“Lord—” Henry winced at the shout that shredded clean through his voice. “Lord Lock—” Another hair-raisingscreech. Dear God, surelysomeone was being skinned within. There was simply no other explanation. “She’s expecting me,” he gritted out, torn between slamming his hands over his ears merely to mute the egregiously loud noise, or cutting his losses and fleeing altogether.
“Children!” The shout from within quieted the din at once, and Henry felt his shoulders, which had pinched up about his ears to protect his hearing, drift down once again in relief. Grace’s voice, thank God. “I have a caller,” she said, this time in a milder, sweeter tone. “I’ll thank you to keep the noise to a dull roar, if you don’t mind.”
Footsteps approached the door, and Grace’s face appeared behind the butler. “Thank you, Redding,” she said. “Lord Lockhart has already received Charity’s permission to call upon me. Would you send for tea?”
The butler opened the door to admit him, and Henry tentatively stepped within. “What in the world was that racket?” he asked.
“Ah,” Grace said. “The children were having some sort of disagreement.”
“Adisagreement,” Henry echoed in patent disbelief. “It sounded like a war. Or a massacre.”
“It always does.” She pointed up, and Henry followed the gesture to the landing above the stairs, where five small faces peered down at him with varying degrees of suspicion. “In order,” Grace said, “Mercy’s children, Flora and Sherborne; Felicity’s daughter, Lucy; Charity’s boys, Hugh and Zachary.”
Not one of them appeared to be aged over ten. Had Eliza ever been that loud? He didn’t think so—but then, she’d spent mostof the time in the nursery with her nanny, and then with her governess. Perhaps she would have had cause to be similarly unreserved had she had a clan of cousins to play with.
Grace fisted her hands upon her hips and craned her neck to peer up at her nieces and nephews. “We will be in the drawing room with the door open,” she said. “Do be kind enough to allow me a quarter of an hour of relative peace, won’t you?”
“Yes, Aunt Gracie,” one of the boys mumbled sullenly.
Gracie. The appellation suited her; familiar and sweet. But, then, Grace suited her just as well, with the effortlessly elegant swish of her lavender skirts across the marble floor and the lithe turn she performed as she headed for the drawing room.
He turned to follow along behind her, struggling to draw his gaze away from the smooth roll of her hips, the delectable curve of her arse which even the full skirts of her gown could not conceal.
A queer whistling sound split the air, and a second later something small and hard struck the back of his head and the fell to the floor with an oddplink. Henry paused to gingerly touch the stinging spot at the base of his skull. “What the devil?”
Grace snickered—and so did the band of children standing still upon the landing above. “Peashooter,” she said. “All the children got them as gifts from Uncle Chris last Christmas.”
“He gave weapons to children?” He’d already blurted out the question before he realized the absurdity of it. The mandidseem to be the sort who would, after all.
“Don’t be silly,” she said as she cast open the drawing room door. “Weapons were the Christmas prior, when every child received a clever little folding knife. Most of them were confiscated rather quickly, but not before there was some dreadful damage done to the stair banisters. So you see, the peashooters are rather tame in comparison.”
“The back of my head begs to differ. Which of the little devilsdo you suppose I have to thank for it?”
“Oh, almost certainly Flora. She’s got the best aim of the lot by far. I’ve seen her shoot a bottle off of a fence post at twenty paces.” Grace shot a speaking glance over her shoulder as she sailed into the drawing room. “Don’t cross her,” she warned. “She has always got that peashooter near to hand, and she keeps her pockets crammed full of dried peas. I doubt you could find an infantryman better armed. Ah, here’s Redding.” Grace settled herself upon a couch and gestured to the other side of it for him to sit.
Henry took the seat she indicated, leaving a proper swath of space open between them just as Redding arrived in the doorway, pushing a small cart which bore a tea service.
On Redding’s heels, Tansy sauntered into the room, pausing in the doorway to scent the air briefly and then lick one massive paw as if to make herself presentable for company.
As Redding carefully arranged the tea service—and plates of assorted biscuits, pastries, and tiny sandwiches—upon the table before them, a curious scraping sound came from somewhere overhead, as of a very large piece of furniture being moved. “Surely the children weren’t responsible for that?” he asked.
“No; though I wouldn’t put it past them.” Grace leaned forward to pour a cup of tea as Redding retreated. “My family has tea together at least once a week. The gentlemen usually don’t stay long before they’re off to their club—but still, so many people require a great deal of space and a great number of chairs and tables. The servants are likely arranging furniture to suit. Sugar?”
“And milk, if you don’t mind.” Probably it should have been a relief that the house was so occupied; that there was no chance they could be accused of impropriety, even if they were not, strictly speaking, beneath constant watch. Instead it struck him with disappointment.
“You brought flowers?” she asked as she handed over the tea cup on its saucer.
“Oh. Yes.” He’d forgotten the bouquet he’d tucked beneath his arm on his way in. “I didn’t know what you preferred, but roses seemed a safe choice. And I brought a book—”
Her nose wrinkled as she accepted the bouquet, gently setting it atop the table beside the teapot. “Don’t say poetry, I beg you.”
“Of course it’s poetry. I thought it best to make a good show of it. Does poetry offend you?”
“Not in and of itself, but one does weary of hearing the same verses recited time and time again,” she said. “Once, a gentleman attempted to pass off Byron as his own to me. Can you imagine it? Byron!” A little huff of indignation puffed across her lips. “I suppose he thought I would not know the difference.”
The revelation that she had had other callers did not surprise him, exactly. Whatever her origins might have been, Grace was a beautiful woman, with a great number of advantageous connections to several wealthy and aristocratic families, and with an outrageous dowry, besides.
But it did spark some odd, ugly emotion behind the cage of ribs. Something that felt unpleasantly like jealousy. How many gentlemen had sat precisely where he sat now? Had she refused them, or had they refused her?
