There was a collective gasp as everyone stepped closer to peek inside.
“Good heavens,” Imogen whispered, clutching her hands together. “I have never seen such a thing in all my days!”
“Ah! They’re real monsters!” Arthur shrieked, his face lighting up with pure, unadulterated, and childlike joy. “Look at their armor! They’re sea knights!”
Jennings peered into the crate, his nose wrinkling as he sniffed. “There is a note, Your Grace.” He gingerly extracted a damp piece of parchment with two fingers, which he then read aloud.
Ambrose, please give these to the boys. Tell them the one with the chipped shell is named Charlemagne and the other is the Sun King. Don’t let the cook boil them until the boys have had a race.
Cheers,
Morgan.
“A race,” Ambrose repeated, the word sounding foreign in his mouth. “A race?”
“A race!” Arthur and Philip echoed in deafening harmony. “We must race the lobsters!”
Before Ambrose could protest, Jennings, who apparently possessed a hidden reservoir of mischief, had already tipped the crate forward. With a wetthud, the two giant crustaceans landed on the marble floor.
“Jennings!” Ambrose barked authoritatively, though he instinctively stepped back as Charlemagne began a slow,sideways scuttle toward his boots. “I expected more decorum from you!”
“I believe King Charlemagne is making a break for the dining room, Your Grace,” Jennings remarked with a deadpan expression, stepping nimbly out of the way.
“What in the devil is going on in here?” Mrs. Higgins said as she stepped into the hallway, which erupted into chaos.
The boys were on their hands and knees instantly, cheering and barking directions at the bewildered shellfish. Imogen, caught between a laugh and a look of sheer horror, tried to keep the boys from getting too close to the waving claws.
“Lord Arthur, please do not pet the crustaceans!” she cried, though her eyes danced with a lightness as a small chuckle came from her lips.
Ambrose stood frozen, watching the spectacle. He looked at his pristine foyer, now a mess of melted ice and seaweed. He looked at Jennings, who was still imperceptibly smirking.
If Father could only see me and his grandsons now.
Finally, his gaze landed on Imogen once more. She was flushed, her hair beginning to escape its pins as she corralled the boys. The suffocating tension he felt about his enigmatic governess in his chest snapped.
“Jennings,” Ambrose said, his voice cutting through the hullabaloo.
“Yes, Your Grace?”
“Gather the other footmen. Tell them we shall be having… a maritime derby in the long gallery.” Ambrose’s lips quirked, just a fraction. “And tell the cook that dinner will be delayed. Charlemagne has a lead on the competition.”
Imogen looked up then, her gaze meeting his. The distance she had maintained so carefully vanished in a shared moment of ridiculousness, which he reveled in. She didn’t curtsey. She simply gave him a wide, genuine smile.
“I believele Roi Soleilis winning now, Your Grace,” she called out over the boys’ cheers, her green eyes meeting his.
Ambrose adjusted his coat, a ghost of a smile finally reaching his eyes. “We shall see who wins, Miss Lewis. We shall see.”
Chapter Twelve
“Now, remember,” Imogen called out as the twins crouched by the edge of a cluster of ferns. “The structure of the leaf tells us how it drinks. Look for the veins.”
The following afternoon, the sun hung low and golden over Hyde Park, casting long, elegant shadows across the manicured lawns. Imogen had declared it a day for applied sciences, which mostly served as a thin veil for letting Arthur and Philip run off their boundless energy. The excursion served multiple ends.
Philip was diligent, tracing a finger over a broad leaf that was beginning to brown in the autumn sun, but Arthur was more interested in the damp earth beneath it. He was poking a stick into a hole, his brow furrowed.
“Miss Lewis?” Philip asked, looking up. He hesitated, his small face unusually serious. “Do you like Uncle Ambrose?”
Imogen, who had been adjusting the ribbons of her bonnet to fend off the cold, froze. The suddenness of the question sent a hot, prickly flush creeping up her neck, banishing the chill in an instant.
