The Other Side - J. D. Robb [50]
“Thank you, Nurse,” Harry said. “The earl and I will come tomorrow to see a repeat performance. This is not to be missed. Clearly the boy is more dexterous than the average child. He will be a marvel in the boxing ring.”
“No son of mine is going to spend time boxing!” Bettina said with motherly outrage and then realized that she was not playing her role any more than Harry was. “I think his dexterity would be better developed fencing.”
Martha Stepp curtsied and left the room, leaving Harry and Bettina in complete silence.
Bettina spoke first. “Do you think she suspects?”
“Suspects what? That I have left my manliness someplace?” He shook his head in disgust. “Without a doubt.”
“I’m sorry, Harry, but you are as much at fault as I am. What mother would say that she wants her son to box? You might have said he would look wonderful on the dance floor.”
“We have to find a way out of this, Bettina.” Harry sat down in the nearest chair, looking dispirited and unhappy. “I am not sure we will stay sane much longer. The housekeeper was shocked when I approved the chef’s menu without critique. Why do you pay the man so much to cook if you do not trust his menu choices?”
“Because the chef pays no attention to the cost of food. He thinks with the mind of an artist and is not practical at all. Someone has to rein him in.”
“I see.” He made a face that was all Harry’s, brow furrowed and mouth turned down. If he kept doing that, her face would be wrinkled before she was thirty. “Good for you, then, to take such care of our money.” Harry stared at the rug for a minute and then looked up again. “But what about the housekeeper’s calendar? She wanted to know when the maids could beat the rugs and when the silver could be polished. I really don’t care.”
“The housekeeper asks because I keep the calendar and know when we will be using the rooms and have need of the silver.”
“Isn’t the calendar the majordomo’s charge?”
“Usually, but I’ve found that the majordomo’s weakness is keeping the calendar. He is excellent with the staff but has confused more dates than is acceptable. So I meet weekly with your secretary, and we compare calendars and consider invitations, which to accept and which to decline.”
Harry stood and bowed to her, which looked very odd, considering he was wearing a pink silk gown and pearls.
“And I thought you spent all your time making calls and shopping. It seems to me that my countess has far greater responsibilities than I ever realized. I understand now that you are the reason this house runs so smoothly and our son is so content.”
As Harry spoke, there was a small flash of light. Like the glint off a coin. They both recognized it at once and arrowed across the room to the spot where the light had come from. And there it was. The coin. The cursed coin that had changed their lives.
Eight
They both reached for the coin, but Harry was faster. “I wish that . . . .”
“Harry, wait!” For once the man listened to her. “Don’t you think we have to word this carefully? You only have to look at us to know the coin has a very whimsical way of granting wishes.”
“Hmmm” was all Harry said, a sign he was considering what she suggested. After a moment he put the coin on the table. “So what should we say?”
They debated the wording for a full five minutes, before agreeing that they would both hold the coin and make the same wish. “We wish that our world could be the way it was before our first wish.”
Nothing happened. Harry released Bettina’s hand, and they looked at the coin. It was a dull, tarnished bronze, communicating quite efficiently that it had no intention of granting that wish.
They spent another half hour trying similarly worded wishes with no success.
“Harry, if we do not leave for dinner now, we will be remarked on for being so late.”