Eleanor drew in her breath, but what really interested him was the way Mrs. Minchem drew up her bosom. It was a formidable bosom. It jutted before her like the prow of a ship approaching a new land.
"You are interfering with my methods," she spat. "Why have the Janes left their work?" She rounded on the eldest Jane. "How dare you, Jane-Jolinda? You will not finish your quota!"
Melinda pressed against Villiers's leg.
"The Janes will never make a gold button again," he told her. He brought the tip of his sword gently down to the ground. Everyone's eyes followed its bright surface.
Mrs. Minchem didn't quail. Instead she took a step forward. "Do you dare to threaten me? Me, who cares for the neglected orphans of England? Me, who spends every waking moment of my day shaping these negligent bits of humanity into something that society might find useful? Me?" She wasn't shrieking anymore. Her voice had taken on the brawny tones of a dockworker.
"Yes, you," Villiers stated.
She laughed at him. "I do the work that no one else wants to do. My girls won't be prey to the likes of you. They'll know a trade when they leave me. You think you can come in here and lord about, but what do you really have in the way of morals?" She spat it.
He managed not to flinch.
"I see that you think you're coming in here like a knight in shining armor, coming to save the poor orphans. You fool, you fool! Do you have any idea how much work it takes me to give each of them a trade and a sense of purpose? And you—you're one of them!"
"Them?" he asked. Melinda was clinging to his pantaloons now, so he switched his sword to his left hand and put his right on the child's shoulder.
Mrs. Minchem's eyes were maddened now. "You're one of the men who incontinently fill the landscape with the offspring of your illicit, your disgusting, union s!"
Villiers resisted the impulse to cover Melinda's ears. It was regrettable that Mrs. Minchem actually had a point.
Eleanor marched around to confront Mrs. Minchem. "The pedigree of these children does not excuse your treatment." Her voice was at once soft and terrible, and cut through the woman's strident tones like a knife. "You are wrong to treat them so, wrong."
"What do you know of these girls?" Mrs. Minchem said shrilly. "If I do not subdue them, keep them working, they will betray their origins. They will become nightwalkers, like their mothers."
"I will not bandy words with you," Eleanor said, and there was a crushing finality to her tone.
"Leopold, summon your footmen. Mrs. Minchem will be leaving the premises and she may need an escort."
Taking just a split second to savor the fact that she'd used his given name instead of his title, Villiers turned to the eldest Jane. "My coachman is waiting in the courtyard, fetch a footman." She scurried off after one look at Mrs. Minchem, who was shuddering, like the surface of a seething volcano.
"You—you—"
"Hush," Eleanor said, cutting through her words. "You can explain yourself to a judge. The children have heard enough, and so have I."
Villiers thought of agreeing, and decided that would be undignified. "Lisette," Eleanor said, not raising her voice. Lisette skipped up, children clinging to both hands.
"We need a good woman to make sure these children are warm and clothed, and that their injuries are attended to. Do you know of someone in the village, or in your household?"
"I've never treated these girls with aught less than loving kindness," Mrs. Minchem squealed.
Villiers met her eyes and she sputtered to a halt. "I gather that my children are in the pigsty, madam.
Do you wish to point the way?" "Your children—your—"
"My children," he confirmed. "Twins. Currently named Jane-Lucinda and Jane-Phyllinda. My daughters, who are apparently residing in the sty." "You have children living here?" Lisette exclaimed. "The sty!" Eleanor said. "As in a home for hogs?"
For the first time Mrs. Minchem looked a little frightened. She gulped like a snake trying to swallow a large bird. "Those girls had to be separated from the rest because they were a bad influence." Her jaw firmed and she put on a defiant air. "Wicked, they were,
especially Jane-Lucinda, and anyone who knows them will agree with me."
"My children the fiends," Villiers said pleasantly. "Yes, that seems appropriate. Now you will do me the pleasure, madam, of telling me where to find the sty." He paused. "I hardly need add that I hope, for your sake, that the both girls are healthy."
She flashed a look that tried to act like a hammer blow but failed.