Drops of Gold(20)

Intellectually, Marion understood, but she’d been taught a very different view of her Maker.

“I told you a few days ago that I have an endless supply of stories,” Marion said cautiously.

Mr. Jonquil turned toward her, wariness written all over his face. “Why do I get the feeling you are about to regale me with one?”

Marion smiled as guiltily as she could, hoping the light tone would put him more at ease.

“Do you plan to preach to me, Miss Wood?”

“No preaching, sir.”

“Very well.” He sighed. “Get it over with.”

“It is a good story, sir!” Marion protested with a laugh.

Mr. Jonquil tossed the broken end of his twig aside and dropped onto the blanket across from her. Somehow, he still looked dignified sitting on the ground. Marion was certain she looked as ramshackle as ever. He nodded to her as if giving her permission to begin.

“Once upon a time,” she said as though he were a toddler in the nursery. She smiled and lifted her eyebrow.

Then he laughed, spontaneous and genuine. “I suppose I deserved that.”

Marion grinned back. “Once upon a time there was a handsome young man and a kindhearted young woman—”

“Same two as before?”

Marion nodded. “—who fell in love and married and in time were blessed with a strapping son and a loving daughter.”

“Ah, yes. I remember the strapping, loving children.”

“I will never finish if you keep interrupting.”

“It is one of my faults, you know, Miss Wood.” The corner of his mouth twitched upward. “Flip was forever berating me for interrupting Nurse’s fairy tales. ‘Layton, you’re ruining the story.’ Some habits are difficult to break, apparently.”

“Apparently.”

“So the stalwart children,” Mr. Jonquil hinted.

Oh, how she liked this side of her employer so much more than his grumpy side. Or his high-in-the-instep side. Or his glaring, silent side. Heavens, the man had a lot of sides!

“Yes, the children.” Marion forced her thoughts back to the task at hand, though she wasn’t entirely sure what had inspired her sudden fit of storytelling. “When the strapping son was still quite young, he learned, with the aid of a young boy in the neighborhood, the art of the slingshot. For weeks, no outbuildings or fences were safe against the demonstration of his newfound skills.”

Mr. Jonquil smiled as if remembering a few childhood escapades of his own.

“His father—”

“The handsome young man?”

Marion gave him her best governess face and used her most governess-like voice. “Layton, you’re ruining the story.”

He chuckled. She loved the sound. He ought to laugh more often.

“His father sat him down one day to explain the responsibilities tied to his new-found skills. The father insisted that shooting rocks at fences and ancient barns was one thing, but shooting those same rocks at people or animals or buildings of significance, such as their home or the vicarage, was another matter entirely. Were he to hear of his son using such things for target practice, he would be sorely displeased. The son—”

“The strapping son.” Mr. Jonquil looked instantly repentant. “Sorry. Please continue.”

“The strapping son faithfully obeyed his father’s edict and limited himself to targets specifically approved by his sire. But one day, while wielding his faithful slingshot in hopes of knocking a block of wood off the top of a stone wall, the son misfired. His aim failed, and the rock soared far from where he’d intended it to fly.

“It happened that whenever the boy went on romps around his home, he was followed by a spaniel puppy he’d named Tag Along. While he often pretended to find the dog’s presence a nuisance, he was, in fact, quite fond of it. Tag Along was, of course, with the son at the time his shot went wide of its target, although the puppy was not precisely at the boy’s side. He was sitting along the wall, watching the boy in canine adoration.”

“Miss Wood,” Mr. Jonquil protested, “I don’t like where this story is going.”

But she didn’t stop. “The shot, as I am sure you have concluded, struck the dog between the eyes. The son ran to his companion, who had grown unaccountably still of a sudden. He attempted to rouse the animal, but it didn’t respond to any of the boy’s pleas. The dog was—”

“Dead,” Mr. Jonquil mumbled. “Miss Wood, I do not want you telling this story to Caroline.”

“I am not telling it to Miss Caroline, sir. I am telling it to you.”

“I don’t particularly want to hear it either.”