Lord Day and Lady Night

44. Joy in the Morning

Lord Patrick Day was woken by the sound of singing birds and...a banshee screaming in his ear?

"Wakey-wakey, Lord Bedshaky! Stop snorin' and get a bloody move on, or we'll throw ye out of da window! After we take ye up to da third floor!"

Wait...what? What was going on? Was he still sleeping? What a strange dream...

"All right, girls, 'e's bein' stubborn! One, two, three!"

Something grabbed his foot.

All right.

So...maybe not a dream.

"W-wait just a minute! What are you children doing? You shouldn't—umph!"

Thud!

"Oy! Ye were supposed to move da whole bed! Now dat 'e's on da floor, 'ow are we supposed ta get 'im up to da window?"

"'ow da 'ell should I know? I ain't in bloody charge around 'ere!"

They began squabbling and, using the opportunity, Lord Patrick scrambled up from the floor and fled behind a nearby screen. When he reemerged, he felt much more prepared to deal with the lot of them, mostly due to the pair of trousers he was now wearing. It was quite amazing what those did for a man's self-confidence.

"Ehem, now listen here, girls!" He gazed down at them with the stern authority of a noble peer of Britain who now was also wearing trousers now, thank you very much. "You are young ladies! You cannot simply storm into a gentleman's room and—"

"Yer fly's still open," Flo pointed out.

"Blazes! How the...!" Hurriedly, he glanced down—only to find everything in perfect order. Breathing heavily, he jerked his head up to send a glare at the five little hellions...

Who apparently had already left.

"Get yer arse dressed and downstairs!" a voice rang out that distinctly reminded Lord Patrick of his little sister. "We're gonna get dressed, and prepare ta leave! If ye ain't down 'ere in five minutes, we're comin' ta get ye!"

Lord Patrick blinked. Leave? Leave where? They—

Goodness! Those twirps were not planning to go after Arrendyle alone, were they? Surely they couldn't be rash and foolish enough to—

Then an image popped up in front of his inner eye. An image of Aggy grinning at him over the top of her shiny knife.

Oh fu—

...ngus!

No, he couldn't let this happen! Not to those adorable little bandits—ehem, children. He couldn't let them throw themselves into mortal danger! He had to go after them, and that on the double! Rushing over to the wardrobe, he ripped out a vest, tailcoat, and various other pieces of clothing. Tearing off his old clothes from yesterday, he quickly started to dress.

Tarnation! Why did he have to oversleep today of all days? He should have been up much earlier. But yesterday, he'd lain awake long into the night, trying to figure out what the blazes had just happened. The dance in the moonlight. The strange way he had felt, holding her tightly in his arms, unable to let go. Or was it just...unwilling?

How could this be? You are supposed to be a Knight of the Order of the Garter! A respectable gentleman! And now, here you are, paying a woman to accompany you to dungeons full of orgies, dance with you in the wild and share your bed at night? What in the name of the Queen's unmentionables do you think you are doing?

Normally, when facing insolvable questions such as these, he would do what his ancestors had always done: postpone his quandaries a few hundred years for his descendants to deal with. There was just one miniscule problem with that. To obtain descendants, he would first have to obtain a woman at his side.