"You have the maturity of a 14-year-old boy!" Kennedy hisses.
"And you have the chest of one." Emma Chase, Appealed
----
II.
Both Adam and Joe stood for Perrie, despite her entering the study as though she were an escapee from a madhouse.
Perrie couldn't believe her eyes. She could not believe that Alice was right. She truly believed that she never was going to see Joe Parish ever again when he left Ashwood two years earlier. She never cared to learn where he had gone. One theory was that Beelzebub had recalled his loyal servant. But Joe had left, and he had not returned. His schooling had finished, as had hers, and he had probably gone on to work like other young men did.
Not only had he returned to Ashwood, but he had darkened the doorways of her own sanctuary. What on earth was Papa thinking? Had he gone mad himself? Papa knew every bit of what Joe had done to her over the last decade.
Yes, Perrie had certainly not let Joe get away with anything without retaliation, but Papa knew it all! Why would he ever allow such vermin to permeate the halls of their home?
"Get out of my house. Papa, make him leave immediately!" Perrie demanded.
"Enough of that, Perrie," Adam replied dismissively, pinching the bridge of his nose as though he had a headache. He seemed to have done that rather a lot whenever Reverend Thomas would report to him about Perrie's harmless pranks and Joe's evil doings.
"I do beg your pardon, Your Grace," Joe apologised to Adam formally, his voice deeper than Perrie remembered it being.
He looked taller, too. How irritating. Perrie could not have shrunk. Was that possible? Now that he was standing, he appeared to be several inches taller than she remembered. She dared not stand near him, lest she be called an imp again, or in case she caught some annoying disease that would make her as insufferable as he was.
"I don't take offence to Lady Perrie's behaviour. She must be a little grumpy from her long journey." His tone was meant to be cordial, but Perrie knew it was entirely condescending. Her theory was proved right when Joe turned back to her, and he smiled, winking at her.
However, that might have been the first time ever that Joe had referred to Perrie by name. She wasn't fooled. Perrie ignored his remarks and marched past him, cringing at the stark difference of over a foot in their height, so that she could stand before her father's desk. "Papa, have you gone mad? Don't you know who this is?" Perrie threw her hand behind her to point in Joe's general direction and had not realised that he had come to stand behind her. Her fist landing in the centre of his chest and he coughed at the impact.
Served him right.
"Perrie, I know exactly who this is, and I also know that you are both adults. Well, you will be an adult when I say you are an adult, but Mr Parish, here, is certainly a grown young man, and is here at my behest."
"Cannot we let bygones be bygones, my lady?" Joe asked from behind her in a tone that was meant to sound sincere.
"Why is he here? When will your business be finished? When will you make him leave?" Perrie's questions came in quick succession.
"I had planned to invite Mr Parish for dinner this evening so that we could discuss this addition to our family party in a civilised manner. Though I did not care for Mrs Liscombe's report, I can certainly see that a little tact would not go astray at times, Perrie."
When it came to Joe Parish, Perrie did not care. "You will not make me dine with him. His face will make me lose my appetite."
Adam rolled his eyes, but he tried to conceal an amused smile. "You can and you will. Now, be off with you. We have business to attend to. Go and find your grandmamma. I am sure she had returned from Mrs Denham's by now, and she has missed you."
Perrie huffed in frustration at how easily her father had been fooled by the toad in his study. Whatever business it was, she hoped it was concluded quickly so that Joe could scurry back to wherever it was that he had come from.
She supposed all she could do was hope that she endured the time it took while retaining all of her hair. She would watch out for him should he ever be holding scissors again.
Perrie turned around and nearly bumped her nose into Joe's chest. She pushed him out of her way as aggressively as she could, but he moved for her, which caused her to stumble. Joe went to catch her, to offer her support, but Perrie managed to steady herself and slap his hands away.
"Touch me and I will cut you," she hissed.
Joe merely smirked as Perrie stormed back towards the open study door. Perrie did not close it behind her purely to make Joe have to go close it himself.
As she stomped back down the hallways, she smiled with petty satisfaction at hearing the study door close, but she quickly learned that Joe had come out into the hallway behind her.
"Little Imp!" he called after her.
Perrie stopped immediately and froze on the spot. It wasn't until after she turned around that she realised that she had responded to that damned pet name.
It suddenly occurred to her why her mother seemed so concerned that she might still set someone on fire. And how she was tempted.
"Stop calling me that!" Perrie snapped.
"No," Joe retorted simply, closing the distance between them swiftly with his long strides. He stopped some five feet from her and stood with his hands behind his back. To meet her eyes, he needed to look down, and at far to acute of an angle for Perrie's liking. His brown eyes were inquisitive and calculating, and his tensed jaw looked like it needed a good smacking. "I had wondered if you would have grown up at all since I have been away, but it is clear to see that no amount of growing has happened at all."
Perrie resisted telling him that she was sixty inches tall now. That would have also been a lie as she was fifty-nine and a half inches, but there was no measuring tool present to confirm her falsehood.
"You have grown," Perrie replied sharply. "The space on your forehead looks like it is at least two or three inches bigger. Your hair cannot escape your head quickly enough."
"No, it hasn't," Joe retorted coolly. "You will have to do better than that, Imp."
He was right, annoyingly so. His hair was still just as thick, wavy, and blond, as it always had been. If it were smart, however, it would escape his head.
Perrie's eyes narrowed. "I don't know what spell you have put on my father but know that I will convince him to make you leave."
Joe rolled his eyes. "You always were an annoying brat, but I won't have you spoiling this for me, Little Imp. You know that whatever you do, I will do back to you ten-fold. I am better at this game then you are."
Perrie scoffed. "Of all places, why here? If I am so annoying, why would you choose to darken my doorway?" she demanded to know.
"Well, thankfully you haven't been here the last few months, so it has been extraordinarily peaceful," Joe replied. "Your sister is sweet and charming. She's nothing at all like you."
Months? How many letters had she received from her parents in that time, and all the while Joe Parish had been ingratiating himself into their lives? What on earth was he playing at? What on earth were they playing at?
"I told your father that I would come out here and make peace with you," Joe continued apathetically. "If you can go and be an insufferable imp elsewhere, I would greatly appreciate it. I have actual business to attend to." He smiled facetiously and bowed his head, as though he was dismissing her from her own hallway.
"Is this your attempt at being a grown man?" Perrie mocked. "I do not think you even know how to grow a moustache hair." She giggled.
Whatever Joe's business was, it seemed to be important to him. She wasn't at all certain how he had managed to secure a role with such proximity to a duke, however, but she was certain her father would fill in the gaps in the story soon enough. Perrie would not rest until she knew everything.
"I could say the same to your legs. They forgot how to grow when you turned ten and never learned again." Joe smiled with satisfaction as he took another large step towards her. He was standing right in front of her then, looking down upon her as though he was her superior, and he had a right to make demands to her. "I will say it again. I will not have you spoiling this for me. Go and be insufferable somewhere else, and your dear papa can endure your nonsense later."
"I am a lady," Perrie reminded him. "You cannot command me to do anything."
"You are an imp, and I could squash you with my boot if I wanted to."
***
"Perrie!" Cecily practically sang as she walked through the front door to find Perrie on the stairs.
The expression on Perrie's face probably appeared like she had been slapped, and she may as well have been. She was most seriously put out, and she did not feel as though she had gotten the better of Joe Parish.
She had not felt like this for a long time, and it stirred something inherently competitive inside of her. But she managed a smile for her grandmother, and she trotted across the foyer to give her a tight hug.
"I've missed you, Grandmamma," she said, her voice muffled in the sleeve of her grandmother's dress.
"Not as much as I have missed you, my girl," Cecily replied warmly. "You are finally returned. And a young lady, are you?"
It had been Cecily's insistence that Perrie and Lily attend Mrs Liscombe's school. She, herself, had gone there decades ago as a young girl when it was run by the present Mrs Liscombe's mother. She had declared it the best preparation for the elder Beresford girls before they embarked upon their first seasons in London. Lily was still meant to go back in the Autumn, but Perrie's education had finished ... poorly.
"What do you think, Grandmamma?"
Cecily pursed her lips and shook her head. "Well, you can sing and play the pianoforte passably. You do dance well, and your French is adequate. But honestly, dear, with your connections, you could dance on your head in London and have your pick of the bushel."
Perrie listened as her grandmother listed the qualities that Mrs Liscombe deemed necessary in order to make a good wife. Perhaps Perrie was naïve, but she did not think that being able to play Mozart was an effective tool in diffusing an argument.
Or at least she had never seen her mother go to the pianoforte to play if ever she and Adam quarrelled. They rarely did, however, and that was because Grace was far more patient than Perrie.
Perrie did not want to talk about it any further. She didn't want to think about becoming a milk cow, and she was far too preoccupied with the leech that had attached itself to her father upstairs. "Grandmamma, what do you know about Joe Parish and his business here?"
"Oh, young Mr Parish?" Cecily motioned for Perrie to move along with her and they wandered towards the dowager duchess' parlour. "Your old school friend?" Cecily snickered playfully.
"Grandmamma, be serious. What do you know?"
Cecily took Perrie's arm and leaned on her a little for support. Her grandmother rubbed her arm. "Mr Parish had an accident, I believe. I don't know the specific details of it all. Your father can be quite tight lipped when he wants to be. But from what I understand, Mr Parish's father is an acquaintance of Adam's, and that is their connection."
An accident? Perrie's interest had certainly piqued. From what she had seen, and though she had not inspected him thoroughly, she could not see any obvious signs of injury or illness. What had happened? If Papa would not tell her grandmother, then he certainly would not confide in Perrie. How would she find out?
Perrie also hadn't realised that Joe's father was an acquaintance of her own, but then Papa knew most of his tenants personally. Joe had gone to the village school, so his father most likely tended some of the Dukedom's land.
"You're not still nursing that silly feud, are you?" Cecily tsked.
Perrie rolled her eyes. "Of course not, Grandmamma. We're adults now." She wondered how hard it would be to find a book on poisons in the library. Perhaps it was worth a letter to her Uncle Jack as he was familiar with every title in Ashwood House.
----
Hope you enjoyed it!!
I wonder if Perrie will figure out what happened to Joe before she tries to do away with him? Hehehehe
Summer has finally arrived where I live and it was a scorcher today! Spent most of the day swimming which was so nice.
But I've got my first pilates class tomorrow. I'm joining a reformer class and I'm so nervous! Do any of you do it? Do you enjoy it? I have ZERO muscle or strength, like I am so weak I need help opening milk sometimes. I want to build muscle (secretly I just want a butt as I'm flat as a pancake lol) but I've been watching all these videos stressing as I can't even do a squat lol, not a push up, nothing! I'm worried I'll make a total fool of myself gahhh. Let me know if you do it and how you find it!
Alright, bed time. Vote and comment!!! xxx