Page 4 of The Mistletoe Duke

“Bollocks.”

They both loved that she cursed, and laughed. “All right,” Lizzie said. “We might have waited until she was asleep…”

“And?”

Vicca smiled up at her. Her little face was so sweet. It was almost unthinkable that she might say, “And then we set her shoe on fire.”

Meg gaped. “You what?”

Lizzie crossed her arms and huffed. “It was only a little fire.”

“A tiny little coal.” Vicca held her fingers up, showing the smallest space.

“You cannot set your governess on fire! Honestly. What are we going to do with you two?”

“It wasn’t our fault,” Vicca said.

“She smelled funny.”

“We didn’t like the way she smelled.”

“It wasn’t our fault.”

They stared at her then, two identical, beautiful, familiar faces, wide-eyed and innocent.

She wasn’t taken in for a moment.

“Lie down, both of you, and try to sleep. We’ll be in Sutton in a few hours and I don’t want any trouble.” They both did as she bade them and repentantly so, but she felt the need to say, in her sternest tone, “And do not set me on fire.”

To which they giggled.

* * *

Jonathan Pembroke arrived at the Sutton house long after dark. To his relief, the house was quiet. Given the letter from his mother, and its companion from Mawbry, he’d been expecting something akin to a circus. Sanders took his coat and pointed him toward the parlor when he asked after his mother’s whereabouts.

Indeed, he found her there, snoozing by the fire with a glass of ratafia in her hand. He removed it and set it on the table, which woke her.

“Mother.” He kissed her papery cheek.

“Darling. You came.”

He huffed as he sat in the chair beside her. “Did you imagine I wouldn’t? Once I got your note?”

“I wasn’t sure.” She took a sip of her drink to hide her smile. Of course she knew he would come. If only to divine what she was up to.

“What’s this I hear about a house party?”

His mother shrugged. She had that expression on her face, the one that made little hairs prickle on his nape.

“Mother?”

“Why not have a party? This is the season, after all.”

“Yes. It is the season. In London.”

She waved her hand. “Sutton is practically London.”

“Not hardly.” It was practically the back of beyond. Ten miles away. “No one will come to a party in Sutton during the season.”