Charlotte Louise Dolan

by Three Lords for Lady Anne

  “She quit,” he added finally.

  Daws gave a low whistle. “Then, m’lord, you’ve got yourself in a powerful bad position. I’ve been hearing tales about the mischief those two used to get into before Miss Hemsworth came to take charge of them. Why once they hid in the house for a full sennight and no one could find them. The woman who was supposed to be governess at the time enlisted the aid of all the servants indoor and out, but it was like chasing a will-o’-the-wisp. Food would disappear, and they heard footsteps at night, but no one caught sight of the twins. ‘Tis a big house, but even when Braithwaite was called in to organize a proper search, they never found out where they’d been staying all those days. Yes, if I was you, I’d find a way to persuade Miss Hemsworth to stay on.”

  “I would if I could, but I cannot,” Bronson replied baldly, unable to explain about the two kisses. If it were just a matter of convincing Miss Hemsworth that he really did have the boys’ best interests at heart, it would be a simple matter. But how to convince her he was not merely using the twins’ welfare as a ruse to keep her around so that he would have an opportunity to seduce her?

  Especially since the idea of Miss Hemsworth in his bed was so totally appealing?

  “Then you’re really in the suds, m’lord. Who’s going to take care of them two little demons, I’d like to know? Ain’t nobody in the household going to want to get near them. They’re bound to be mad as hops, and they’re trouble enough even when they’re just in high spirits.”

  “I shall take charge of the boys myself.”

  Daws looked at him in astonishment, but he was no more surprised than Bronson himself. On the other hand, now that he thought it over, it was not such a bad idea. The twins could undoubtedly profit from a little man-to-man instruction before they went off to school at Harrow, where it would not do at all for a Roebuck to be thought a sissy. Family pride demanded they make a good showing.

  “In fact, I shall go up to the schoolroom and explain the situation to the boys right now, before they hear about it from a servant.”

  * * * *

  “But we told you how necessary it is for Anne to stay.”

  Whichever twin it was, and Bronson had to admit he did not know if it was Anthony or Andrew, the boy made no effort to conceal his displeasure.

  “It was not my fault.” Bronson found himself becoming adept at making excuses. He had reached the point that he no longer felt the slightest surprise at such uncharacteristic behavior— acting totally out of character seemed to be normal for this day. “I did not tell her she was fired.”

  “Then why is she packing her bags?”

  The other twin, either Andrew or Anthony, was equally indignant.

  Why had Miss Hemsworth insisted upon leaving? She had babbled something about the twins being neglected, but that was surely no cause to abandon them herself—which left only the kisses he had forced on her. It was not surprising that a lady of the highest moral rectitude would refuse to stay under the same roof as a man who assaulted a woman on the streets of Tavistock and then repeated the offense in his own household.

  “I am afraid it may—” Bronson stumbled over the words he had not had occasion to use in years, “—be my fault she is leaving.”

  “Then,” one of the twins announced with surprising authority, “it is up to you to make amends.”

  “Yes. Anne says that if you do something wrong, then it is up to you to do something right, to do something constructive to fix the problem,” the other twin explained. “You cannot simply pretend that being sorry for what you did is all that is necessary.”

  “If you have trouble figuring out what to do, we would be glad to help you think of something.” One of the twins looked up at him calmly.

  “Yes, we are very ingenious,” the other one added.

  The two of them looked at one another for a long moment, then back at him. “You might keep that in mind.”

  His tone of voice was quite bland and their smiles were now sweetly angelic, yet looking at them Bronson felt a strong urge to flee from the house, from Devon, and in fact from England itself. How had he ever, even for a minute, thought the boys might have trouble adjusting to Harrow?

  The question now in his mind was whether Harrow was capable of surviving the twins.

  * * * *

  “The thing of it is, m’lord, that they somehow got hold of my keys, because that morning, ‘twas shortly before Michaelmas last, we woke up to find they’d locked us all in our rooms. What was we to do, I ask you? No one of us could get out and fetch the keys to unlock the doors, so we had to wait nearly till teatime before Mr. Braithwaite came to confer with Cook and discovered our plight. So you see, don’t you, that you really must persuade Miss Hemsworth to stay on. Perhaps if you doubled her salary?”

  “Yes, yes, Mrs. Plimtree. I have already said I shall do my best to see that the situation is arranged to everyone’s satisfaction.” Bronson opened the door of his study to signify that the interview was over, but standing outside in the hallway were several more servants waiting to interview him. With a sigh, he waved the next one in.

  This was really not the way he preferred to start the day, especially since he had lain awake most of the night, reliving over and over again the events of the previous day.

  * * * *

  “And then when they were nine, Miss Hemsworth, what did they do, but climb up the ivy on the wall all the way to the top floor, where they drew on my window with soot. When I pulled my curtains back the next morning, like I always do, there was this hideous grinning face staring in at me. Like to scare me to death, it did. Thought some fiend was there wanting to break in and murder us all in our beds. I ‘bout had a seizure on the spot. Screamed so loud, the footmen all came running and Mr. Chorley even, and there I was in my nightclothes! I like to have died of embarrassment, Miss Hemsworth. Please, you can’t go away and leave them two to their own devices. Why, when they were just nine and a half—”

  The cook appeared ready to go on for hours describing in detail the twins’ checkered pasts, so Anne attempted to forestall her. “I am sorry, Mrs. Stevens, but the matter is not for me to decide.”

  “—they hit on the idea of having a race, using Mr. Barrow’s prize sows as their mounts....”

  * * * *

  “It had us all buffaloed, m’lord. Every time the wind was out of the northwest, it seemed as if the whole house was crying. Then the twins claimed they found a book in the library, which appeared to explain it. ‘Twas all about how the first Marquess of Wylington had murdered his wife, and she was crying for revenge. I tell you, m’lord, the wailing was so unearthly, you’d ha’ thought it was a dozen poor souls tormented in the fires of hell. Gave us the willies, it did, and several of us was thinking of handin’ in our notice, so bad it was. It went on for weeks, with all of us ready to jump out of our skins, till the roofer came out from Tavistock to replace some slates that had come loose. He discovered someone had tied some pipes up to one of the chimneys in such a way that the wind would blow across them, like the way you can blow across a bottle.”

  Bronson looked at the footman, who appeared physically stalwart, but who was apparently easily spooked. “And you suspect the twins? I would not have thought they would be allowed out on the roof.”

  “But that’s it. That’s exactly what I’ve been telling you. ‘Thout Miss Hemsworth, it ain’t a question of what somebody allows the twins to do—them boys just do what they please and no one can stop them.”

  “Well, you need have no worries. I have decided to take over the day-to-day supervision of the twins myself.”

  The footman looked at him, opened his mouth as if to say something, then snapped it shut again. Rising to his feet, he left the room, shaking his head all the way.

  Once the servant was gone, Bronson could not hold back his mirth. The twins had told him they were ingenious, but he had envisioned something more along the line of fixing buckets of water to fall on people’s heads when they opened do
ors, or putting frogs in the maid’s pockets, or snakes in the footmen’s boots.

  There was a light tap on the door, and Bronson wiped the smile from his face before calling out to whomever it was to come in. It was Chorley, the butler.

  “Begging your pardon, m’lord, but I was hoping I might speak to you on Miss Hemsworth’s behalf. You may perhaps be unaware of the fact that your wards are a trifle high-spirited.”

  If Bronson had been unaware of the extent of the twins’ mischief before, he could definitely no longer claim ignorance as an excuse.

  “It’s not that I don’t like the little marquess and his brother, whichever one is which, but it was rather upsetting last October when I discovered they’d taken apart the great clock.”

  “The clock?” Bronson hoped he was managing to keep his amusement from showing.

  “The one that has always stood in the blue salon, m’lord, ever since your grandfather, God rest his soul, brought it back from France. No one is even allowed to wind it except me, but those two had not only taken it completely apart, but they had it halfway back together before anyone discovered what they were doing.”

  * * * *

  “The chickens was drunk, Miss Hemsworth. Them two devils had used one of my tubs to concoct a batch of home brew strong enough to knock your socks off,” Kate the washerwoman explained to Anne.

  * * * *

  “They said it was an excavation, m’lord, and they was going to find some Roman ruins. But it was nothin’ more than a mammoth hole, m’lord. Took two of the undergard’ners three days to fill it in—”

  Before the head gardener could continue, a groom pounded on the French doors, calling out frantically, “M’lord, m’lord, you got to come quick!”

  Bronson opened the door just in time to hear a woman scream and men yelling. Rushing out into the courtyard, he saw a scullery maid point with horror at the roof of the east wing, before she fainted dead away.

  Turning, he saw a sight that chilled his own blood.

  One of the twins had climbed out an attic window onto the steep slate roof and had lost his footing. He was dangling from the eaves, and even while Bronson watched, he slipped a bit more.

  Chapter Eight

  Yelling at the boy to hang on, Bronson set off at a run, but before he had gone more than a few steps, the child lost his grip and fell, plummeting more than fifty feet to lie motionless on the paving stones.

  Even though it was too late to help, Bronson did not check his headlong rush, hoping against hope that somehow the boy had survived the fall. In his heart, he knew there was no chance. Once before he had seen the sickening results of such a fall—in his mind’s eye he could still see the mangled limbs, the blood, the contorted features, the sand—

  The sand?

  He looked down at the “corpse.” There was no blood, only sand ... and the remains of an old linen sheet that had been stitched into a crude effigy and then dressed in an old suit of boy’s clothing.

  The servants who had followed Bronson now stood silently in a circle around the dummy, but they were not looking at the twins’ handiwork; they were watching the twins’ guardian to see what he would do.

  Without a word he turned and entered the house by a side door, walking faster and faster through the maze of corridors. Taking the stairs two at a time, he wasted not a minute in getting to the schoolroom. He threw open the door and saw the twins sitting at their desks, apparently busily engaged with their lessons.

  At the sound of his arrival, their heads turned in unison toward the door. “Have you persuaded Anne to stay?” one of them asked.

  “Not yet,” Bronson replied, unable to hold back a touch of admiration for their sangfroid even while he wished he were a proponent of corporal punishment.

  “She hasn’t left for London yet, has she?”

  Bronson could hear the merest suggestion of anxiety in that twin’s voice, and he had to remind himself that fiends though these boys might be on occasion, they were, in fact, still children. “No, she has not yet left.”

  “You might try clotted cream—”

  “With strawberries.”

  * * * *

  She was a coward, there was no getting around it. Anne sat in the breakfast room listlessly stirring her cup of tea and postponing the moment she would have to say good-bye to the twins. She could already see the reproach in Andrew’s eyes and the tears in Anthony’s.

  It was not as if she had long been a part of their lives; she had scarce been in Devon a month. So short a time really—a few weeks, no more. They would soon get over her, soon forget her—or so she had been trying to convince herself.

  She was a coward and a hypocrite. If she were honest with herself, she would have to admit that time had nothing to do with the depth of emotion she felt for the boys, and she was sure they returned her love and affection in full measure. Her premature departure would destroy all the trust she had worked so hard to earn, and would negate all the lessons she had so cleverly interwoven with the fun.

  But she had to leave Wylington Manor, had to leave Devon. She could not bear to stay under the same roof as Lord Least-in-Sight, that rake, that cad, that despoiler of women.

  She was a coward and a hypocrite and a liar. No matter how hard she tried to pretend to herself, what she could not bear was the thought of never seeing Lord Leatham again.

  Taking a sip of her tea, she found it stone-cold. Hardly surprising, since she had been sitting at the table for over an hour trying to stiffen her resolution.

  The door opened, and she looked up, expecting to see one of the servants. Instead, Lord Leatham himself stood in the doorway. For a few moments she allowed herself the luxury of gazing at him before she stood up to leave.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I am finished with my packing and need only say my farewells to the twins.”

  “Sit down,” he said curtly, striding over to the table.

  “Please,” he added in a more restrained voice when she remained standing.

  She sat, and he took the seat opposite her.

  “Since seven this morning I have been bombarded by tales of the twins’ misbehavior. Every servant seems to have firsthand experience with their outrageous plots.”

  “They are very ingenious,” Anne admitted. “I have also been hearing of their mischief. While I realize full well that they cannot be allowed to continue such activities, I still find it hard not to admire the cleverness that they have displayed.”

  Lord Leatham grimaced. “I have just discovered for myself that hearing about their pranks is not exactly the same as experiencing one first-hand.”

  “Oh, no, they did not—”

  “Oh, yes, Miss Hemsworth, they did.” In graphic detail Lord Leatham described what it was like to watch a “child” fall to his “death.”

  For the first time she noticed the ashen pallor of his countenance, and she realized he was, if anything, understating the horror and despair he had felt.

  “I do hope, my lord, that you can dissuade the twins from doing such things in the future. They are truly not malicious. Perhaps if you explain to them.”

  “Miss Hemsworth, do not be naive.” Lord Leatham had regained his color nicely and now looked positively choleric. “The episode this morning was an object lesson in what I may expect if I allow you to resign your position. If you wish to give the boys the benefit of the doubt, you may call it a warning, but it was a threat, Miss Hemsworth, a threat. Do you understand threats?”

  Anne looked across the table at the baron. He was glaring at her. “Are you threatening me, my lord?”

  “No, Miss Hemsworth, I am not. I have been told that you are a woman of superior understanding so you should recognize groveling when you see it.”

  She could not hold back a faint smile. The scowl on his face reminded her so much of the way the twins invariably looked when she told them it was time to put away their books and toys and make ready for bed. “Just so, my lord. You are groveling, and it was silly of me
not to recognize it.”

  There was a light scratching at the door, and Lord Leatham went to open it. He returned bearing the largest bowl of strawberries and clotted cream that Anne had ever seen. It was more than enough to satisfy the appetites of at least five starving people.

  “Here,” he said, thumping it down on the table in front of her. “And this, in case you do not recognize it, is a bribe. And if that is not enough to persuade you, I shall also accept your challenge if you agree to stay.”

  “Challenge?”

  “I shall endeavor to learn to tell which twin is which.”

  She had meant, almost from the first moment he appeared, to tell him she would stay, but apparently she hesitated too long with her answer. Before she could stop him, he was down on his knees beside her. A lock of his hair had fallen across his forehead, and she wanted nothing more than to brush it back into place.

  “Well, Miss Hemsworth, you have brought me to my knees. I hope you are satisfied. You may name your price.”

  The first thought that popped into her head was the line from the fairy story: I want your firstborn son.

  But Lord Leatham already had a son; she had seen the boy in Tavistock with his mother.

  No longer feeling the slightest urge to smile, Anne said simply, “Very well, then, I shall stay until the end of the summer.”

  Lord Leatham rose with alacrity to his feet and brushed off his unmentionables, which were fawn-colored and fit very well over his muscular legs.

  “I shall hold you to that, Miss Hemsworth. And now that the matter is settled, do not think that I shall allow you to play the role of fickle female all summer, blowing now hot and now cold. The matter is settled, once and for all.”

  With effort Anne pulled her attention off her contemplation of the baron’s lower limbs. “I give you my word, my lord,” she said, standing up and laying her napkin neatly on the table.

  “And is your word good?”

  Anne looked at him in disbelief. Surely he could not have said such an insulting thing? But he had, and now waited impatiently for an answer.