“But—”
“We could serve tea, chocolate, and coffee.”
The room as a whole gasped, and several other men rose, backing away from her.
Maddie raised her hands. “Very well. No coffee, then. What if we had punch instead?”
Several veterans began scrambling over one another, trying to get behind the chairs and couches farther away from her. Maddie, desperate, held up a hand. “Fine! No punch. We could have—”
Behind her she heard a distinctive grunting sound and turned on her heel to find Blackjack pushing his nose into her dress.
Maddie smiled. “Oh, this is what you were afraid of. I thought it was the coffee.”
Without thinking, she reached down and patted the bear’s wet nose, and the room erupted into pandemonium. Soldiers were rushing to get away from her and Blackjack, but all their canes and crutches had hooked together and Lieutenant Beebe fell over Colonel Shivers, knocking a lamp down in the process. Captain Roberts hopped on his peg leg, and another man, who did not seem to be an invalid and who Maddie speculated had joined the society only for the tea and biscuits, made loud gasping noises.
Meanwhile Miss Millingham, the society’s fearless leader, was cowering in a corner, and Josie and Catie were laughing and shaking their heads. Maddie frowned at them.
“You needn’t be afraid,” she shouted, trying to calm everyone. “He probably escaped his enclosure again.”
“Oh, I’m not afraid, ma’am,” Lieutenant Beebe told her. “I just remembered an appointment.”
Blackjack grunted.
“A pressing appointment!”
Someone threw open the door and Beebe and Roberts fought each other to be the first to exit. “No fighting!” Maddie cried when a vase teetered on the edge of a table. “Please don’t scare Blackjack.”
Colonel Shivers hobbled past her. She hadn’t realized a man missing so many toes could move that quickly. She caught his sleeve. “So coffee, then, Colonel, or punch?”
Suddenly, the door swung wide, and Maddie knew without looking who had arrived.
“What the devil is going on?”
JACK TOOK A QUICK SURVEY of the room. There were three old men trying desperately to escape; a lamp and two chairs were overturned; his wife’s cousins were sitting on the couch, dissolved in a fit of giggles; and Maddie was pushing the bear behind her. No doubt trying to protect the beast.
From him.
Wise woman. He was in a mood to murder someone.
But it wouldn’t be the bear.
“Who the devil are all these men? Where the hell did they come from?”
Maddie frowned at him. “Don’t talk to me like that in front of our guests.”
“Guests?” Jack saw three men who looked like they’d just come in off a pirate ship. He’d be damned if one of them didn’t have an eye patch and gold hoop earrings. What next? Would he be forced to walk the plank?
“Lord Blackthorne,” Maddie said, “please calm down.”
“Calm down?” How the hell was he supposed to calm down? His wife was driving him mad. First bears, then street urchins, now pirates, and . . .
Jack frowned. Was that a woman hiding under the side table?
“I can see you’re upset,” Maddie was saying. He cocked an eyebrow at her.
She inclined her head. “Very well. I can see you’re angry.”
He advanced on her. “Oh, angry doesn’t begin to describe what I’m feeling right now, madam.” “And that’s your own fault,” she told him, standing her ground, the bear now snuffling a potted fern.
