Ondine by Ebony McKenna Read Free Book Online

argy-bargy?
    Ondine cajoled her father again. At times she felt like exploding with frustration. ‘Please let me go, Da.’
    â€˜We both know someone out there . . .’ her father pointed in the direction of the train station, as if theydidn’t know where it was ‘. . . wants to kill the Duke. It’s dangerous. What kind of father would I be if I exposed my daughter to that kind of peril? The safest thing for us to do is to stay here.’
    Was he being deliberately daft? If Ondine’s eyes could roll any further into her head, she’d be looking into her brain. As much as she tried to keep a cool head, her pulse skipped up a notch and her clenched fists wanted to pummel something. ‘You’ve got it all wrong, Da. Nobody’s going to be interested in us. We’ll stay out of the way. I want to see the people who planned this get caught. I want to see them hauled away, and when that happens, it might be nice if the Duke perhaps caught sight of us and acknowledged our help.’
    â€˜You mean if Lord Vincent caught sight of you,’ Josef countered.
    â€˜You’re impossible!’ Ondine clenched and unclenched her fists in impotent fury. Up until this point, she hadn’t even thought of Vincent. Well, not much anyway, and what chance he’d even be there? Pretty slim, she suspected.
    â€˜It’s a fiddler’s biddin’ 22 then,’ Shambles said behind her ear, which didn’t help at all.
    â€˜I thought you’d have a bit more natural curiosity about you.’ Ondine tried one more time to bend her father’s will to her own. ‘We spent all that time last night warning him, and now you’re not even interested to see how it turns out? What if by being there, we can stop it somehow? There could even be a reward in it for you.’
    â€˜Aye, and then yer arse’ll fall awf!’ 23 Shambles said, rumbling with laughter.
    A terse silence filled the kitchen, broken only by the sound of Chef cracking eggs into the poaching pan.
    Her father practically glowered at her. ‘You’re that keen, aren’t you? Fine, we’ll go, but we’re not staying more than half an hour. Then it’s straight back to work for you.’
    Tension fell away from Ondine’s shoulders, making her feel taller and lighter. ‘Thank you, Da.’ She kissedhim firmly on the cheek, then gave him a huge hug, nearly knocking Shambles off her shoulder in the process. A broad smile split her face. ‘This is going to be so exciting!’
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    17 Filthy and disgusting. Like armpits and roadkill.
    18 Leftovers from the stove. Builds up the immune system.
    19 The average age for a first marriage in Brugel is one of the lowest in Europe. It’s 22.4 for men and 21.1 for women, so Marguerite is bang on average. In Poland it is 26.2 for men, 23 for women. Sweden is 32.9 for men, 30.4 for women. Brugel’s positively medieval welfare system for single parents also makes it a more secure option for a woman to be in a marriage before having children. There is no single-parent pension. Somebody really should do something about it.
    The link between early age of first marriage and lack of anything decent on television is yet to be proved.
    20 ‘Stoat the ba’’ is when a man and a woman love each other very much and have a very special cuddle. Only in this case the woman is very young and isn’t yet legally supposed to be having those sorts of cuddles. And the man is well aware of that fact.
    21 Chefs work long and odd hours. They are awake at night and catch up on sleep during the day. It’s rare for them to get out much, or to see the sun. Just as you should never trust a thin chef (because if they’re not eating their food, neither should you), you should never trust a chef with a tan.
    22 ‘A fiddler’s biddin’’ is a last-minute invitation.
    23 To say this is flat-out rude. It means