Lady in the Stray Read Online Free

benches placed on either side of the hearth, her raddled features stretched into a malicious grin. “Don’t you trust me, varlet? Or do you think if I discover Marmaduke’s treasure, I may not be disposed to share? You may just be right.”
    Orphanstrange was too much the diplomat to respond to these remarks. To Minette, he suggested that their spirits might be uplifted by a meal of soup and bread. “I’m hungry!” announced Delphine, whose hearing was on occasion excellent. Her gaze, as it rested upon Orphanstrange, was not especially friendly. “Mugwump!”
    Minette’s spirits were not the least bit elevated by the simple repast she set out upon the large gateleg table drawn up between the two benches in front of the fireplace. Minette preferred more exotic fare, such as Russian caviar and Spanish olives, reindeer tongue from Lapland and brandied blackberries. She plopped down upon the bench opposite Delphine.
    That ancient turned her malicious attention upon her plate. “Stab me! What’s this pap?”
    Minette knew she would never earn her living as a cook, but at least this time the meal had not burned. “It’s the only food you’ll get in this kitchen. I don’t care a fig if you don’t wish to eat it. But you can’t blame me if you starve!”
    Once more Orphanstrange stepped into the breach, although he privately agreed with Delphine about the quality of the soup. It was fit only for paupers— which, in point of fact, they were. “We have little time,” he pointed out. “Master Marmaduke’s heiress will come to claim her legacy any day. At which time we’ll all three be without a roof over our heads.”
    “And without further opportunity to discover Marmaduke’s treasure.” With a notable lack of enthusiasm, Minette plunged a spoon into her own soup.
    “You two may be without a roof over your heads, but I shan’t.” Dislike as she might her meal, Delphine attacked it with gusto, in the process liberally splashing soup upon her zebra-striped skirt. “I don’t mean to be turned out. I can go on comfortably enough no matter who’s living in the house, and they’ll never know I’m here, because no stranger will ever find his way about.”
    That was true enough; Mountjoy House was a veritable warren of tunnels and passages and secret rooms. One of these latter, hidden among the attics, Delphine had claimed for herself. The old woman would be better housed in Bedlam, Minette thought.
    She propped her plump elbows rather rudely on the table. “I don’t see why you should be allowed to stay!” she protested. “A poor relative handed down from one generation to the next. Marmaduke didn’t invite you to live here with him. The truth is he inherited you!”
    “I am family.” Having disposed of quite half the loaf of bread and a large amount of soup, Delphine leaned back on her bench and emitted a genteel belch. “Not some graceless tatterdemalion who cozened an old reprobate to take her in off the streets.”
    Minette was quick to defend her benefactor: “Marmaduke wasn’t old! And I wasn’t on the streets.” She nibbled on a knuckle. “Not really. Marmaduke was très sympathique.”
    “Marmaduke,” retorted Delphine with every appearance of enjoyment, “was très bacon-brained.”
    Before the ladies could be carried away by the heat of their mutual antagonism, as frequently happened, Orphanstrange put forth the suggestion that Marmaduke’s heiress might be compassionate.
    “ ‘Compassionate’?” Delphine settled herself even more comfortably upon the bench. “You think that the wench won’t turn us out? Fiddlestick! Of course she will—and so would you if the shoe were on your foot.”
    “Oh! We must look all the harder for Marmaduke’s treasure,” sighed Minette.
    “How we are plunged into grief!” Delphine yawned. Before Minette could respond, her eyes closed, and she slipped slowly sideways.
    “Ma foi! Again she sleeps,” exclaimed Minette in disgust. “I am sorely