Twelfth Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

darkly. “I still think Aunt Portia got a bad one. It can happen with windfalls.”
    I blinked at her while Brisbane continued to sip at his chocolate. “I beg your pardon?”
    “Windfalls. You know, when a wind comes through the orchard, dropping apples to the ground. Some are sweet and wholesome, but others are wormy and foul. That baby is a wormy apple.”
    “I hardly think so,” I said firmly. “Now your chocolate is finished. Off to bed with you.”
    She rose and brushed the crumbs from her fingers. “Thank you, Aunt Julia. I had a very nice time. Uncle Brisbane.” She kissed us each in turn, pressing a becrumbed face to each of ours. She waved farewell to Grim, who bobbed in reply and then she was gone, a silent little shadow slipping through the corridors of the Abbey.
    “That is a perfectly exceptional child,” Brisbane said when she was gone. “I think she must be what you were like as a little girl.”
    “I was never so—” I began. But then I thought about Perdita. A little odd, mistress of her own interests, curious, with a penchant for speaking her mind. “Yes, I suppose rather.”
    He smiled and put down his cup. He slapped his thighs, and I went to him, sliding onto his lap, my head fitting comfortably into the hollow of his neck.
    “I am very happy you are mine,” I told him.
    Brisbane produced his customary phrase for such occasions. “Show me.”
    And so I did.

Chapter Six
    Now good digestion wait on appetite , And health on both !
    — Macbeth , III, iv, 38
    The next morning was grey and dull, with a thick, muffling fog creeping through the countryside, settling in hollows and wreathing hills until all was quiet and still. But inside the Abbey pandemonium reigned.
    “It’s the oysters,” Morag told me with grim satisfaction. “They had a bad lot and every member of the family is down with it.”
    “With what?” I demanded, still fatigued from my marital exertions. Brisbane was a very thorough husband.
    “Poisoning,” she said, her voice tart. “What I just told you. They’re all down sick with the oysters. The village doctor has been and said they’ll all be right as rain once they’ve heaved it all out, but in the meanwhile, the maids and footmen are run off their feet with slop buckets and rags and—” I felt my stomach give a lurch.
    “That’s enough, Morag. One does not require the unsavoury details. I suppose Cook isn’t doing breakfast, then?”
    Morag shrugged. “I’ll bring a tray up.”
    “How is the baby this morning?” I asked, certain she had already been to the nursery.
    Her face took on a tender expression. “Sweet as a newborn lamb, he is. I gave him his morning feed, and he opened his eyes wide as you please, as if to say thank you.”
    I rolled my eyes at her, but she ignored me. Instead, she gave Brisbane a tender look. “Mind you don’t wake the master. You’re not taking proper care of him. A wife ought to see her husband has a regular supper instead of stuffing him with toast and chocolate at all hours.”
    She banged out, and Brisbane opened an eye, grinning at me. I shoved his shoulder. “Stop. It isn’t decent that my lady’s maid should like you so much more than she does me.”
    “I am nicer to her than you are,” he pointed out.
    Aquinas, acting as valet to Brisbane as well as butler since Father’s own staff was indisposed, arrived then with his shaving water. When we had both completed our ablutions, we sat down to eat the breakfast Morag had secured. Brisbane uncovered a dish to find something unappetising looking back at him. He poked it tentatively with a fork.
    “What do you think it is?”
    “I daren’t guess,” I told him. “The undercook must still be at the helm in the kitchens. Toast for me, thanks.”
    He covered the dish up again, and we fell on the toast. “I can’t live on bread, Julia. Not if you mean to ravish me so thoroughly. A man has to keep his strength up.”
    I pulled a face. “Why don’t we walk