Georgie shook her head. “Is this your normal method of solving a problem, my lord? Shouting it down?”
He glared. “It has certainly worked the last ten years!”
She did her best to smile. “Yes, but I am not bound by any oath to listen to it.”
He leaned in a bit. “Nor am I bound by any social convention to stay around and listen toyou.”
She couldn’t help herself. “Is it that you are afraid you’ll lose the money,” she demanded, “Or the argument?”
She actually silenced him for a moment. She knew it wasn’t going to last long, and when it was past the windows would rattle. “My lord...Grey…”
He slashed a hand through the air. “Enough!”
“Stop it!” a voice piped up from the doorway. “Stop yelling at her!”
Georgie whipped around to see they had company. She thought she had never seen anything so brave. Two little girls, who she suspected had long suffered from someone’s temper, stood foursquare in the doorway, clutching each other’s hands like a lifeline, their features sickly pale and their eyes full of tears. Facing the man who now had the power over their lives in order to protect her.
She would have run to hold them if Greyville hadn’t got there first. Suddenly he was on his knees, his arms around them both, holding them close. Georgie thought her own heart would explode.
“What is this?” he asked, letting an arm loose to wipe at small tears. “Lady Georgiana’s personal army?”
Sophie sucked in a shaky breath. “You...you….”
“I was yelling,” he said, his voice unspeakably gentle. “I know. I am too used to yelling. The army is a noisy place, and that is how we get each other’s attention. It doesn’t mean anything. Does it, Lady Georgiana?”
He didn’t even look her way. He didn’t need to. “Remember I said that there were ten children in my house?” she asked the girls. “Well, the truth is that with everybody else who lives there, eighteen people wander in and out of my house all the time. And that’s without the servants. So, you can imagine how noisy it gets there. Yelling does not frighten me.”
Sophie straightened, her head back. “It doesn’t frighten me either. But sometimes it scares Amelia. ’Cause she’s little.”
Georgie stepped closer and crouched alongside Greyville. “Then his lordship and I will practice our quiet voices until Amelia is more comfortable.”
Greyville got to his feet. “Oh, I’m not sure I can do soft, Sophie. I sound like I’m growling.”
Amelia giggled, the sound like sparkles on the sea. “Just like Bark.”
“Bark?” Georgie asked, accepting Greyville’s hand to stand beside him.
Sophie put two fingers to her lips and whistled. The wolfhound skidded into the room, nearly toppling both girls and Georgie, who thanked heavens she was used to large animals.
“Sit, you silly,” Sophie told him.
He sat right next to her, his tongue lolling, his shaggy head above Amelia’s. Georgie noticed that he didn’t look to the girls. His focus was entirely on Greyville.
“I’m glad you have Bark,” Georgie told the girls. “That way yelling won’t scare Amelia so much. Because Bark would never let anyone hurt you, would he?”
“Not anymore.”
Oh, God. Much more time with these two would shatter Georgie.
“Then make sure you keep him with you,” she said. “Isn’t that right, Lord Greyville?”
“Indeed.” Even his voice sounded a little thin. She suspected he had caught the girls’ body language long before she had.
“Now, girls…and Bark,” he said, giving them each a formal little bow. “May Lady Georgiana and I have a few more moments to talk? I promise we will not yell.”
Georgie wasn’t sure he should make promises that would be so hard to keep, especially considering what she still needed to say.
Sophie considered both adults with her brittle, wise eyes, and finally nodded. “We still have one cinnamon roll. But prob’ly not for long.”
