“Grey,” Grey corrected him, trying not to notice that beyond the boy, Georgie had her head back laughing at one of her cousins, baring that delicious white throat. Taunting him without even knowing it.
The boy blinked, assessed, and gave a nod of concession. “Grey. I am Georgie’s brother Harry.”
Dragging his attention back to the task at hand, Grey held out his hand. “Not an archangel?”
The boy’s face cracked into a quick grin as he took it and shook. “No, sir. By the time they got to me they were down to Zachariel, and my mother drew the line. But I am Georgie’s oldest brother here. Our brother Michael is still on the Continent.”
Grey nodded. He knew exactly where brother Michael was.
Harry cleared his throat, took a look at his overlarge shoes, and sucked in a breath. “As the oldest brother here, the duty falls to me to speak to you.”
Grey badly wanted to smile. He knew better. There was nothing more devastating to a young man’s pride than to be laughed at for what he considered to be a serious matter. Quashing his less elevated desires in order to focus on the matter at hand, Grey settled for a single nod.
The boy nodded back, dislodging a thick lock of hair the same color as Georgie’s to fall across his forehead. He swept it back and took another breath. “I know the circumstances of this marriage,” he finally said, voice squeaking only a little. “And I understand the need for expediency, to protect Georgie’s good name.”
Grey nodded again.
Finally, the boy gathered the courage to meet him eye-to-eye, and Grey was impressed with the determination he saw there. Suddenly Harry Packham looked older than thirteen.
“You haven’t had time to realize how special my sister is,” Harry said. “Or how her family feels about her. But since Michael isn’t here, I am the one who will tell you that if you hurt my sister in any way, physically, emotionally, or mentally, I will probably not act the gentleman about it.” He shrugged. “I’ll probably kill you.”
It was Grey’s turn to blink in surprise. Not a thirteen-year-old at all. Not only for the excellent defense of his sister, but the suspicion that he really meant what he said about killing Grey. Grey had survived the last ten years by making lightning assessments of situations and characters. Without a doubt, he knew this minute that Georgie was so precious to this boy that he would act without any remorse at all. And probably do it with a fair bit of competence.
“Harry,” he said, quite seriously. “You are quite right. I haven’t had the time to learn what I want to know about your sister. But I do know that it will be my greatest honor and pleasure to spend my life correcting that lack. I am already awed at her devotion to you all, her good sense, her humor, her patience. If I do hurt her, I will deserve whatever punishment you mete out.”
If he thought that would be the last of the threats, he was as wrong as assuming he could winkle his wife away for some timealone. One by one, various children waylaid him and promised dire retribution if he hurt their Georgie. Then the aunts, an uncle named Samson Packham, who evidently was married to Lady Charlie’s mother, Lady Clevedon’s intimidating twin, and who ran the estates—who also had a bad habit of slapping a fellow on the back and smiling while mentioning shooting accidents—the twin aunt herself who just glared, and finally both of the other kings.
“Don’t bother,” he told Georgie’s cousin Charlie, his hand up. “I’ve already been threatened by everybody here but your mother’s pug.” He motioned to the bright hue of her hair. “If that is any indication, at least three of them belonged to your family.”
She gave him a gimlet glare. “So long as you got the message.”
If he hadn’t by the time he’d gone through all hundred-twenty-seven Packhams crowded into these rooms, Georgie’s mother came along to put a coda on the message by patting him on the cheek like one of her children.
“You’ll do fine,” she assured him with that serene smile of hers. “Fine.”
He couldn’t help it. “Because if I don’t?”
Her smile grew wider and less serene. “We’re not called the Mad Packhams for nothing.”
He had already figured that out. There was nothing left to do but nod and smile.
He finally ran out of patience, lobster patties, and champagne and headed over to dig Georgie out from under the various Packham progeny. Evidently he had one more confrontation to make it through, though.
He had set his champagne flute down on a table by the back doors where he could envision escape, when a boy of about seven marched up to him as if on parade, holding the hand of a wide-eyed little girl in a spring-green dress.
“I’m Geoffrey, sir,” he said with a very adult bow, which Grey found himself returning. “This is my sister Emily. You were with the First Royal Dragoons?”
It took Grey a second to follow the sudden shift of subject, even as the dark-haired little boy bounced a bit on his feet and young Emily watched with wide eyes as she sucked her thumb.
Grey accorded the young man every dignity. “I still am for a bit, yes.”
“And you were at Torres Vedras and Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz?”
Grey wasn’t sure whether he was impressed or worried. The boy even had the pronunciations down. “I was.”
The boy’s eyes lit like jack-o-lanterns. The little girl, standing quietly by, sucked that thumb and nodded, as if she knew of what he was speaking.
“Will you tell me of them?” Geoffrey asked, coming up again on his toes. “My brother Michael will not. He won’t talk of any of it, which I consider ever so unfair. I must get all my information from Georgie.”
