Relief coursed through her, granting malleability. She found she was limber enough to nod. “Still breaking their fast, I believe.”
“Making the distressed sounds of traumatized innocents, are they? Their eyes forever seared by the sight of—” He cleared his throat. “Of us?”
Drew bit her lip. A joke. He appeared to have no second thoughtsandhe’d made a joke.
“Unless I am mistaken, they are feeding bacon to the cat?” she said.
“Of course they are. Ah, but here they come.”
The united presence of Drew and Lachlan outside the breakfast room stunned the girls into a sort of titillated silence, and they followed them to the garden without objection.
Drew had planned this bit, one of the few things she could anticipate and control. The Pollen Street house was blessed with a lovely walled garden with a gurgling fountain, and Drew led the girls to sit on the edge. The noise of falling water would mask the conversation from eavesdropping staff. If the conversation became unbearable, the autumn foliage offered plenty of other places to look.
Lachlan leaned against the garden wall, his arms crossed, and Drew stood before them.
“Girls,” she began, “I should like to apologize to you both for my behavior last night.”
A pause.
This, she’d also rehearsed, going so far as to write “pause here” in her speech. The transcript had given her something else to do besides pace a trench in the rug.
“It was reckless,” she continued, “indecorous, and inappropriate—both as an advisor to the two of you and as a gentlewoman. I am exceedingly embarrassed by my... lack of comportment.”
Another pause.
She turned to Lachlan. They’d not discussed what he would say, yet another detail over which she’d agonized in the wee hours. She thought Bold Repentance would be unlikely coming from him, but she also prayed that Deep Regret would have no place in his excuses instead.
I don’t regret it, she thought, but she said nothing. She glanced at him.
He stared back, clearly waiting for her to say more.
Drew shook her head slightly and nodded to him.And now you...
Lachlan narrowed his eyes and nodded back.And now I... what?
Drew cleared her throat. “Is there something you might say to the girls, Your Grace?” she prompted.
Lachlan looked at the twins. He exhaled. “Right. I’d like to say, what the bloody hell were you doing... in the gallery... with your mother, andyour cat, and every member of my staff... when I was so very obviously engaged, so very obviouslynotseeking company, and had no wish to be disturbed?”
Drew gaped at him.
The girls laughed. “We were ever so worried, Uncle,” said Imogene with faux innocence.
Ivy added, “Imogene said she heard noises. We couldn’t guess what you were doing in the gallery.”
He shook his head, exasperated. He turned to Drew. “How did you term what I was doing, Miss Trelayne?”
Drew blinked at him.
Imogene interjected, “Were you engaging in, ‘reckless, indecorous, and inappropriate lack of comportment’?” She looked more delighted than Drew had ever seen her.
“Yes, that’s it,” said Lachlan and the girls laughed.
Drew looked from the giggling girls to the duke.
He raised an eyebrow. It was an expression so provocative and so thrilling and so careless, that Drew almost let out a little gasp. Heat rushed to her face.
She spun back to the girls. “You’ll remember what I said in the carriage when we left the dressmaker’s? I’d not planned to demonstrate the truth of this warning—not in quite so literal a fashion, but here we are. The rules I discussed apply to Lachlan and myself, just as strictly as they apply to you or any young lady. As such, your uncle and I are... are...”
