Lord Day and Lady Night

64. 'ello, Future Mum, I'm Smoochin' yer Son

Lord Patrick Day stared. The servants stared. The ladies in the tea salon stared.

Miss Amy Weston sat down in the seat next to His Lordship and poured herself a cup of tea. She picked it up and started sipping, with one finger sticking out as proper manners demanded. Or...as they would have demanded, if she'd used the little finger. She however, chose the middle one.

"Y-you..." Lord Patrick swallowed. Not that he had any saliva left to swallow. His mouth was dry as ancient Egyptian mummy's underpants in a five-thousand-year-old tomb.

"Aye, darlin'?" his lovely illusory lady friend asked, peering at him over the top of the tea cup. Her middle finger was still sticking out.

This wasn't an illusion. This wasn't a trick. She was here. Really here.

He was frozen. He was shocked to the core.

But...

Not nearly as shocked as his lady mother was.

"Patrick, dear," Her Ladyship the dowager duchess enquired, leaning over, a pair of sugar tongs held in her hand. Sugar tongs that Lord Patrick suddenly found strangely reminiscent of red-hot tongs fresh from the torture chamber of the Tower of London. The dowager duchess's eyes slid up and down the figure of Amy in a dress that only succubi from hell and Titus Irving would consider appropriate for polite society. "So, this is the elegant young noblewoman you were telling us about?"

He swallowed again. Maybe he could simply swallow his tongue. Then he wouldn't have to think of an answer.

"Well, ehem, you see..."

"Yup, dat's me!" Raising her tea cup to toast his mother, Amy downed the contents in one go, then pulled a face. "Ugh! Do ye 'ave some booze?"

Nobody seemed to have an appropriate response for that, Lord Patrick noted. His mother's friends would first have to collect their jaws off the floor, and as for his mother herself...well, she was far too busy burning holes into him with her searing stare of righteous rage.

"Patrick, dear?" Lady Henrietta Valentina Day's voice sounded about as dear as a serrated knife through the guts. "Why don't you come with me for a minute? I think we should have a little chat in private."

"Oh, on the contrary!" Lady Maeve leaned forward, her eyes gleaming, the greed for gossip practically oozing out of her. "Why don't dear Patrick and his ladyfriend stay for some tea, biscuits and a nice talk with all of us? I'm sure it'll be fascinating."

The dowager duchess sent her friend a glare that promised a fascinating trip to hell if someone didn't shut up right away.

Not that this deterred her friend in the slightest.

"So, tell me," Lady Gwendolyn enquired, leaning towards Amy with an utterly innocent smile on her face. Lord Patrick was pretty certain that, under the table, he saw her holding a pen and notebook. "What's your name? And your parents' name? What family are you from?"

"Me name's Amy," the beautiful, emerald-eyed disaster next to him answered, brightly. "I've got no clue who me parents are, and me family 'as always bin da other girls at da brothe—mmphmphmph!"

"Well, that's so very...fascinating," Lady Henrietta squeezed out, her hand pressed so firmly over Amy's mouth Lord Patrick was surprised she hadn't crushed the young woman's teeth to dust yet. "But now I really must take my son and his, ehem...ladyfriend away for a little talk in private." That was the point at which, as Lord Patrick had feared, she directed her gaze at him. "My son and I have a lot to talk about."