“I do not care,” I retorted and again turned my attention to Josette. “I forbid this to happen.”
“Franka,” Noc clipped as Josette’s entire expression fell.
I again looked to Noc.
“Josette was not a common servant with no one to look after her even when she was a servant,” I bit out. “She’s a young woman of means with family who cares for her. Thus, he will behave like she is as such, which means he will behave appropriately. In other words, he’ll arrive at Valentine’s home at seven tomorrow to sit with us for drinks and dinner. Through this time spent with him, I’ll understand what he does to make his living. I’ll ask questions to ascertain his moral character. I’ll observe his behavior toward Josette. And only then will I allow the possibility of a future dinner date. This being after he’s proved himself a gentleman in his intentions toward Josette once we’ve spent some time with him and he has our approval.”
Noc stared down at me.
I looked to Josette.
“Telephone him back and share this,” I ordered.
Josette stared at me.
“Sweetheart, that’s not how it’s done in this world,” Noc told me.
I returned my gaze to him. “This matters not to me.”
“The dude is gonna think you’re crazy, worse, he’s gonna think Jo’s crazy and he’s totally gonna beg off.”
My brows snapped together. “Why on earth would he do that?”
“Because, Frannie, this is not how it’s done in this world,” he answered. “A guy likes a girl, he texts her, calls her, asks her out, takes her to dinner, gets to know her better. They like each other, that keeps happening. Beyond that,” his eyes slid to Josette and back to me, “we won’t go there right now.”
I considered this information.
Then I turned to Josette and decreed, “Fine. Then telephone him back and share that Noc and I will be attending this dinner with you.”
Josette’s mouth dropped open.
“Frannie…” My name from Noc’s lips was shaking with mirth.
I scowled at Noc finding nothing amusing.
“What?” I clipped.
“You can’t invite yourself on a double date if the guy didn’t ask us along, especially on a first date.”
My voice was rising. “Why not?”
He shook his head, his amusement plain. “You just can’t.”
“Then who’s going to look after her?” I demanded to know.
Noc’s amusement didn’t leave but the warmth in his expression heightened.
“We’ll make sure she texts us, tells us where she is, how she’s getting on, when he brings her safe home.” He looked to Josette. “That cool with you?”
“Definitely!” she chirped.
“It’s not cool with me,” I put in and Noc looked to me.
“He’s not asking you out,” he noted.
I continued scowling at him before I made a decision. “All right, then we shall go to this same restaurant and sit at another table so we’ll be close in case anything untoward happens or I observe something that displeases me in his behavior, or Josette needs me.”
Noc started chuckling as he got close and curved an arm around me.
Tipping his head down, he said quietly, “Right, Momma Bear, the gig is, you’re gonna have to let your little cub explore on her own eventually. I met the guy. We talked for a while. He seemed good to me. If he wasn’t, if I got a bad vibe from him, anything, I’d be the one throwing a wrench in on his action. But what I got from him, I liked. And what Jo got from him, she liked. So you’re just gonna have to stand down.”
I did not wish to stand down.
I stared into Noc’s eyes.
I turned my head toward Josette and saw the hope and excitement shining in hers.
Blast!
“Tell him he has you home by ten,” I demanded.
Noc burst into laughter.
Josette’s face became wreathed in smiles.
With the side of his fist under my chin, Noc turned my face to his and tipped it up so he could drop a short kiss on my lips.
When he finished doing that, he looked to Josette.
“I’ll talk her into letting you have until midnight,” he said.
Well!
“Now I gotta teach you two something else women do in this world,” Noc continued, no longer sounding entertained, now sounding beleaguered. “That being the fact that a woman has a first date with a guy, she uses it as an excuse to buy a new outfit. You both got more new outfits than you can get through in a month. But I’m thinking none of them at this point are the right one for dinner with Glover.”
“You’re correct, Noc, I’ve been going through all of them in my head since I said yes, and Frannie, we must find something he will most like to see me in,” Josette declared.
Gods, now Josette was calling me Frannie.
I sighed.
But she was quite right.
Nothing we’d bought previously would do.
Thus it was time to get to work.
* * * * *
“Have you lost your mind?”
Much later, after Josette had insisted Noc and I have an evening alone together, we left her at Valentine’s and returned to Noc’s where I now sat on the sofa staring up at him standing in front of me holding one glass of wine (mine, which he had halted in delivering to me after I’d said what I’d just said) and one bottle of ale (his).
“No, I have not,” I pointed out the obvious.
“You are not gonna do that,” he declared, still standing several feet away from me and not offering me my glass. “More, I’m not gonna do that, but you definitely aren’t gonna do that so to make myself perfectly clear, we are not gonna do that.”