraggly ear,
and he let out a whining sort of sound.

“
Do you like
that?”

Of course, the dog couldn’t answer
her, so she scratched harder. He shoved his head into her hand more
insistently than before. Emma dropped her book and used both hands.
Within moments, he was happily panting and rubbing against
her.

“
He’s harmless,” Emma
called out to the other ladies, hoping that they’d relax and resume
their painting once they realized he wouldn’t hurt them.

Instead, she heard them all talking
beneath their breath.

“
If she considers fleas
harmless…”

“
I can smell the mutt from
here.”

“
It’ll serve her right if
he bites her.”

Good heavens, they were being
ridiculous. Emma kept petting the dog and scratching him, and
within minutes he’d curled up at her side, calm as could
be.

“
I think he’s decided to
join us.” She almost laughed at the horrified expression on Lady
Portia’s face. “I don’t think he has any intention of doing
anything but sitting next to me. You’ll all be fine.”

Serena was the first to venture out
from behind Mr. Cardiff, who’d been scowling in Emma’s direction
the whole time with his arms crossed over his chest like a
disapproving papa.

“
Miss Hathaway is right,”
Serena said authoritatively. “He just wants a little affection. I’m
sure he won’t cause any harm.” With that, she made her way back
over beside Emma, bent down to give the dog a scratch, and then
took up her spot behind her easel.

Slowly, the other ladies returned to
their spots. Morgan tried to move forward, but Mr. Cardiff put out
his hand, perhaps in an effort to stop her. She skirted around him,
as though she’d felt his interference. “Miss Hathaway?” she called.
“Pray tell, are you reading a book this afternoon?”

“
Rob
Roy
,” Emma replied. “I haven’t gotten very
far into it yet. Would you like me to read it aloud to
you?”

The smile that lit Morgan’s face could
rival the sun…until her brother said, “I don’t want you to go
anywhere near that dog.” Then Morgan’s expression fell into a near
pout.

Vanessa stepped in and offered her arm
for Morgan to take. “Come along. I’ll sit with you both and be sure
you’re safe from the dog.”

The simple suggestion yet again
visibly lifted Morgan’s spirits, and Mr. Cardiff relented. They
sat, the three of them with the dog, in the middle of the circle of
ladies, reading and petting the dog, and laughing each time he’d
nuzzle one of their hands.

Even though Mr. Cardiff had forced his
way into her day when he brought his sister to paint with them all,
Emma felt it had somehow turned into a pleasant one.

Kingley.

She’d named the damned mutt. One more
bit of proof that Miss Hathaway was absolutely not the sort of chit
Aidan wanted his sister spending much time with, and yet she was
precisely the one Morgan seemed drawn to. Well, one of them. Miss
Weston wasn’t so bad, and Morgan had spent time with her as well.
But Miss Weston, likewise, spent altogether too much time in the
vicinity of Miss Hathaway. And now, Miss Hathaway thought she
needed to make this beast into a pet.

The dog surely had fleas and it stunk
to high hell, and yet she’d allowed it to curl up beside her as she
read aloud to his sister, and he was supposed to find this in some
manner acceptable?

It had even ruined the delicate pink
muslin of her gown! Not even the best laundry maid in all of
England could possibly save the fabric after the beast had rubbed
its filth and grime all over her, slobbering and drooling on her to
boot. It wasn’t until he saw the stains against the pink of his
vellum that he realized he’d been doing her portrait, which only
infuriated him more. He’d been putting her to canvas, as he’d done
time and again, and all she wanted to do was sit with a mangy dog
curled up at her side instead of—

Aidan stopped himself before he
completed that thought. It was ludicrous. He needed to move on from
that. It was better for his sanity’s sake to think about how she’d
given the beast a name. Like a pet. Like an animal she intended to
keep and coddle and croon over.

When Aidan and the ladies had all
packed up their easels and supplies to go back into the house, it
took every ounce of restraint that he possessed to refrain from
reminding her that the animal was not welcome inside. And it wasn’t
even his home! He had no right to make such a pronouncement, and
yet it nearly fell from his lips as easily as his own
name.

At least she’d left her
dear
Kingley
outside, where he belonged. The last thing Aidan needed was
for Morgan to become overly attached to a wild, mangy dog. When she
became attached to things and then lost them, nothing good came of
it.

Once the ladies went off to whatever
they were to spend their afternoon doing, he made his way into
David’s library. He flipped the page of some massive tome on animal
husbandry he’d picked up, not that he’d read a single word of the
last page, or the page before that, and not that he intended to
read even one word on the new page…but if a servant were to walk
into the library and find him doing nothing but brooding with a
murderous glower upon his face, he surely would hear about it later
from David. Or Niall. Possibly both of them.

Aidan already had enough things
plaguing his mind without his brother or his friend adding their
voices to the ever-present voice in his head.

He’d been alone for a good half an
hour or more after the ladies retired inside. The other men were
still out on the river. It was likely for the best that he’d stayed
behind with the women, despite the taunts a few of the men had sent
his way when he’d informed them he would prefer to work on some art
with the ladies. It had allowed him to keep an eye on Morgan and
that dog.

He trusted Lady Burington well enough.
But it was a large beast. All of the women combined might not have
been able to pull it off, should it decide to attack one of them,
which only made Miss Hathaway’s befriending of it all the more
troubling. How could she know it was tame? How could she guarantee
it wouldn’t harm anyone? What would she have done if it had
attacked?