"Peter!" Philip said scornfully. "He would run straight to his Grace and advise him to beat Henry."
"Mr. Ridley?" Miss Manford suggested hesitantly.
Neither twin answered immediately. "He is so loyal to the duke," Penelope said finally. "He would probably tell. But if worse comes to worst, Manny, and we need a man, we will go to him. But now, let's go!"
The twins collided in the doorway, Miss Manford was almost as eager to leave a room she felt she had no business inside, and Brutus, seeing his audience departing, charged out behind them, a pink slipper still dangling from his mouth.
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The Duke of Eversleigh was returning home from a short morning errand. He intended to change out of his riding clothes into an outfit more suitable for lunch at White's on St. James's Street. As his horse was cantering through the park, he became aware of a commotion ahead of him. There seemed to be a great number of persons and a great deal of noise involved. As he drew closer-an interested spectator, but one who intended to keep his distance he could see that someone was up in a tree, someone else on the ground below stretching up arms, someone lying in a mud puddle while a riderless horse danced skittishly around, someone holding with both hands the lead of a large and loudly barking dog, and someone else on horseback making no attempt to take command of the situation. These appeared to be the main players. There were several bystanders, all on foot, including a constable who was waving a club around but who appeared uncertain on whose head to bring it down.
It was the dog that gave away the identity of the group to the duke. He reined his horse to a walk as he drew closer, and approached the scene with all the nonchalance of one for whom such a scene is a daily occurrence.
"Down, Brutus,- old fellow," he commanded in a bored voice, and the huge canine, who had caused much of the commotion, according to the loud opinion of the bystanders, dropped on the spot and panted loudly, adoring eyes raised to its master. Miss Manford was released from the immediate danger of having her arms pulled from their sockets.
"Phil, are you planning to join the rest of us on terra firma some time this morning?" Eversleigh continued, raising his quizzing glass and gazing upward at his brother-in-law, who was clinging to a branch of a large oak tree.
"I'm not stuck, sir," Philip hastened to assure Eversleigh. "But that cat is." He pointed to a thin and scraggly little creature clinging pathetically to a branch. "I have to move carefully because the branch gets pretty thin out there. And, Pen, for the dozenth time, move away from there. If I fall, you won't help me at all, but I will, flatten you."
"I'm here to catch the kitten," Penelope explained indignantly.
"The little lad will fall for sure," a buxom woman carrying a large, covered basket warned, "and all for a stray cat. Call 'im down, sir.
Eversleigh ignored her. "Move back, Penny, until there is something to catch," he advised. "Go ahead, Phil. The branch is strong enough."
Most eyes were turned on the little drama. Eversleigh withdrew his; he did not feel that his brother-in-law was in any grave danger.
"Having a spot of trouble, Oliver?" he asked affably, swinging his glass in the direction of his cousin, who had already picked himself out of the mud, but who was gazing down at his thoroughly blackened cream buckskins with arms outstretched, not quite knowing how to clean himself up without; soiling his hands. He rounded on the duke in fury.
"If you do not keep that dog confined to the house, and if you do not exercise greater control over these totally undisciplined brats," he said, voice shaking, I shall shoot it."
"Dear me," replied his cousin mildly, I understand from your choice of pronoun that you mean the dog, not the twins, Oliver?"
Cranshawe glared. "You might make yourself useful and grab my horse, Marius," he said, "instead of sitting up there striking a pose."
"Ah," Eversleigh said, I take it you did not dismount voluntarily, then, Oliver?" He obligingly moved off to where Cranshawe's horse was now grazing quietly on the grass, and led him back to his heir, who was disgustedly slapping -it his mud-caked breeches.
Eversleigh turned his attention to his wife, who was staring intently into the tree where Philip was now little more than an arm's length from the shivering kitten.
"You are all right, my love?" he asked gently.
She turned a stony expression on him. "And why would I not be?" she asked.
"Ah, quite so," he agreed. "You need not worry, you know. Boys are almost invariably a great deal safer than they appear to be to adult onlookers."
"I know that!" she retorted scornfully, and dismounted suddenly after swinging her leg free of the sidesaddle. "Hang on, Phil!" she yelled. "You can't hold on to the cat and get back from there. I'll climb up and you can hand it to me."
Before the onlookers had a chance to dissuade her, she had swung up to the lower branches, long skirt and all, though she did tug impatiently at the plumed hat and send it to the ground.
" 'Ere, 'ere, lady, that's man's work," the constable remarked ineffectually when she was already well clear of the ground, but everyone ignored him.
When Henry came down again, five minutes later, clutching a mewing kitten in one arm, face smudged with dirt, hemline of her habit hanging down, it was to find Marius directly beneath her, on foot.
"Hand down the kitten, Henry," he ordered, and she obeyed before she had time to think of defiance. He took it and handed it immediately to an eager Penelope. Then lie turned back, raised his arms, and grasped his wife by the waist. He swung her down to the ground, so that her body slid down the length of his. She felt physically ill as she glared indignantly up into his gleaming eyes.
"I could have jumped," she said as Philip did just that right behind her.
"I don't doubt it for a moment, my love," Eversleigh agreed soothingly, the gleam in his eyes deepening. "I must look a fright," she said crossly.
"I think you look rather charming, my love, with it smudge on your nose and a twig in your hair," he commented languidly.
"Oh!" she said. "Well, you should be thankful for the twig, your Grace. At least I am not committing that mortal. sin of going hatless again."
"Your Grace!" Penelope was plucking at Eversleigh's sleeve, interrupting an interesting scene. "Please may we keep the kitten? I am sure the little thing is a stray, and Phil and I will look after it. Please!"
"Well," he said, "it would seem hardly charitable to rescue the poor thing from one danger only to let it starve on firm ground. Very well, Penny."
"Oh, thank you, your Grace," Penelope yelled. "I am going to call her Cleopatra."
Eversleigh blinked. "As you will," he said tolerantly, "but I fail to see the connection." He surveyed the thin, ugly ginger kitten through his quizzing glass. "I believe we have provided the city of London with quite enough entertainment for one morning," he continued quietly. "I see that Oliver agrees with me and has taken himself off already. Miss Manford, can you head this menagerie homeward? Phil, you take charge of Brutus, if you please. My love?" He stilled Henry's horse, and when she would have placed her booted foot in his hand so that she might mount, he grasped her by the waist again and lifted her effortlessly to the saddle.
Henry could feel the imprint of his hands all the way home as they rode side by side, making small talk. He made no reference to the fact that she had obviously been' with Oliver Cranshawe before the family farce had begun.
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