A Duke of Her Own(103)

Eleanor digested that in silence. It was only when Willa had declared her to be quite ready that she asked, "What did Tobias say to Lisette, do you know?"

"He told her to stubble it because she'd give the girls nightmares," Willa said, laughing. "And the whole household is saying how Lisette has met her match at last, because she didn't have a word to say back to him. She knew that a spasm would just make him laugh at her, so she didn't bother, just left the room, and that was the end of her plan."

"I would guess that he will have no problem controlling Oyster during the treasure hunt," Eleanor said. "If he can manage Lisette, he can manage a naughty puppy."

She cast a look out the balcony door before going downstairs. The lawn was already dotted with the white gowns of the committee ladies, their lacy parasols making them look like daisies. The orphans in their blue pinafores were darting and running about, and Eleanor didn't think it was her imagination that they already looked heartier.

She didn't want to go downstairs. She wanted to avoid Gideon, and avoid her mother as well. She wanted to avoid Lisette, because she might be tempted into unkindness, if not violence. She wanted to avoid Roland, because she wasn't in a poetic mood, and she didn't particularly wish to meet his father's hopeful eyes, either.

But she couldn't hide. So she wandered downstairs just in time to see Lisette formally begin the hunt by ringing a little silver bell. A stage had been built in the back garden, and she was prancing about like the Queen of May, handing out flowers to all the children. Apparently the winning child wasn't to wear a gold crown, unless Lisette was planning to take it off her own head. She was wearing a small but unmistakably genuine crown; Eleanor couldn't believe that there were two such crowns in all of Kent.

"Titania, Queen of the Fairies," Roland said, appearing at her shoulder.

"I always pictured Titania clad in gauzy leaves with her hair loose," Eleanor said, giving him a smile.

"Titania was a termagant," Roland said, "and that's the crucial distinction. Remember how Shakespeare says that she fought with her husband so violently that all the corn rotted in the field?"

"You are unkind," Eleanor said, frowning at him.

"I will admit that I hadn't conceived of Titania's fairies as bastard children of a duke."

Phyllinda and Lucinda were standing on either side of Lisette, looking like small attendants, if not fairy ones. Their hair was piled so high that they appeared to be wearing airy beehives. They were both dressed in cloth of gold, which seemed utterly inappropriate for such a hot day, but their dresses did match Li sette's crown.

Still, what did she know about children? Perhaps they loved Li sette's reflected glory. Certainly the ladies from the orphanage committee were agog over the girls' beauty. And Lisette was rather carefully not identifying their lineage. Eleanor had a strong feeling that the good Christian members of the Ladies' Committee might not be quite so rapturous

over Phyllinda's lovely eyes if they knew her parentage.

"No child is going to win the prize," Roland said disgustedly, looking up from the page of clues. "I wouldn't be able to solve them. Listen to this: in marble wails as white as milk, lined with a skin as soft as silk, within a fountain crystal clear, a golden apple doth appear."

"What?"

"Wait, I'm not done. No doors there are to this stronghold, yet thieves break in and steal the gold.

What ami?"

"I haven't the faintest idea."

"I know that one, but only because my nanny used to tell it to me. The answer is, an egg. Lisette apparently expects the children to figure the riddle and then be able to find the henhouse and bring back an egg."

Eleanor shrugged. "I suppose she'll just give the prizes to whichever children solve one or two riddles, then."

"That will be Villiers's bastards," Roland said with a sneer.

"Why do you say so?"

"Because Lisette isn't playing fair, of course." He nodded.

Sure enough, Lisette was whispering in Lucinda's ear. The little girl dimpled up at her and patted her hand, and then ran off.

Eleanor discovered that she was smiling. The expression on Lucinda's face didn't display adoration, the way Willa had described. She would describe it as something altogether more knowing—and more manipulative. Well, what would she have expected? They were Villiers's daughters, after all.

She looked around again, trying to ignore the way Roland was standing too close to her. Gideon was basking in her mother's smiles. Lucinda had run directly from Lisette over to Tobias, who was lounging by the raspberry bushes. There was no sign of Oyster, to her relief. A great flock of orphans in blue pinafores were clustered together, puzzling over the clues; they seemed to be having as much trouble reading them as solving them.