by Anne Gracie
“Heartening?” He finished winding up a stray ball of wool that had rolled under the settee and handed it to her.
She nodded. “To think that sort of thing lasts. Aging is so much less to be dreaded when you see that even ancient crones can still flirt, and think about . . . you know. And possibly even do it, as well.”
Cal blinked. You know? Do it? No—he wouldn’t ask. It wasn’t the sort of conversation he expected—or wanted—from his elderly spinster aunt. In a blatant bid to change the subject, he asked, “Where are the girls?”
There was a short silence. Seeming not to have heard his question, Aunt Dottie frowned over her knitting. The door opened and he looked up, half expecting his sisters, but it was only Logan, carrying a tray.
“Ah, there you are, Logan,” Aunt Dottie exclaimed in what almost sounded like relief. “Food for my nephew, is it? Excellent! You must be famished, Cal dear.”
Logan set the tray down on a small table close to Cal. The tray contained a plate of hearty-looking sandwiches, a wedge of pie and a tankard of ale.
“Eat up, eat up, dear boy,” Aunt Dottie urged.
Cal took a mouthful of ale and picked up a sandwich. “Where are Rose and Lily, Aunt Dottie?”
Again there was a short silence. He took a bite from his sandwich, glanced up and caught his aunt exchanging a silent, panicked glance with Logan.
Something was up. Cal finished the sandwich and waited.
“They’re asleep,” Logan said after a moment.
“Yes, that’s it! Asleep,” Aunt Dottie agreed, adding quickly, “Upstairs. In their bedchambers. Fast asleep. We won’t disturb them. You’ll see them at breakfast in the morning. Thank you, Logan dear. That will be all.” Logan left.
Cal looked at his aunt. “Logan dear?” he queried. “Aunt Dottie, you really shouldn’t call your butler dear.”
“Oh, pooh, why not?”
“Because he’s your butler.”
“Nonsense! Logan has been my friend since I was fifteen years old. My father is dead, and now your father is dead as well, so there is nobody left to make a fuss—you won’t be stuffy about it, will you, Cal? Because if I want to call him dear, I will.”
Cal blinked. Aunt Dottie had always been an original. Now it seemed she was becoming a little eccentric. She sat there placidly knitting, a little smile on her face. Was his supposedly guileless little aunt trying to distract him from the issue at hand?
“So,” he said. “My sisters are fast asleep at”—he glanced pointedly at the clock on the overmantel—“half past seven?”
“Oh, bother, I’ve dropped a stitch.”
He waited while she fiddled with her knitting, her cheeks suddenly rosy.
“Well?” he prompted after a minute.
“If we’d known you were going to arrive tonight, of course they would have waited up,” Aunt Dottie said, avoiding his gaze. “But the poor dears were yawning, and barely able to stay awake, so of course I sent them off to bed immediately after we’d finished eating. They were so very tired. Poor Lily almost fell asleep in her soup! And yawning, oh, my goodness, such yawning.”
She set aside her knitting. “In fact, I’m feeling rather tired myself.” She stretched artistically and gave an unconvincing yawn. “Oh, dear me, yes, I’m afraid I’m quite ready for my bed. In fact I think, if you don’t mind, Cal dearest, I’ll go up to bed myself because”—she essayed another fake yawn—“I’m suddenly very, very tired. Old age, you know.”
She had to be the worst liar he’d ever met.
Cal set down his tankard of ale. “Now, Aunt Dottie, why don’t you tell me what’s really going on? Where are my sisters?”
Chapter Two
What hath night to do with sleep?
—JOHN MILTON, COMUS
With a guilty look, Aunt Dottie sat back in her chair and waited, her hands folded in her lap like a child expecting a scolding. “I’m not precisely sure,” she admitted.
Any amusement he’d felt at his aunt’s antics drained away. “What do you mean you’re not sure? Are you telling me they’ve run away? Or worse?” His sisters were heiresses, after all. Minors. Swift thoughts of ransom, kidnapping or worse ran through his mind.
“Oh, no, no, no,” his aunt said quickly. “Nothing like that. As I said, they’ll be down for breakfast in the morning.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “They always are.”
“They always are?” Cal’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me they often go missing?”
Aunt Dottie wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t say often.”
“Good God!” He stared down at his aunt. “So they’re out there somewhere, alone and unchaperoned? Unprotected? Good God, they’re only”—he did a quick calculation and came up with a figure that surprised him—“eighteen and nineteen.”
“Yes, dear, I know.”
“How the hell could you let them go out like that?”
“Well, of course I don’t let them,” she said indignantly. “How could you think such a thing?”
“What? But—”
“No, they do it all on their own. I have tried remonstrating with them, but”—she gave a helpless shrug—“they go anyway. Well, it is hard on them, you must admit, being so young and pretty and full of life, and not being able to attend parties or balls. If we’d known you were coming, I’m sure they would have stayed in, but the letter arrived after they went to bed.”
Cal focused on the most relevant point. “Why can’t they go to parties and balls?”
She gave him a shocked look. “Because they’re in mourning, of course.” She gestured to her own outfit of unrelieved black. “Which is why they’ve taken it so hard, your brother dying just eleven months after your poor papa’s sad passing.”
Cal frowned. “I didn’t know Henry and the girls were close.”
“Oh, they weren’t. Henry never came near them. I doubt he would even have recognized them if he bumped into them in the street. Which is why the girls were so upset at his passing.”
Cal thought about it, then shook his head. “I don’t follow you.”
Aunt Dottie gave him the kind of look one might give to a simpleton. “Another year of mourning, you see, and this time for someone they only cared for in a . . . a dutiful way. Or not at all, if we are to be honest.” She added meditatively, “It wouldn’t have been so bad if Henry had died soon after your papa, instead of just before their mourning period was up.” She shook her head. “But then, he always was an inconsiderate boy.”
Cal ignored that little leap of logic. “And another year of mourning means another year of no parties or balls for you and the girls?”
Aunt Dottie nodded. “Henry was their half brother, and my nephew—and the head of our family, after all. Not to honor him with full mourning would be scandalous.”
His brows rose. “And letting two young girls roam the streets at night is not?”
She made a cross little sound. “I keep telling you, Cal, I don’t let them do anything. I have pointed out the error of their ways; I have remonstrated with them and explained possible consequences. All to no avail.”
“You could lock them in at night, send them to bed with no supper—any one of a dozen things that would teach them to mind you.”
“I will not act the jailer toward my beloved nieces!” she exclaimed, outraged, and then added, “Besides, it doesn’t work. I had Logan lock them in their bedchamber once, and they climbed out the window instead—which you must admit is far more dangerous than . . . whatever it is they do when they’re out. I still shudder to think of them lying smashed on the cobbles outside.” She produced a lace handkerchief, which he took as an ominous warning of waterworks to come. “And what if there was a fire?” she finished distressfully. “Would you have them burned in their beds?”
“Aunt Dottie—”
“Don’t l
ook at me like that—I don’t know how they get out—Logan says by the kitchen door, so he leaves it unlocked for them to return—well, we can hardly lock them out at night, can we? Anything could happen to them then! Besides they always come down for breakfast perfectly well and happy.”
“I just bet they do,” Cal muttered. Good God, no wonder Phipps had urged him to come to Bath. His aunt obviously had no control over the girls whatsoever.
“There’s no harm in them,” she insisted. “They’re just young and lively and . . . a little impatient.”
Cal disagreed. Lack of discipline was clearly the problem, but there was no point in arguing. It was obviously pointless to expect his softhearted little aunt to administer any kind of control over his sisters. As for enlightening an innocent maiden aunt of the kind of thing that could befall unprotected young girls—if she didn’t realize it by now, Cal wasn’t going to try. It would only distress her further—and to no purpose.
Besides, after tonight the girls’ misbehavior would come to an end. Cal would see to that. Assuming they returned home unharmed.
* * *
After his aunt had gone to bed—genuinely tired this time—Cal stationed himself at the kitchen table with a recent newspaper and a glass of cognac and settled down to await the return of his recalcitrant sisters.
He tried to read but found that the news of England was distracting in the wrong sort of way. The country was in a mess, with riots, poverty and crime. He didn’t understand. The war hadn’t reached England at all. How could everything have changed so much?
He tossed the newspaper aside, got up and paced around the stone-flagged floor. Inaction didn’t suit his mood at all. Which was ridiculous—in his work abroad, he’d often had to wait patiently and quietly, for days, sometimes weeks at a time.
But it was a different matter when he was waiting for his young half sisters.
Where were the little minxes, and what the devil were they up to?
It didn’t matter. Once they returned home—he wasn’t even going to consider if—he’d damned well ensure they wouldn’t go a-wandering again.
Henry should never have left them in the hands of Aunt Dottie. It was clear she couldn’t control a fly.
The clock over the fireplace chimed midnight. Dammit. He was going to wring their necks.
Forty minutes later he heard a sound outside. He rose to his feet, folded his arms grimly and waited.
The kitchen door opened, framing two young women wearing hooded cloaks and black velvet masks. They entered, talking and giggling in low voices.
“Where the devil have you been?” Cal snapped.
They jumped, and turned shocked faces toward him. The taller one recovered first and retorted, mimicking Cal’s tone exactly, “Who the devil are you, and what are you doing in my aunt’s house?”
Not one of the men under Cal’s command had ever had the temerity to answer him back in such a way. He narrowed his eyes. “I asked you a question, young lady.”
She put up her chin. “None of your business.”
In a cold voice that would have sent shivers down the spines of his soldiers, Cal said, “It is very much my business, so out with it, now. And take off those ridiculous masks.”
The smaller one glanced at her sister, then pushed back her hood and untied her mask. She hugged her cloak around her, watching him with, Cal was glad to see, wide-eyed trepidation. She was a sweet-faced girl, with a dimpled chin, wavy light brown hair and big gray eyes. His father’s gray eyes. Cal’s too.
The taller girl threw back the hood of her cloak, pulled off her mask and tossed it carelessly on the kitchen table. Obviously the ringleader of the pair. She was the image of his late stepmother—a beauty, with perfect features, blue eyes framed with long, dark lashes, and rippling golden hair, pulled up in a fashionable knot.
She stood, regarding him defiantly. “I have no idea who you are, so why the devil should I explain anything to you? We answer to our aunt, not you!”
A small part of him—a very small part—registered disappointment that his sisters didn’t immediately recognize him. On the other hand, would he have recognized them? He doubted it. It was ten years since they’d seen each other. Still, the fact that he was in their aunt’s house should have been a clue. Even if they hadn’t known he was back in England.
Her attitude annoyed him and instead of explaining who he was, Cal found himself echoing his old nurse. “Young ladies who use that kind of language are asking to have their mouths washed out with soap and water.” Only in his case it had been “young gentlemen.”
She folded her arms and arched a mocking eyebrow. “Who swore first? You placed the conversation in the gutter from your opening utterance. I merely followed you there.”
Cal opened his mouth to deliver a blistering reprimand, when the shorter girl—Lily?—said, “Nurse used to say that all the time, and in just that tone.” She placed a tentative hand on his sleeve. “You’re Cal, aren’t you? Our big brother Cal, who went away to war and never came home again.”
“Yes, I— Ooooff!” He broke off as she hurled herself at him in an enthusiastic embrace that nearly knocked him off his feet.
She hugged and kissed him excitedly, pelting him with questions he had no time to answer.
“When did you get here? Are you back for good? Which one am I? Lily, of course, don’t you remember? You used to carry me around on your shoulders. I remember you being so tall. I should have recognized you sooner—you look a lot like Papa, doesn’t he, Rose? But more like that portrait of Grandpapa Rutherford. Why didn’t you tell us you were coming, Cal—does Aunt Dottie know?—oh, but what a lovely surprise. Have you eaten?”
Cal was taken aback by the exuberant torrent of affection. Laughing, he did his best to answer her questions, but there was only one she seemed really to care about.
“No, I won’t be staying. I’m only here to—to settle my affairs. Henry’s death has complicated matters, but as soon as I’ve sorted things out, I’ll be returning to Europe.” Young girls didn’t need to hear about assassins and murder.
“Oh.” Her excitement faded. “Oh, well, it’s still lovely to see you, even for just a short while. Isn’t it, Rose?”
Rose looked rather less thrilled to see him. She stepped forward, gave him a polite hug and kissed his cheek lightly. “Welcome home, brother.”
Lily slipped out of her cloak and slung it over a chair. “Are you hungry?” She glanced at his empty glass. “Would you like me to get you another drink? Why are you sitting in the kitchen so late, anyway?”
“It’s warmer here,” Rose said quickly, with a warning look at her sister.
Lily missed it. “Yes, but it’s much more comfortable in the parlor. Why don’t we take Cal in there and—”
“I’m sitting in the kitchen after midnight,” Cal said in a stern voice, “because my hoydenish little sisters sneaked out on their own at night, endangering their lives and their reputations and worrying their aunt sick.”
“Rubbish,” Rose interrupted. “Aunt Dottie knows perfectly well—” She broke off.
“—where you were?” Cal finished.
“No.” She flushed slightly but continued with that air of cool defiance he was coming to know. “But she knows that we always come home safe and sound.”
“She knows nothing of the sort!” Cal slammed his fist on the table, making both girls and his glass jump. “For all she knew, anything could have happened to you. You could have been robbed! People in London—and other cities, and don’t think Bath is exempt from crime—have been knocked unconscious, stripped of their clothing—fine clothing like you are wearing under your very fine cloaks, right down to your lace-trimmed fine lawn underwear. It would all fetch a pretty penny in the underworld—and like those other victims, you’d be left naked in the gutter.” He paused to let his message sink in. “You can imagine wha
t might happen to a naked girl left unconscious in the gutter, can’t you?”
Rose gave a little shrug. “Nothing happened to us.”
“Because you were lucky.” Cal decided to be brutal. “You might have been raped—yes, raped. Or beaten. Or kidnapped and sold into slavery. White slavery—do you know what that means? Sold into a Turkish harem, or a brothel in the seamiest foreign cities. And never seen again.”
Lily stared at him with wide, horrified eyes, Rose with flat, disbelieving insolence.
“Or you could have been murdered. But as far as I’m concerned, your worst sin is upsetting your aunt. She was in tears this evening,” he lied. “Telling me she had no idea where you were—yes, your gentle, sweet, elderly aunt was in tears, because she’s been made responsible for the care and welfare of two inconsiderate, disobedient, headstrong, insubordinate, uncaring hoydens.”
“If Aunt Dottie was in tears, it was because you were nasty and bossy and yelled at her. You upset her, just like you’re upsetting Lily,” Rose said. She put her arm around her sister’s shoulders and squeezed. “See, you’ve made Lily cry.”
Under Cal’s horrified gaze, Lily’s wide gray eyes filled, and fat tears slid slowly down her cheeks. She wept silently, making no sound, no sobs or wails or sniffles, just standing there, gazing at him through misery-drenched eyes.
Cal hated to see women weep at any time, but this . . . Somehow the very silence of it was more unnerving than ever.
“Lily, stop, I didn’t mean—” Cal put out a helpless hand. Both girls shrank away from him. Dammit, he’d meant to frighten them into obedience, not make them frightened of him. “Now, now, no need to cry. I’m sure you’re sorry. The main thing is, you’re all right now, and tomorrow we’ll sort out what to do.”
With a protective arm around Lily’s woebegone figure, Rose gave him a look of deep reproach. “I think you’ve done enough. I’m going to take Lily upstairs now.” She turned her sister toward the door. “She probably won’t get any sleep tonight. Your threats and horrid stories will probably give her nightmares. She’s very prone to nightmares.”