Miss Farrow's Feathers (11 page)

She’
d much rather send him off to the devil and ask Mr. Shirley to repeat himself several more times. He’d called her lovely! If only she didn’t wish so very desperately that he’d meant it.

“
A lovely young lass named Dear Dot
…” Bartholomew uttered.

Oh, good lord. What would the new earl say about
this
? How dreadful that Meg’s first order of business with him after all these years would have to focus on Bartholomew’s perpetual problem. She couldn’t very well send him back off to Glenwick without informing the earl just what he was in for.

Her concern must have been evident on her face. Mr. Shirley placed his hand on her arm
and spoke low in her ear.

“Don’t worry.
I’ll keep Bartholomew out of sight. And earshot.”

She glanced up at him and once again found it impossible to breath. His smile, his eyes, the gentle, comforting tone of his voice… why again did she have to leave him just now? Oh yes. Nigel was here.

“Thank you. That would be much appreciated.”

“Hurry, Miss,” Mrs. Cooper urged. “We can’t keep him waiting! Lord knows what he’s come for.”

Meg pulled her eyes off Mr. Shirley and started back into the house. “Perhaps he’s come for his bird.”

Mrs. Cooper clucked her tongue. “Well, he’ll no doubt be regretting that, then.”

“Yes, perhaps he won’t be in such a hurry to take him.”

Which would mean they’d have reason to keep Mr. Shirley on. By all means, she’d have to inform Nigel just how dreadful his grandfather’s parrot had gotten. Clearly the best thing for all of them would be to continue his training. Preferably here
, in the parsonage. That would be the easiest for everyone and, well, it might also give Mr. Shirley a chance to call her lovely again.

Max watched her hurry off with the housekeeper, a bundle of nerves and blushes that he had no doubt Nigel would find hugely attractive. Damn the usurping blackguard! What was he up to, toying with a decent female like this? Hadn’t he already assured himself through his scheming steward that she knew nothing useful regarding their grandfather’s supposed treasure? Max had half a mind to march himself into the good vicar’s parlor and give his cousin a
life-altering facer.

Of course he did not, though. He made himself remain in the garden, tucked safely behind the house, hidden by rose bushes and hedgerows and undetected by Nigel. He would not ruin things now by charging in there prematurely. He would, however, keep a close eye on Miss Farrow. It was painfully obvious she was not over her apparent infatuation with the clod-faced lout. Max would make it his priority to see that she was not ill used or mistreated in any way.

He did not relish being the one to break her heart by presenting the truth about Nigel, but he sure as hell wouldn’t let her fall deeper in love with the scoundrel. She’d need to know sooner rather than later and he’d try to make it as painless as possible. And then he’d present a ready shoulder for her to cry on.

Currently, however, his shoulder was serving as a perch. Bartholomew left the post he’d been gnawing at and came to rest on Max’s coat. He could fairly hear the bird’s clawed toes snagging and tearing at the fabric.

“Oh, so now you think you are free to climb all over me?” he asked, digging in his pocket to find a few of the morsels he’d tucked in there for the creature.

“
Climb on my pole
!” Bartholomew replied, repeating the phrase until finally Max was able to distract him with his thumb.

By God, the bird was incorrigible. The least little thing seemed to trigger his outbursts. How was anyone ever to retrain him when he seemed so utterly untrainable?
Perhaps it would be easier to train every human in the village which words to avoid in hopes of eliminating any of the prompts that usually sent the bird into bawdy banter.

The thought hadn’t been intended as anything to seriously consider, yet even as the words passed through his mind Max found himself pondering them. Could it really be possible to identify phrases in particular that set Bartholomew into chatter? He hadn’t considered this, but perhaps he ought to. Sometimes it seemed the bird railed on for no reason, but other times there was clearly some impetus, something spoken that resonated with the bird and moved him to speech. What were these things?

“Climb all over me,” he said aloud, testing his theory.

“
Climb on my pole. Climb on my pole
,” the bird responded as if by rote, despite the fact he was working at detaching Max's thumb.

Well, clearly the trigger there was obvious. Max used the word climb, and that produced a response. Bartholomew knew that word and reacted. But what sort of phrase was that for him to have learned? Why not, “Climb up the rigging!” or “Climb down
in the hold,” or any other more common phrase that he’d have been likely to hear over and over aboard a ship. Why only these bawdy phrases?

“Climb on my pole,” he said, watching the bird for response.

“
Give your old pole a twist, lad
.”

So, the word pole appeared in multiple phrases. Not really a surprise, given the tone of the bird’s repertoire, but again, why should it be that phrase and not hundreds of others he had to have heard year after year?
The more he thought of it, the more he was convinced something more was at play here, some reason the bird said what he said and would not be swayed.

“What the devil is
your fascination with twisting poles, anyway?” Max asked him.

He really hadn’t expected an answer, but the bird piped up eagerly.

“
Rub her down, twist your pole!”

Well, that was just nonsense from
another rhyme, of course, and he would have easily ignored it, except that something suddenly struck him. Those two phrases together that way… he’d seen it recently. Yes, he was sure of it. In that book but...oh, hell and damnation. Could it really be so very simple? He stared at the bird and the bird stared at him.

“Bartholomew, it’s time you and I had a little discussion.”

Bartholomew simply cocked his head and blinked one bright, orange eye. Apparently he had no response for that. Just as well. Max had a fair notion he knew what the bird
would
have a response for.

“Come on. Let’s go take a look at something.”

Offering the bird something actually edible to work at as he clung to his human perch, Max let himself back into the house. There was a narrow servant’s stair close at hand so that there was no need for him to use the one in the main part of the small home, risking an encounter with Miss Farrow and her guest. It was tempting to aim that direction and interrupt whatever smarmy attempt Nigel was making at winning yet more of Miss Farrow’s favor, but for now Max forced himself to focus on the bird.

He could not shake the feeling that the solution to all of this lay close at hand. Up the stairs they went, ducking silently into Max’s room. Bartholomew chattered as the door brushed past him, Max shutting it tightly. There, on the table near the bed, sat the object he was beginning to realize was much more than it seemed.

The damned book of bawdy poetry. He took it up and scanned a few pages, finally finding the one he was searching for. Ah, there it was. The handwritten rhyme he’d recalled.

A lovely young lass named Dear Dot
Likes to boast of her grand treasure spot.

Rub her down, twist your pole,
Find her sweet hidey-hole,
And make free with whatever she's got.

By all accounts, it was vile; nothing more than a verse for adolescent boys to snigger at. Max proudly did not snigger. He read through it again, making a mental note of the various phrases he was certain he’d heard Bartholomew utter more than once. To be sure about this, he decided to read aloud for the bird.

“
A lovely young lass named Dear Dot
,” he began.

Bartholomew cocked his yellow head and blinked. Max continued.

“
Likes to boast of her grand treasure spot
.”

Bartholomew blinked again. Then he proceeded to continue the rhyme.

“
Rub her down, twist your pole; Find her sweet hidey-hole,
”

“
And make free with whatever she’s got
,” Max finished in perfect unison with the bird.

Ah ha! So that was a rhyme from the book, and Bartholomew knew parts of it he didn’t often spout out. What else was locked in that parrot brain, accessible only with the right
inducement? It appeared payment was required to find out. Bartholomew reached his foot out, scratching against Max’s face and clearly demanding some recompense for his labors.

Very well. Max could certainly play this game.
He gave the bird another treat—a stale piece of bread this time—then placed him back on his rag-wrapped perch. Flipping to another page in the book, Max began reading.

Last Saturday night young Nancy lay a-sleeping
And into her bedroom young Johnny went a-creeping

He waited, but
Bartholomew did not join in. Even as Max read through the familiar and repetitive chorus of
fol-the-riddle-i-do
, it was as if the creature had never so much as heard the rhyme—any of it. So Max moved onto another.

Now you bishops and deacons, priests, curates and vicars…

Know that
Nottingham Ale, it's the best of all liquors…

No reaction again. How could Bartholomew not know any of these? Max had heard them again and again as a lad off at school, with his mates on a binge, and surely aboard ship on his journeys to and from the Americas. Not all of the rhymes in the book were well known to him, of course, but why on earth should it be that Bartholomew had not picked up even the most common among them?

Damn. He thought he’d come on the source of the bird’s inspiration, but it seemed apparently not. Whatever had provided Bartholomew’s education, it seemed the book was not it. Max would have to come up with some other method of getting to the root
for his obsession.

He stepped back to study the bird who stood effortlessly on one twiggy foot as he used the other to hold the
hard piece of crust. His sharp, hook-like beak chiseled at it and tiny crumbs fell like powder onto the floor, to join the gathering pile of feathers, gravel, dust and other undesirable refuse. Honestly, whoever decided a bird was an exceptional pet had never met this one.

Still,
Max had to admit being with Bartholomew again after all these years was like rejoining and old friend. Indeed, filthy and objectionable or not, Bartholomew
was
an old friend. There was no way Max was going to let Nigel get his fool hands on him. He’d simply have to find a way to keep that blackguard away from the bird and from Miss Farrow until such time as he felt it was safe to reveal himself.

With Nigel dropping in for visits here
and traipsing about town calling himself the new earl, that was going to prove harder and harder to do. Max had best get busy solving his riddle if he didn’t want circumstances to play his hand for him. Grandfather’s letter had indicated Bartholomew knew something of the hidden treasure, so Max needed to get back to the business of figuring out if that was true, or if Grandfather had been off his cockloft.

It seemed
Max would not be doing that now. A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts. Bartholomew dropped his bread crust and complained by making repeated door-knocking sounds. Max gritted his teeth and went to see if perhaps Mrs. Cooper was come to beg him to go rescue Miss Farrow from the lecherous grasp of Nigel.

But it was not Mrs. Cooper. It was Miss Farrow herself, safely out of any lecherous grasp and appearing fully unmolested.
For now.

As he opened the door she batted huge eyes at him and chewed her lip in the most fetching way.
“Er, may I speak with you?” she asked.

“Of course. Certainly. Come in,” Max replied a bit too eagerly
, realizing he still held the book in one hand and hiding it behind his back.

She slipped past him into the room and stood there, wringing her skirts in her hands
so that the fabric bunched and gathered tightly against her. That also was most fetching, though Max tried for decency’s sake not to notice. He was not very successful.

“I have just spoken with the new Glenwick,” she began.

“He is gone already?” He should not sound so very happy about that, he knew, yet it was impossible not to be.

“Yes. He only just now got into town and must be on his way to the estate to oversee things there. He merely wanted to stop and give regards to my father.”

The ruddy liar.
He'd been in town since at least yesterday. What game was he playing now? Max imagined how pleasant it would be to rip Nigel's arms off, but kept his expression bland.

“I see. What a shame he did not wish to linger. Surely your father will be home soon
and would have enjoyed seeing him.”