“Which was a dreadful pattern inherited from her grandmother and no great loss. Ah, good day, Alain.” Father reached out and clasped Arnaud’s wrist. “Have you been keeping this rapscallion in line?”
“If only it were possible.” Arnaud smiled, though his usual frown overtook his features a moment later when two neighborhood boys maneuvered a large wooden box off the wagon.
Father lunged forward. “Careful, boys! Those are beakers—glass, very fragile. They go to the library.”
His library? Thad scrubbed a hand over his face. “If so much as a thread of my favorite rug is bleached, burned, or otherwise irritated by your chemicals—”
“If you would prefer we stay with your sister, I can crate it all back up.” Father shot him an innocent smile.
Thad narrowed his eyes. “By all means. Stay with Philly.”
The innocence gave way to mischief. “We would, but then I would be fighting her for space in my own laboratory. Besides, your—Jack, careful!”
Thad and Arnaud turned in time to see the four-year-old barrel through the front door. He ran directly between the two young men and under the box of beakers and didn’t stop until he had tossed himself at Father, screaming all the while, “Grandpapa, Grandpapa!”
Father scooped him up with a laugh and set him atop his shoulders. “Jack, my boy, one of these days you will give me such a fright I shall simply keel over.”
Jack laughed with all the maniacal glee of any boy of four and slapped his hands to his would-be grandfather’s cheeks. “I missed you.”
“And I you, you little imp. Your grandmama tells me you will be staying with us while your papa goes to sea.”
“Yea!” Jack threw his arms up. And apparently tightened his legs around Father’s neck to compensate, given the shade of red his face turned. “We all get to stay at Uncle Thad’s house!”
“It will be a veritable holiday.” Thad tugged on the boy’s foot, well remembering how it felt to be atop Father’s shoulders. Now he had to climb a mast to get that same sensation.
If only he had an excuse to do so. He nudged Arnaud with his elbow. “You can stay and visit. I can take the Demain out for you.”
His friend shot him a glare.
Father laughed. “Your mother would…” His voice trailed off, his gaze on the street. A look of awkwardness took over his face, so that it was no surprise when he muttered out a low, “Ladies. Good day.”
Thad pivoted as the clip-clop of hooves penetrated his consciousness, and then he tipped his hat to the four ladies within the phaeton that rolled past. “Good day, Miss Rhodes, Miss Margaret, Miss Georgiana.” The stair-step sisters smiled at him, but his gaze went to their mother. When he had bought the house on this street, Mrs. Rhodes had been a bright woman, full of laughter and plots to pair him with one of her daughters, but in recent weeks her face had taken on lines of worry that deepened every time he saw her.
With a few long strides he matched pace with the slow-moving carriage. “Mrs. Rhodes, have you heard the latest stories from the sea? A British frigate was engaged in a most remarkable chase a fortnight ago and lost to one of Baltimore’s own privateers.”
The woman’s eyes lit up, and a few years fell from her face. “The Dragon, Captain Lane?”
“Without question. My friends do not use names lest the British intercept the missives, but the description was sure. Your husband and son are proving an invaluable menace.”
Mrs. Rhodes pressed a hand to her lips as her daughters erupted into a symphony of excited babbling. He kept his gaze on the matron, however, and lifted his hand to wave them beyond his lawn.
She lowered her hand enough to call out, “Bless you, Captain! Come by tomorrow. I shall have a pie for you!”
Arnaud snorted. “As I brought you that news, ’tis I who should get the pie.”
“Very well. You lay claim to the pie, and I shall lay claim to the sea.” He turned back around, his brows arched.
Arnaud made a show of debating and then grinned. “Enjoy your pastry, mon ami.”
They started back for the walkway, where Father stood shaking his head. Thad could hardly resist sending him a crooked smirk. “You can join me for the pie, Father. Enjoy an afternoon with Mrs. Rhodes and her daughters.”
Father narrowed his eyes. “How can you speak so easily to those baffling creatures? Sometimes I wonder from whence you came, Thaddeus.”
Laughter filled his throat and spilled out. “If you had not figured that out by the third child…”
“Thaddeus!”
His mother’s voice tugged him toward the door and made the smile stretch wider on his face. He jogged her way, arms wide.