Tabitha blinked, her frown still creasing her brow, then shrugged as though she couldn’t argue me. “He works a lot for us, so he can be quite grumpy, but I imagine he’ll be happier with a wife. And you’re very beautiful.” She gave me another toothy grin. “Can I have that golden brush on your table?”
I followed her gaze to my hairbrush. “No.”
She pouted again. “Why are you here then? If not to marry my brother?”
“He and my father are investment partners.”Whywas I still talking to this girl? I glanced to the door. Where had I laid my robe?
“Your father ...” Tabitha touched her chin. Then, “Oh.” She looked at me with wide eyes.“Ohh.”
I leaned over, and with one foot on the floor, reached for the bellpull and tugged. Mariah would rescue me. I’d tried to maintain my modesty with an armful of my blankets, but Tabitha did not seem to care in the slightest.
“You’re that Lane woman.”
It was my turn to frown.
“He talks about you. But usually not kindly.” She turned thoughtful. “He says you harp upon him without end.”
I raised a brow. A smile itched at the corners of my lips. Graham had said that, had he? That explained Ginny’s attitude. Well, it was time for the truth to out. “You are mistaken, Miss Tabitha. It is yourbrotherwho harps upon me.”
“How so?” She sat back on her knees, crossing her arms, as ready to fight as a girl her age could be. She’d defend her rotten brother to the end, and I instantly respected her for it.
I drew in a deep breath. I had to remember that my audience was hissister, and a child. “For one, he teases me beyond reason. He’ll say one thing, but Iknowhe means the opposite.”
She raised her chin. “That is just who he is. He likes to tease, but he doesn’t mean it. You just have to get him back.”
“Oh, I do,” I assured her. “But he also comes over to my house uninvited.”
Her eyebrows rose a half-inch.
“He comes to dinner informally in the dirty clothes he’s worn all day. Talking business at the table. And he has thenerve to comment on my daily activities, as though he has a say in what I should or should not do.”
Tabitha reared back dramatically. “How incredibly rude.”
For the first time in weeks, I smiled sincerely. “I wholeheartedly agree.”
Tabitha shook her head slowly, looking about the room, pondering. “Then again, I cannot think of another woman my brother has ever spoken of, kindly or otherwise. He leaves us for London and spends all his time withyou.”
“With my father,” I amended.
“But he speaks more often about you.”
Good gracious, what was wrong with this girl? “I highly doubt that,” I said flatly.
Her eyes went round, sincere. “Mama says when a boy likes a girl, he’ll sometimes act strangely. Like when Tommy Bates pinches my arm in church.”
“No, no,” I started, stumbling over my words. “No, Miss Tabitha. That is not—”
“Miss Lane?” Mariah knocked on the cracked-open door, before pushing it open further. “Are you unwell?”
“Yes—” I called at the same time Tabitha said, “She’s well!”
“Tabitha?” A man’s voice—Graham’s?—called from down the hall.
The girl slammed her hand over her mouth, shock in her eyes, and scrambled to my side like I might protect her from an incoming foe. “Drat,” she muttered between her fingers.
The door opened, and Mariah stopped short at the sight of Tabitha half on top of me in my bed. “Get off her at once.” Her voice was stern.
I pulled my covers closer, and a moment later Graham,disheveled and hair frumpy like he’d just hopped out of bed, stepped behind Mariah, hovering at the door. Our eyes locked for the shortest second before his mouth fell open in shock.
