Lucien spoke up.“We need to shake the dust from the road.I, for one, want a bath, and I expect Brat will as well.Some light repast wouldn’t come amiss either, since we’ve only had road food for the last three days.”
“We’ll be having tea in an hour.You can be ready by then,” Miranda said.
Lucien was about to protest, then shut his mouth.“Of course, my dear,” he said eventually.He cast a speaking glance at his son, but Brat merely smiled.If that smile was diabolical, no one was surprised.
Lucien presented himself, freshly washed and dressed, to the grand salon in exactly one hour, but there was no sign of his eldest son.The rest of the family had assembled, including Brandon and Emma, Benedick and Melisande, though he could never keep himself from thinking of her as Charity.After greetings and back slaps and air kisses were exchanged, he glanced at his wife, expecting a look of tragic disappointment on her face, but she seemed entirely peaceful.He soon found out why.
“James is having tea in the nursery,” she announced from her seat behind the massive tea service.“The children discovered he was here and they weren’t about to let him go.”
“They adore him,” Emma said, not sounding pleased about it.“I expect the baby will be the same.”
“No one ever said children were great judges of character,” Benedick said wryly.
“I disagree,” Miranda said with only the trace of an edge to her melodious voice.“Children see through the artifice of polite society into the true heart of someone.So do animals, and the spaniels are besotted with him.”
“Humph,” said Benedick, not willing to concede a point.“How long is the dear boy staying?”No one was fooled by his phrasing.
“As long as I can keep him,” Miranda replied, the edge in her voice growing stronger.
Lucien, seldom the diplomat, broke through the tension.“And glad we all are to have him join us,” he said heartily.
“Hear, hear,” Brandon muttered.
ChapterTwo
Genevieve Lancaster sat crammedin the tiny carriage, cushioned by Penelope and Hortensia Rohan, her charges, as her employers lounged on the opposite seat, bickering as always.She was coming to the end of her three-year employment with the twin daughters of Charles and Annis Rohan, and she was looking forward to her upcoming escape with real enthusiasm.Not that she minded the girls—they were good ones, warm-hearted, friendly, unlike their difficult parents.Their mother was captious, always complaining, and her criticism of her daughters was ongoing.Her husband was worse.
Charles Rohan was under the mistaken impression he’d been put on this earth to correct the shortcomings of those around him, usually with misquoted Bible verses.Since Jenny was the young widow of a vicar, she was much more knowledgeable about the Bible than Charles purported to be, and it set her teeth on edge whenever he misquoted Galatians or mangled Hebrews.
The girls were to make their debut in the spring, and she was no longer needed to herd them into society.She’d done her job well, and the two of them were sweet, pretty-behaved young women who were bound to make a success of their hunt for a husband.
Her own future was less sure.She intended to spend a few months with her aunt Dorothy, reading and enjoying herself and the simple fact that she wasn’t under Charles Rohan’s roof anymore.Come spring, she’d presumably find a new position, though her aunt would have preferred her to stay on.But Jenny was an independent soul, and she hated to be dependent on anyone.
“I’m cold,” Annis Rohan complained, eying Jenny as if to blame her.She hadn’t taken Jenny giving notice well, and she’d been full of jabs and whines ever since.“You forgot to pack my gray shawl.”
“You’re wearing your gray shawl, Lady Rohan,” she murmured, undaunted.“Your maid packed it for you.”
Annis plucked at the layers of scarves and shawls around her plump figure, extracting the gray one.“I fail to see why we have to head north at Christmastime.It’s cold enough in London—the lakes make the weather icy.”
“We haven’t spent Christmas with my family in years,” Charles announced in his strident tones.“Since this is the last year we’ll have a governess for the girls, I intend to enjoy myself and check to see how my brothers are doing.”
“Couldn’t we have done it some year when we weren’t all gathering at the Scorpion’s house?”Annis said plaintively.“You know he’s completely insupportable, and his ghastly son is even worse.It’s been so long since we’ve seen them that chances are the younger sons are following in their brother’s footsteps.”
“No one could follow in Brat’s footsteps,” Charles said.“That much evil in a young man could hardly be duplicated.”
“Brat isn’t evil, Papa,” Hortensia spoke up.The two girls were among the few who dared contradict their father, for what little good it did them.“He’s just a rake.”
“What would you know of rakes?”Charles thundered.“Miss Lancaster, what have you been teaching my daughters?”
Jenny plastered a smile on her face.The senior Rohans’ refusal to address her by her married title was just another of the small indignities that rankled.“I’m afraid I’m unacquainted with their cousin, so I could hardly have taught them anything.Will we be seeing him at Pawlfrey House?”
“If fate is extremely unkind.You are to keep the girls away from him at all costs.They must give him the cut direct if he tries to ingratiate himself with them.”
“Brat doesn’t have time for us, Papa,” Penelope said calmly.“And we could never be that rude in Aunt Miranda’s house.”
“It’s your Uncle Lucien’s house, more’s the pity.”
“The Scorpion,” Hortensia said knowledgeably, and Jenny wanted to groan.She’d heard the stories about the girls’ wayward uncle, just as she’d heard about his devilish son.Christmas was bound to be quite lively if either of those two gentlemen were as bad as Charles Rohan decreed.
