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“Has it changed since you were a child?” Torie whispered.

“It is precisely the same.” Just as depressing. He could feel his spirits sinking.

“‘As for the severed heads, he had placed them amongst the items of the rest of his collection, in a line of almost military perfection along the windowsill,’” Florence read aloud from a sheet of foolscap.

Torie caught Dominic’s arm and put a finger to her lips. Her eyes were dancing with laughter.

“I like that line,” Valentine said, staring up at the ceiling. “Where’d you get the idea of the severed heads?”

“In the drawing room,” Florence replied. “The way they all stared at us. Next line: ‘I could imagine him, late at night when his mistress had gone to sleep, rustling their hair with all the strength in his long fingers until the heads crumbled.’”

“Mistress?” Dominic muttered in disbelief. Even children knew what a mistress was? Then it occurred to him that severed heads were more problematic. Shouldn’t his niece be writing a story about fairies and frilly ball gowns?

“I’m not sure I like what comes next,” Florence continued, scribbling. “‘The fresher heads were brushed to one side as they lay before the open window.’”

“You need to set the scene. . . . ‘Before the open window, bathed in steady flows of moonlight,’” Valentine amended.

“Personally, I think that ‘bathed’ and ‘flows’ are jarring in the same sentence,” Torie put in. Weathered floorboards squeaked as she walked into the room.

Florence jerked upright and stood, dropping her pencil and sheet of paper to the ground. Valentine twisted his head about to see who had entered, then pulled his feet from the settee and rose.

“We just met downstairs,” Torie said. “I am Victoria Sutton, and I’ll be your aunt one of these days, since your uncle is marrying my sister.”

Florence dropped a curtsy. Valentine bowed. “Good afternoon,” they chorused.

Dominic suddenly realized that Florence was wearing neither slippers nor stockings. He could see pale ankles below the hem of her black dress.

Torie sat down opposite the twins. “Let’s talk about severed heads.”

Dominic froze on the spot. What had seemed like a simple matter—house his sister’s children and raise them to adulthood—abruptly felt impossible. Florence’s ankles were as thin as a bird’s. Was she ill-fed?

What about those severed heads? Did that reflect a diseased imagination? He could imagine the distaste on Leonora’s face if she heard about this story. Ladies didn’t write about severed heads or greet visitors with bare legs and toes.

The twins didn’t seem to notice that he hadn’t greeted them or seated himself. No match for Torie’s charming smile, they dropped onto the settee and tumbled directly into a tangled description of a story short on plot but rich with horrific details.

Why hadn’t his brother-in-law sent his son to Eton? Valentine didn’t seem to have any understanding of gentlemanly behavior. Even if settee cushions were rocklike, one didn’t prop one’s feet on them. Florence was equally oblivious. As he watched, she pulled up her thin legs and hugged her knees, wiggling her bare toes.

What in the hell was he going to do with them?

Chapter 6

Torie generally liked everyone she met unless they tried to pinch her bottom or made an overt joke about her intelligence. But these children?

She really liked them.

She had grown up in a nursery with Leonora, who by the age of six already knew how to keep her curls tidy, sew a straight seam, and write all her letters.

Torie’s crimes began with unmanageable curls and went downhill from there. She was personally responsible for several nannies and two governesses being dismissed after they had failed to teach her to read.

Which led to a deep, abiding fascination with books. With words. With people who could make up stories.

The twins were tripping over each other, explaining that Florence was writing the story while Valentine was helping. “He’s not as good a writer as I am,” Florence pronounced. “He’s overly flowery.”

“I like ‘bathed in flows of moonlight,’” Valentine protested. “It has gravitas. Don’t you think so, Lord Kelbourne?”

Their guardian had finally seated himself but still hadn’t said a word. He looked as if he’d undergone a severe blow—not the first of the day, Torie reminded herself. The poor man had apparently believed that his private affairs weren’t of interest to everyone capable of reading a gossip column, just as he thought his future wife was a docile, fragile flower.

The children stared at their uncle, waiting for him to respond.