Page 7

“You needn’t accompany me,” she told Lord Kelbourne, pushing open the door before he could reach over her shoulder and do it for her; that courtesy had always made her feel useless and short. “Your butler will direct me to the nursery.”

Ignoring her, he closed the door behind them. “Flitwick, I’d like to introduce you to Miss Victoria, my fiancée’s younger sister.”

Flitwick was the stately sort of butler, with a melancholy face like a grasshopper’s. Torie had noted that butlers often resembled their employers. Naturally, her family’s butler had a red nose and a propensity to sway back and forth.

Flitwick bowed with all the elegance of a duke. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Victoria.”

“I prefer Torie.” Her smile seemed to soften his expression, so perhaps he wasn’t as rigid as his master. “Do you remain in London all the time, Flitwick, or do you travel to Kelbourne Manor when Parliament is out of session?”

“As his lordship’s head butler,” Flitwick said, “I accompany him to Northamptonshire.”

“May I ask whether you have a family?” Torie inquired.

“Mrs. Flitwick is my housekeeper,” Kelbourne put in, not hiding his impatience. “She travels back and forth to the country with us. Shall we go to the nursery?”

“In a minute,” Torie told him, relishing the fact that unlike her sister, she didn’t need to keep the viscount sweet. Not that Leonora seemed to bother, now that she had a ring and an emerald bracelet.

He blinked. Kelbourne was apparently unused to being contradicted. Married life with Leonora would be a revelation.

“Could you please tell us how the children are settling into their new life? My sister is most anxious that they be happily established.”

She caught Kelbourne’s twitch at this untruth, but she didn’t take her eyes off the butler.

“The twins have settled well,” Flitwick declared. “Nanny Bracknell accompanied them to London, so their education has not been interrupted.”

“Not that,” Torie said, waving one hand. “How are they, Flitwick? I’m certain that you know what I mean. It’s a terrible blow to lose both parents at once.”

Flitwick’s stern countenance eased. “The children are very lucky to have you take an interest, Miss Torie. They are well. Intelligent, without question, and Mrs. Flitwick tells me that they have pleasant manners when they remember to use them. But they’re eccentric, you might say. Always talking of the strangest topics.”

“They will outgrow such foibles,” Kelbourne said, frowning as if he had been informed that all the butter in the house was rancid.

Torie had the distinct impression that “eccentric” was anathema to his lordship. After all, he had chosen to marry Leonora, the epitome of an English lady.

On the surface.

“Lord Kelbourne, please do rejoin your guests in the drawing room,” she told him. “Flitwick will escort me upstairs.”

“I haven’t yet visited that floor, so I might as well make certain the children are comfortable.”

Torie stared at him. “You have not visited the nursery at all?”

“As I said.” Kelbourne’s expression was always closed, but his mouth got a little tighter. He clearly didn’t like criticism, even the implicit sort.

“Their parents died a week ago,” she pointed out. “And they arrived at your house when?”

“Four days ago,” Kelbourne said stiffly.

“Has anyone lived there in the nursery since you were a baby?”

“It was hardly the Middle Ages.”

“I can assure you that the mattresses were aired, and the rooms recently cleaned,” Flitwick put in.

“Of course they were,” Torie said. “But if Lord Kelbourne means to be in local parentis, he must be hands-on.” She began to climb the marble steps leading to the first floor.

“In loco parentis,” Kelbourne corrected, following.

“I took your use of the term to mean that you plan to be a father. You could stow them in the country, as Leonora suggested. She comes by that model honestly: after our mother died, we were sent to the country estate, and Sir William never darkened the door of the nursery again.”