“How dare he!” Elaine’s face flamed scarlet. “In public!”
There was no point in telling her there was no harm in it; the harm, so far as she was concerned, was to herself.
“Fess is trying to moderate his behavior,” Robin pointed out.
“But he needn’t heed a robot, need he? Oh, Rupert, you must talk with him.”
“I suppose I must.” Rupert turned toward his father, visibly bracing himself for the task.
But Duchess Hidalgo reached Rory first. Unfortunately, she was in excellent voice. “My lord Count! How dare you commit such improprieties in front of us all!”
Rory turned to her with a wicked gleam. ” ‘In front’ is scarcely where I have been improper, Duchess.”
“Oh! And you boast of it! What has possessed you, Rory? You have always been such a gentleman!”
“Yes, and it’s been damned dull, if you really want to know.” Rory was getting louder, matching her decibel for decibel. “Come, Duchess! Surely you cannot object to a bit of life in our dotage!”
“Dotage! How dare you, sir! I’ll have you know I’m in the prime of my life!”
“Your ‘prime,’ Duchess, was—”
“Sir!” she bellowed, outshouting him. “Mind your manners! What a boor you’ve become! You are no longer fit company for any lady of…”
“Avaunt!” Rory staggered backward. “A rescue! The lady has transformed! She has become a fire-breathing dragon! Fess! My sword!”
“Dragon!” the Duchess howled. “How dare you so insult me, sir!”
But Robin, at least, realized it was no mere insult. He hurried forward as Rory managed to wrestle one of the prop swords down from the wall. It was only rolled iron, of course, and had no edge, but it could still do damage.
Robin got to the duchess first. He took her elbow and turned her away by main force, then slipped an arm around her waist and virtually hauled her away. “Come, Duchess, it’s time to dine! May I have the honor of bringing you in?”
Behind him, Fess had deftly caught the blade, and was saying, quite firmly, “No, boss milord master. It is not fitting for a knight to take up his own weapons when he is attended.”
“Was I attended? Did you give me my sword when I demanded it?”
“No, sahib, because you bade me leave it in your chamber. Do you not remember?”
“Oh.” Rory frowned. “Yes, I do recall you recommending something of the sort. But the dragon, Fess!”
“Certainly the lady cannot be blamed for the evil enchantment placed upon her, boss man.”
“True.” Rory’s grip on the sword slackened. “Her mother was something of a witch…”
Fortunately, the Duchess couldn’t hear the remark, mostly because she was herself making too much noise to hear it. “I shall not retreat from the field of battle!” she protested. “No matter how gallantly you attempt it, sir!”
“I must ask your indulgence,” Robin answered, puffing. “My father still suffers from his bereavement.”
The Duchess’s resistance lessened. “But it’s more than a year, now…”
“Some take longer to heal than others, Duchess, and my father was extremely attached to my mother.”
“You don’t have to tell me that!” the Duchess sniffed. After all, she had propositioned Rory three times down through the years, and he had never once shown the slightest inkling of infidelity.
Robin reflected that his father probably could have avoided the whole conflict if he had just flirted a bit with the Duchess, too. On the other hand, he might have had to do more than flirt. “But the dinner gong really is sounding, Duchess.” He gave the nearest robot a meaningful glare, and it flashed a radio message to the domo-bot, which promptly rolled over to strike the gong. “And I really do wish to take you in to dinner.”
“Well, if you insist,” the Duchess muttered, and began to move of her own accord, while Robin reflected that the sins of the fathers might not be visited upon the heads of the sons, but their penances certainly were.
But the climax of the evening came when Rory sat down next to Lady Prone against the wall in the ballroom, about two in the morning. Exactly what passed between them, nobody knew, but they could hear her gay peals of laughter, and could see his hand on her knee. Robin hurried toward them, and saw Baron Prone closing from another direction, but Rory was saying, “You cannot blame me, when you persist in being so tempting, Madame!”
“La, sir! I’m far too ripened for such talk, and I’ll never…”
“Never see twenty again? No you won’t, but you’ve come into your prime now, Veronica. Your hair is so rich an auburn, your lips as sweet as cherries! Your eyes are the night sky, and I wish to become your astronaut!”
“Oh, do you, sir?” Lady Prone swayed closer to him. “I have always preferred older men! Come, can your velocity match my ardor?”
But before the Count could start matching velocities, Robin came up, caroling, “Ah, Lady Prone! So there you are!”
The lady started, then glared up at him. “I am as I have always been, sir!”
“Indeed, and the very picture of loveliness…” Rory began, but Robin turned to him with a firm smile. “Pater, you have wronged your squire.”
Rory stiffened, glaring at him. “Wronged! Why, how say you, sirrah?”
“You have left him to the mercies of the maidservants, milord, and they are making sport of him.”
Fess had extremely good hearing. He ambled a few steps away to place himself strategically between two servitors.
“The devil you say!” Rory looked up, glaring, and saw the tableau. “Why, the shameless hussies! Know they not the obligations of chivalry?” Thus reminding himself, he turned back to Lady Prone. “Your pardon, milady, but duty calls.”
“What? Why…” But by the time the lady figured it out, Rory was already halfway across the room. She could only turn her indignation on Robin. “How rude of you to interfere, sir! You have spoiled the most delightful encounter I have had in years!”
“I am truly sorry, milady.” Robin bowed low. “But the obligations of propriety…”
“Obligations of nonsense! What was this fluff about ‘maidservants’?”
“It was, um, a sort of family code,” Robin improvised. Fortunately, young Baron Prone came up just them, saying cheerfully, “Did you know it’s two in the morning? Really, I’m afraid we must be off home! …So good of you to intervene, d’Armand. …Now, really, you’ll take a chill; we must fetch our cloaks…”
And he bustled away with his grandmother, taking her home unmolested, if disgusted.
Rose came up just in time to prop Robin up as the air went out of him in a sigh of relief.
“A little to the left, there… yes, that’s it.” Rupert relaxed with a soft moan as the robot placed the icebag just right.
“What was that wretched stuff you forced down my throat, Robin?”
“Just the old family remedy, Rupert. I should think you’d recognize the flavor by now.”
“I’ve never had it before,” Elaine groaned. “You could have warned me, Rose!”
“Ah, but if I had, you might not have taken it, Elaine—and you did need it.”
“Certainly I did! What was left for me but intoxication, after the Count made such a shambles of my ball?”
“Oh, the last hour was really quite pleasant,” Rose assured her.