Page 64 of Better Than a Duke
Oh, that was three rhymes, even if “word” was pronounced a bit differently than the other two. That would be one of the “sight rhymes” Brubbie had mentioned yesterday. More chairs arrived, and she and Eddie pulled a third one up to the table so she could sit. This was already magnificent; she didn’t know how it could possibly be any better than a purple man with impossibly long legs rhyming every sentence he spoke. Hewasa flamingo. A lavender, bald-pated, rhyming flamingo.
“What’s our lesson going to be today?” she asked, just keeping from bouncing in her chair.
Mr. Fredericks cleared his throat and slid a paper across the table to Eddie. “If you would, sir, read what I’ve written there for her.”
Eddie sighed. “He always makes me read instructions if he can’t find a way to make them all rhyme.”
The tutor frowned. “Master Edmund, you’re mistaken; it’s your reading skills I’m attempting to waken.” He gestured at the paper.
“If you don’t want to read it, I will,” Rebecca said, reaching for the paper.
“I’ll do it. I just wanted to point out that he doesn’t rhyme everything.”
“Master Edmund, have you been wagging your tongue? I assure you, once said, words cannot be undone.”
“That doesn’t rhyme. Well, it does a little, but I think you’re just showing off now.”
“Read the instructions, Eddie,” Rebecca urged.
“Fine.” He set the paper on the table and smoothed it out with his hands. “‘For today’s lesson, each child will choose a noun, i.e., a table, a bird, a fox hunt. The other child will then incorporate that noun into a sentence or two, and a rhyme must be involved.’”
Oh, this was going to be marvelous. Immediately she began casting about for nouns that wouldn’t be too difficult to rhyme. If Eddie started throwing words like “oranges” at her, though, they were going to have a fight. “Who goes first?”
“Ladies first,” Edmund said, then grimaced. “Do your worst.”
She laughed. “What if we begin rhyming and can’t stop?”
“We’ll have to risk it.”
“Very well.” She nodded, facing Eddie. “My word for you is ‘coffin.’”
“That’s the first noun you thought of?” he asked, his brows bunching together. “I knew I liked you, Becks.”
“Come on now. ‘Coffin.’”
Eddie took a big breath. “‘Coffin,’” he repeated. “No one likes a coffin; at least we don’t have to lie in one often.”
She clapped. “Magnificent!”
“Well done, young man; make note of the different spellings but same pronunciation if you can.”
Mr. Fredericks made a note on the paper in front of him, probably so they couldn’t cheat and repeat a word they’d already used. He was clever, Mr. Fredericks was. She would have to ask Eddie if he should be included in their plot, or if he would carry tales to Mrs. Silbern. At least they would rhyme. What rhymed with “marriage,” anyway?
“My word for you, Becks, is ‘marriage.’”
Oh! She’d just been thinking that one! She almost told him, but then Papa would think she was starting to like the idea of him marrying Lady Pauline, and that was the last thing she wanted. She would have to be careful about the sentence she chose, anyway. “‘Marriage,’” she repeated. “‘I have no objection to marriage, unless I’m dragged to the church in some rake’s carriage.’”
“Sterling!” Eddie shouted, laughing.
“Excuse me, young lady,” her papa said, the sound of one eyebrow lifting in his voice, “but what, precisely, do you know about rakes?”
“Only what I read on the front page of the newspaper while you’re reading the inside pages.”
“Clearly I’m going to have to stop reading theTimesat the breakfast table.”
“No, you shouldn’t. I learn so many things that way!”
“I think, Master Edmund, that around Lady Becks, all the men here should watch their necks.” The tutor put a hand over his mouth.
