The front door was cast open at his knock not by a butler—which was not strange if only for the fact that Chris doubted that the man could have successfully waded through the throng of people waiting therein to reach it in time—but by a trio of little girls likely between the ages of six and eight.
“Who’re you?” the middle one inquired, glaring up at him mulishly from beneath the fringe of blond bangs that obscured her forehead.
“Mr. Christopher Moore,” he said. “I believe I’m expected.”
The littlest one produced an exemplary scowl. “I don’t like you,” she said. And then she turned and shouted, “AuntiePhoebe! He’s here! He’s here and I don’t like him!”
The tallest of the three plunked her small fists upon her hips. “Did you bring flowers?”
Flowers? Why the devil ought he have broughtflowers? This wasn’t a morning call, where he might have been expected to bring some sort of courting gift. The woman had been secured already—publicly. There wasn’t the least need to curry favor with the use of such things. “No,” he said.
She gave a haughty sniff. “I don’t like you either,” she said.
The urge to snatch the child up by the collar of her dress and give her a good shake was nigh-overwhelming. Chris fisted the handle of his cane instead and strove to remind himself that strangling a small child would hardly make a good impression, regardless of how much said child might’ve deserved it. “Ye don’t got to like me,” he snarled, and the child’s eyes widened at the abrupt shift of his speech. “But yedogot to let me in.”
“Victorias!” The strident call sailed over the gaggle of children clustered in the foyer, and then—there was Phoebe, wending her way through the throng. All three of the girls blocking his path turned to look. “Whatever are you doing? You know you’re not meant to answer the door.”
“He didn’t bring flowers!” the tallest said defensively. “He’s supposed to—”
“He’s supposed to be admitted properly,” Phoebe said, fixing a stern look upon the child. “We don’t keep callers waiting upon the steps.”
With a chorus of aggrieved sighs, the children—little more than bridge trolls, really, attempting to exact a toll from him—backed away from the door, allowing him just enough space to slide inside. “Victorias?” he inquired of Phoebe.
“All three of them. Collectively, we call them the Victorias,” Phoebe said, in a vaguely-harassed tone of voice. “Victoria,” she said, indicating the tallest, “then Vicky. And then Tory. There’s aVictor, too, but he’s just six months old.”
“Good God.”
With a sort of effortless grace that could only have come of years of practice, she ushered the children off. “It does simplify things a bit. There’s five Williams, four Elizabeths, and three Davids, too. Across twenty-seven cousins, there’s just eleven names in total, so you’ve got a halfway decent chance of getting them right. Would you care to come in?”
“At the moment, I’m reconsidering. Seems a bit cramped.” And undeniably hostile. “I’m surprised I wasn’t greeted with a weapon.” Though that wasn’t saying much. The swarm of children that had coalesced within were somewhat more threatening than the business end of a pistol might’ve been. He found himself wondering just how many he could take in a proper fight. His bad knee was no doubt a liability, but the cane would serve as a reasonable improvised weapon—
“Tea?” Phoebe inquired, lifting her voice to be heard above the swell of the children’s chatter as she shepherded him into what must be the drawing room.
“With this many children about?” Chris asked, suppressing a shiver as they passed through the door. “Best make it whisky.” And here were therestof the Toogoods, all crammed into a drawing room too small to comfortably contain half their number, taking up every last available seat and a good deal of the floor space besides. “Best make it quite a lot of whisky,” he amended.
Every one of them looked like they’d rather enjoy taking him outside and beating the stuff out of him. Even the women. Maybe especially the women.
Phoebe was trying very hard to hold back a grimace. “At this hour of the morning,” she said. “I mean to say, I don’t think—tea would really be—”
“No, no.” This, from who could only be the patriarch of theclan. “Whisky sounds like just the thing. Haven’t got enough teapots to accommodate all of us, anyway. Baxter, would you be so kind?”
How the butler meant to navigate the seething mass of children outside the room was beyond Chris, but the man seemed to be bracing himself for the battle, and so Chris sidled to the side to allow him to pass.
“Now,” said Papa Toogood, summoning a bit of firmness to his chin. “I believe we have much to discuss.”
“I’d rather wait for the whisky. Few too many Toogoods on hand to be comfortable without it.” It had been the wrong thing to say, and he’d known it from the very moment the words had crossed his lips. But then, given the circumstances, Chris doubted very much whether there had been arightthing to say.
Papa Toogood had not appreciated this. His brows lowered over his narrowed eyes, and his cheeks puffed with a surfeit of words that he was no doubt too well-bred to give voice to, however much he might have liked to do so. “Yes, well, perhaps you ought to have thought of that before you placed my daughter in the position of needing to wed with all haste.”
“A swift wedding is the obvious remedy for that,” Chris said.
“Swift is as swift does,” Papa Toogood said, with a frown. “As you cannot secure a special license—”
“Of course I can.”
A bark of incredulous laughter broke from the couch nearby. The man who had issued it had the look of Phoebe about his eyes. The brother, Chris though—Laurence, if he recalled correctly. “How could you possibly?” the man asked. “You’ve got to be a peer, or the child of one.” The tiniest sneer touched the corners of his mouth, and his nose lifted as if he’d caught a whiff of something foul. “Thelegitimatechild of one.”
It wasn’t the first time a member of the aristocracy had rubbed his face in his bastardy. It wouldn’t likely be the last. Buthe was going to have to let the charge pass without a physical confrontation, even if his knuckles ached with the effort to restrain himself. “I’ve killed men for less,” he said casually, and watched the color drain from the man’s face. “I’m not quite so sensitive about the circumstances of my birth, you understand,” he added. “It’s just that I have a certain reputation to uphold. So knocking a few of your teeth in wouldn’t be personal, really. Only necessary for keeping up appearances.” He lifted his cane in his hand and jabbed the bottom tip at the viscount’s son. “Even I know that a gentleman does not sit while a lady stands. Offer your mother your seat.”
