Parlor Games by Leda Swann Page B

direction of his gaze to find Sir Richard the fat bearing down on them, huffing and puffing like a steam engine.
    He bore down on Tom, fixing him with a steely eye. “You called me away last night to no purpose. There was no vote in the House last night.”
    “Was there not?” Tom lifted his eyebrows in surprise. “I must have been mistaken. I do apologize.”
    Sir Richard Etheridge was not appeased. His chubby fingers were clenched into tight fists at his sides and his breath came in even shorter bursts than usual. “There was no mistake about it. You called me away on purpose.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    Sir Richard Etheridge jerked his head in Sarah’s direction. “You wanted the wench,” he ground out between clenched teeth, “so you thought to get me out of the way with a damnable lie.”
    “Don’t be so melodramatic, my dear old fellow. All’s fair in love and war.”
    “I am not your dear old fellow.” Sarah was almost frightened by the vicious ice in Sir Richard’s voice. “I claim no acquaintance with you. You are not a gentleman.”
    Tom examined his fingernails with a show of interest. “True, but then neither am I a fat lecher.”
    Sarah stifled a horrified gasp as Sir Richard’s face went as purple as a peony at the insult.
    He turned to Sarah with as much dignity as he could muster and offered her his arm. “Come, girl. You can see your companion has no breeding. Will you not do me the honor of your company instead?”
    Sarah shook her head, not knowing what to say that would not make the situation worse. Really, Sir Richard looked as if he would be struck down with apoplexy, he was so angry. Tom was such a scoundrel to tease the poor man so.
    “You’re too late,” Tom said before she could gather her wits sufficiently to reply. “She is not mistress of her own destiny at the moment. I have made arrangements with Mrs. Erskine.”
    Sir Richard took back his arm and glared at Tom, thwarted malice writ large in his piggy eyes. “You have not heard the last of this,” he warned, as he turned on his heel and waddled away. “I am not a man to be lightly crossed.”
    Sarah shuffled uneasily at his threats, but Tom merely roared with laughter. “He is not a man to do anything lightly,” he sputtered, loudly enough that Sir Richard could hear.
    Judging by the sudden stiffening of the ramrod posture of his back and the increase in pace of his waddling, Sir Richard heard this last insult only too well.
    Sarah was saved from replying to Tom’s latest sally by Mrs. Erskine, who called the company to attention. “Make yourselves ready, ladies and gentlemen,” she called. “For a game of blindman’s buff.”

 
4
     
    Sarah watched as one of the gentlemen set a hard-backed chair in the middle of the room, with a small table covered in a lace cloth beside it. With dignified ceremony, Mrs. Erskine placed a large-figured hourglass firmly on the top.
    A round-faced fellow with a pronounced look of mischief in his eye promptly plumped into the chair with an emphatic “Me first!”
    Mrs. Erskine tied a thick black blindfold firmly around his head, covering his eyes. “Can you see anything?”
    He waved his hand in front of his face. “Not a thing. It’s as dark as midday in a London fog.”
    With this confirmation, she reached over and turned the hourglass over, starting the flow of sand.
    One of the coffee house girls stepped forward. With a deliberate gesture, she removed the pins from her coiffure and leaned over the seated gentleman, shaking her long dark hair down over her shoulders and allowing some stray strands to caress his face.
    Leaning toward her, he breathed in her scent, looking for all the world like a pouter pigeon stretching its neck out for a tasty morsel.
    “I do declare,” the pouter pigeon said with a series of appreciative sniffs. “We appear to have Mrs. Isabella Beeton in the parlor this evening. No one else, I am sure, could smell so deliciously of home and hearth