"Poor little Tommy!" Penelope added. "We thought you might keep him here, Peter. He could help in the kitchen or stables, or you might train him to be your tiger."
"Silence, children!" their brother ordered. "Take the little beggar to the kitchen, Mrs. Lane, and give him a meal. And then drive him away, if you please. Do you understand, child? If you come back here, I shall have you taken up for loitering and thrown into jail."
Tommy appeared not to have understood a word that had been said to him. He balanced on one leg and tried to wrap the other leg around it, though his purpose in doing so was not at all clear.
"But, Peter-" Philip began.
"You two children may go to your rooms and remain there for the rest of the day," their brother interrupted. "And you can be very thankful that I do not thrash the pair of you."
"Mrs. Lane, the child!" Marian reminded the housekeeper, who did not appear to know how she was to remove the boy without contaminating herself by touching him.
Henry solved her problem. "Here, allow me!" she said indignantly, and stalked into the room, head high, eyes flashing. She stooped down, took Tommy's grubby paw, and led him from the room. "Let us see what we can find for you to eat belowstairs," she said kindly. "And we shall see if cook can spare a cloth or basket for you to take some food home with you. Do you have brothers and sisters?"
Mrs. Lane and the butler trailed out after her, and the twins ascended disconsolately to their rooms.
"Miss Manford," Sir Peter said, turning his attention to that hapless lady, "I am greatly displeased with the morning's events. Why, pray, did you take the twins walking in a part of London that is quite beneath their station?"
"They have a great curiosity, Sir Peter," she stammered. "They wished to visit a street market. But, indeed, I am very sorry…
"And it is quite beyond my comprehension why you would allow them to associate with such a ragamuffin as that child, and to bring him here!"
"I… Indeed, Sir Peter, I did suggest to them that you might not like it," Miss Manford explained helplessly, "but you know, sir, your dear father was always willing to aid the creatures and persons they brought home with them. He thought it good for them to become aware-"
"Miss Manford, he interrupted ruthlessly, I am not my father, and this is not Roedean. I recognize, ma'am, that you have been of inestimable help to my brothers and sisters in the past. For this reason I shall not dismiss you out of hand. I shall give you two months in which to find yourself a new situation. I shall ask you to remain away from the children for today. Good day, ma'am."
Poor Miss Manford was rendered almost speechless. She stammered her way from the room, hands fluttering ineptly in the air.
By the time Henry came back upstairs from the kitchen, having seen Tommy well fed with cold meat and bread and sent on his way with a well-stocked bundle, the butler was busy carrying some half-dozen bouquets of flowers into the drawing room. They were all for her from admirers of the night before. Henry chuckled with amazement. What an amusing game this was proving to be. The largest bouquet, one of deep-red roses, was from Viscount Marley, she noted. She pulled a face. The man was at least fifty and running to fat, but Marian had been all agog, seeming to feel that Henry would be a fool not to encourage his suit. Strangely enough, Marian had not taken Eversleigh seriously as a possible suitor; she was far too realistic for that. But she had been ecstatic over the favorable attention he had focused on her sister-in-law.
It seemed to Henry that she had hardly had time for breakfast and a secret visit to her brother and sister and their governess before Marian was directing her to return to her room to get properly groomed and dressed for afternoon visitors. There were certain to be some after the ball of the night before, she added.
Henry considered the whole business a frightful bore, though in the event she was amused to find that several of her partners of the previous evening were among the visitors. Viscount Marley was one of them. He even contrived to sit with Henry a little apart from the rest of the company. He entertained her with descriptions of his two young daughters, who missed their mama a great deal and were longing for the day when someone would be found to replace her. Henry succeeded somehow in keeping a polite smile on her face. The viscount had just requested the pleasure of Henry's company on a drive through the park when the visiting hour should be over, when a merciful interruption saved Henry from the embarrassment of either accepting or thinking up some lame excuse.
The butler entered the room and bowed to Marian. "Sir Peter Tallant wishes to see Miss Tallant in the library immediately, ma'am," he announced.
Marian glanced across at Henry in surprise. "You had better not keep him waiting, Henrietta," she said. "But do hurry back to our guests as soon as you are able."
Henry curtsied and made her way down to the library, which was Peter's domain. What had she done wrong now? Was he about to banish her and the twins to Roedean after their behavior of the morning? She could hardly think of a punishment she would enjoy more. She grimly approached the closed door and opened it.
The man who stood with his back to the room, staring out the window, was not Peter. A hasty glance around assured Henry that, in fact, her brother was not in the room at all. Then the man turned and she gaped. She found herself staring into the sleepy eyes of the Duke of Eversleigh!
"Ah, Miss Tallant," he said, hand straying to the handle of his quizzing glass, "good day to you. Pray come inside and close the door."
"Oh, your Grace, it's you," she said foolishly. "Pardon me, my brother is looking for me."
"How provoking of him," Eversleigh replied, "when he just a moment ago granted me permission to speak to you." He walked unhurriedly across the room. Henry stood paralyzed, her hand still on the knob of the open door.
"Please allow me to close the door," he said from beside her. "You seem incapable of doing so yourself."
"Oh, yes, your Grace," Henry said, skipping hastily across to the other side of the room.
"I assure you, ma'am," he said, shutting the door and surveying her through his quizzing glass, "I have not been eating garlic."
Henry giggled nervously. "Would you not like to come to the drawing room, your Grace?" she asked brightly. "There are other visitors there."
"How revolting!" he said, lowering the glass. "Are you so anxious to return to them, Miss Tallant?"
"Oh, no!" she confided. "Actually, I was very thankful to be called away. Lord Marley was pressing me to drive out with him, and I had really rather not. But Marian would have put me on bread and water for a week, had I refused. He is rich, you know, and has a title."
"Marley!" Eversleigh shuddered theatrically. I suppose he is out shopping for a new mama for his two brats?"
"Well, he did talk about them," she admitted.
"Quite so. Come and sit down over here, Miss Tallant, and stop cowering at the other end of the room. Indeed, if I wished to give chase, ma'am, I should catch you in a moment."
Henry bristled immediately. "I never cower!" she said. "And if you did chase me and catch me, you might be sorry.
The eyebrows rose above the blue eyes.
"I should kick and punch, she declared proudly. I once gave Giles a black eye."
"Giles has my sympathies," he commented dryly. "Stand there and cower, if you must, Miss Tallant. I am going to sit down."