A Duke of Her Own(106)

Eleanor inquired.

"He has big front teeth. You know how the duke looks a proper fright in those coats he wears?"

"I suppose you mean Villiers?"

"Yes, him. He's got awful taste, but all the same, when he looks at you, you know what he's thinking. Whereas that one looks a bit unhinged. Maybe he'll marry Lisette. She's the same."

Eleanor thought about it for a moment and then said, "Your father is marrying Lisette, Tobias. So you mustn't say slighting things about her, particularly in front of Phyllinda and Lucinda."

"They're not stupid," he said.

They rounded the curve and arrived at the stream. "The roses grow over there," Eleanor said, pointing.

Lucinda started forward, of course, so she grabbed her arm. "That's straight up the rocks, and you can't do it in those clothes. Your hair alone would disbalance you. Tobias, you fetch three roses."

He was up the slope in a moment, and barring a bit of colorful language when he was introduced to the roses' vicious thorns, he was successful. "We've got everything!" he said triumphantly, pulling open his crumpled coat to add the roses. By some miracle the three eggs were intact.

So you're going to claim the three prizes," Eleanor said genially.

Yes." Tobias sounded guarded.

And those other orphans, the ones Lucinda and Phyllinda lived with... they won't win." Not everyone can win," Tobias pointed out.

There are those who would say that you have won. After all, your father intends to give you each ten thousands pounds when you reach eighteen years. Whereas the Janes and Marys and the other girls will go off to be ladies' maids."

Phyllinda had her hand in Eleanor's again. "At least they don't have to make buttons any longer."

"That's true. But they will never live in a grand house with their brothers and sisters. You do know that you have three more siblings, don't you?" And when Phyllinda and Lucinda nodded, "The Marys will go out to work because there is no one to take care of them. Whereas you have a father, and while he may have lost you for a while, he will always take care of you from now on, you know that."

"Bloody hell!" Tobias said.

"Not in front of your little sisters," she said, giving him a look. "Sorry," he muttered.

" Jane-Melinda didn't solve a single clue because she can't read," Lucinda said. "She's awfully nice.

I'll give her my egg and rose and stuff."

"A girl named Sarah-Susan told me where to find you in the sty," Tobias said. His tone was begrudging but accepting.

"We could give mine to Mary-Bertha," Phyllinda said. "Because once when Mrs. Minchem said that Lucinda couldn't have any breakfast or lunch, she kept some bread and gave it to us. Do you remember that, Lucinda?"

Her sister nodded, but Eleanor was having trouble speaking around the anger in her throat, so they just went up to the lawn in silence and found the girls in question.



Eleanor stood watching the excitement as the three little girls claimed their prizes, until she remembered that she had a duke locked in her room. Tobias seemed reconciled to losing; he was trying to train Oyster to walk on his hind legs, which was an anatomical impossibility, as anyone could have told him.

"I know why you locked your father up," she asked him, "but why did you lock me in as well? And why in my bedchamber?"

He looked up with an odd twist to his mouth. "I don't like Lisette."

She nodded. "I see."

"The old nanny told me that if a lady and gentleman are locked in a room together, they have to get married. Which doesn't make sense," he said frankly, "because if they want to be shaking the sheets, they don't need sheets to be doing it, if you know what I mean."

Clearly Tobias had seen more than he should have in his short life, but he didn't seem particularly scandalized. "So you thought..."

"I'd rather you than her," he said. It wasn't much of an endorsement, but it felt good. "How'd you get out, anyway?"

"The balcony door was unlocked and no one had the faintest idea we were together, so your plan came to naught. And I do think that people do better to choose their own spouses. Your father wants to marry Lisette."

"And you want to marry that ratty duke?" His tone was indescribably scornful.

"Yes," she said rather faintly. "He's an old friend." She looked up and saw Gideon determinedly making his way across the lawn toward her, followed by her mother. "I had better let your father out now. Take care of Oyster."

She dashed into the house, pretending she didn't hear her mother calling.

Leopold was asleep. He had stripped off his coat and was lying sprawled out on her bed. She tiptoed across the carpet and stood next to him. He would never be beautiful, like Gideon. He was blunt and complicated, and still grieving for his brother.