Charlotte Louise Dolan (11 page)

She merely stood up, smiled down at him in a patronizing way, and moved toward where he stood blocking the door. At the last possible moment, remembering how easily she had handled him the night before, he moved aside.

Not that he was afraid of her, of course. Sober, he was sure he could wrestle her to the ground. If he wanted to, which he did not. She was too unnatural a woman for him to have the slightest interest in her, and so he would tell her. She was, after all, freakishly tall, which he had been willing to overlook before. But no longer.

“We’ve got to do something, Drew.” Anthony sat in bed hugging his knees, imagining what it would be like if Anne left. Even thinking about it made his stomach hurt.

“We already did. We stole the letter Uncle Creighton wrote and burned it.” Andrew got out of bed and started dressing himself.

“But after a while, when he doesn’t get an answer from Uncle Bronson, he’ll write another.”

“By that time we’ll have thought of something else. Just because we’ve been behaving good as gold for Anne, doesn’t mean we can’t think any more. We’re still in-gen-i-ous.” Andrew picked up a pillow and threw it at his brother.

Anthony caught it, then tossed it aside and got out of bed, too. “Yeah. It’ll be fun, too. I miss playing tricks on people.”

“But it’s better with Anne here.”

“Of course. I never want her to leave. And I won’t let Uncle Bronson make her. I’ll write him my own letter and explain what really happened ...” He stopped with his shirt half on and half off, because his brother began pounding him on the back.

“See, see, I told you we’d think of something! We’ll write our own letter. But we have to be careful and keep it a secret, because Uncle Creighton would have a fit if he found out, and even Anne might forbid us to interfere if she knew what we were doing.”

“Why would she do that?”

“Because it’s funny about ladies. It’s all right for an upstairs maid like Sally to kiss the footmen and grooms and get her clothes all messed up, but if a lady is caught kissing a man, or even if the man is kissing her, or even if it looks as if they
might
have been kissing, then she has to marry him.” Tying his last shoe, he stood up and went to the door, where he waited for Anthony to put his own shoes on.

“That’s nonsense.”

“‘Struth. Collier Baineton told me, and he’s almost eighteen. He knows all about rules for ladies.”

They started down the corridor together.

“Is Anne a lady?”

“Course she’s a lady. She’s Lady Gloriana, remember?”

“I remember. I just wasn’t sure if the rules count for her since she’s our governess.”

“I’m not sure. But we’d better keep our letter secret from everyone, just in case.”

“We can post it ourselves in Tavistock. All we have to do is think of a reason for going into town.” The bad feeling was gone from his insides, and Anthony grinned at his brother.

“Hold on, what’s this?” Andrew caught his arm.

The door to Uncle Bronson’s room was open, and Anthony looked past his brother’s shoulder into the room. Seeing Sally inside, they entered.

“What are you doing in here?”

She gave a little jump, then spun around, scowling when she saw who it was. “Oh, it’s you two. I wish you’d stop sneaking up on a body like that.”

“We didn’t do it on purpose.” This time, anyway, Anthony thought. But next time, maybe. He wondered what Anne’s opinion would be if they didn’t do anything very bad, just a little “boo” every now and then to watch the maids jump. Somehow he didn’t think she’d approve.

“Well, clear on out of here now, I’ve got to get this room ready. Old Chorley got a letter from Lord Leatham saying he’s arriving here this afternoon.”

Anthony looked at his brother in dismay. The bad feeling was twisting up his insides again. With a curt motion of his head, Andrew indicated they should leave.

By unspoken agreement they changed their direction. Instead of going to the morning room to join Anne, they went to the formal dining room, found the proper carved oak leaf, twisted it, then went through the hidden door that swung noiselessly open.

Pulling the door shut behind them, they moved swiftly along the low-ceilinged passageway and down the steep, twisting stairs. They did not speak until they came to the door at the other end, which opened into a small empty room behind the wine cellar. No one could enter except through the outer room, which was kept locked, or through the secret corridor, which no one knew about except them, so they knew they would not be disturbed.

It was all Anthony could do not to cry. But he didn’t want his brother to think he was a baby, so he blinked back his tears.

“The thing to do is get rid of Anne.” Andrew said, a scowl on his face.

“What?
I don’t want to get rid of her, and I thought you wanted her to stay here, too.”

“Not permanently. Just temporarily. Just until after we have a chance to tell Uncle Bronson our side of the story. We might be able to get him to listen if we can talk to him first—”

“Before Uncle Creighton talks to him?”

“No, that doesn’t matter. Before Uncle Bronson tells Anne to pack and get out, is what I mean. After he tells her she’s fired, then even if we convince him she’s innocent, it won’t matter. Because once he gives the order, he won’t want to change his mind. Grown-ups are funny that way. They don’t want anyone to think they’ve made a mistake. Even when everyone knows they have. That’s what happened to Nanny Barlow, remember?”

“Course I remember. Uncle Creighton fired her for stealing his watch, and even when he found out later it was her father’s watch, and his watch was under some papers on his desk, he still didn’t do anything to fetch her back, not even when you cried.”

“I didn’t cry, you cried.”

“Well, one of us cried, it doesn’t really matter which one. What matters is stopping Uncle Bronson from firing Anne.”

* * * *

The twins were late in joining her, but Anne was not worried. They were indeed used to fending for themselves, especially when it came to satisfying their bottomless appetites. When they did finally appear, they ignored the kippers and back bacon, which meant Sally had probably taken a tray up to the nursery, or the boys had simply gone down to the kitchen and wheedled what they wanted out of the cook.

Laying down her own napkin, she stood up. “So, shall we go hiking on the moor today? Or would you prefer to ride over to see how the new colts are getting on? Or what would you like?”

“We have been talking it over,” Andrew announced. “And we realized you have not had even a half day off since you got here.”

“So we have decided you should have the whole day off today. You can even ride into Tavistock if you wish. I am sure you could use some new ribbons.”

“Or a bonnet or something. We can stay here and work on our lessons while you’re gone.”

The boys’ attempt to look innocent was so phony, Anne did not believe for a minute that they were not up to some mischief.

“But I would not want to leave you two all alone.”

“And why not?” Andrew’s look of indignation was remarkably realistic. “Are you implying we are incapable of taking care of ourselves? We got along on our own just fine before you came. We are not
babies
, you know,” he said with great scorn in his voice.

She looked from one to the other of them. “Why do I get the feeling you are trying to deceive me?”

Just for a moment she thought Anthony looked guilty, but then he smiled angelically, which made her even more certain they were up to something. “Now I wonder what sort of mischief you could be planning? Have you perhaps decided to bedevil your Uncle Creighton?” The idea had appeal, even for Anne. For the last several days Trussell had been making snide comments about her under his breath every time their paths crossed, and all she could do was pretend not to hear.

“Really, Anne, we promise to be good,” Andrew said easily. “And we always keep our promises.”

“Yes,” his twin added. “We truly only want you to have a little holiday.”

It was tempting. It really was. As much as she loved the boys and enjoyed being with them, she had been rather isolated here at Wylington Manor, with no one to talk to except the boys and the servants. If she took the entire day, she could call first on Lady Thorverton, who had been feeling poorly, and then afterward visit Mrs. Thirsk in Tavistock. And a little browsing in the shops would be fun, even though she could not think of anything she particularly needed.

But could she trust the twins? That was the question that was still not answered to her satisfaction. “Do you promise you are not planning some kind of mischief?”

“We promise that we are not going to do anything mean or malicious.”

“But we don’t have to be nice to Uncle Creighton, do we?” Anthony asked. “I mean, it will be enough if we just sort of avoid him, won’t it?”

That did not sound as if whatever they were planning would be too bad.

“I guess you don’t trust us,” Andrew said flatly.

“Before I decide,” she said, “I want you to come with me. We shall have a small lesson, just a very quick one, and then, perhaps, I shall take the day off.”

With the boys following her, she descended to the servants’ level, where she fetched a fresh egg out of the larder and showed it to them. “For the purpose of our lesson today, this is not merely a hen’s egg. This egg is a symbol of my trust in you. If you break the trust—” She dropped the egg onto the stone floor, and the kitchen cat hurried over and started licking up the spilled yoke. “Now, Andrew, please put it back the way it was before it got broken.”

“I can’t,” he said.

“How about you, Anthony?”

The other boy shook his head.

“Do you understand what happens when you break your word? You destroy your reputation as someone who can be trusted, and it is virtually impossible to regain that trust.”

They both nodded. “We promise—”

“That we are not going to get into trouble—”

“While you’re gone, or do anything—”

“Mean or malicious.”

They were no longer smiling angelically, which was a good sign as far as Anne was concerned.

“Very well, then I will trust you to stay out of trouble until I get back.”

They looked at one another, but she could not read on their faces what they were thinking.

“You don’t need to hurry back.”

“You can be gone all day.”

“We can even put ourselves to bed—”

“If you’re very, very late.”

“I will not be that late. I shall stop for a while at Thorverton Hall to visit Lady Thorverton, and then I shall ride on into Tavistock. I will plan to be back by teatime,” she said with a smile.

An hour later, when she was riding her favorite horse away from the manor, she wondered if perchance the boys’ oath had been couched in ambiguous terms that had slipped by her—if, in fact, she would be met by disaster upon her return, with the boys swearing that they had followed their promise to the letter, but that it had not included ... what?

* * * *

“It isn’t exactly breaking our promise, is it Drew?” The twins were walking down the road in the direction of Tavistock. They were planning to stop when they reached the edge of the estate and wait for Uncle Bronson to come.

“Course it isn’t. She didn’t say anything at all about not talking to Uncle Bronson. Nor did she ask if he was coming today.”

“But we are planning to tell him something she wants us to keep secret.”

“We are
assuming
that she wouldn’t want anyone to know that Uncle Creighton tried to climb into her bed, but she has never
said
that we are to keep it a secret. She can’t blame us for doing something she never told us not to do.”

“And it’s not being malicious, because we are just trying to help her.”

“Right. The worst she can do is say we should have asked her, but then she never told us we had to ask her for permission to talk to Uncle Bronson.”

“Even so, maybe we should have told her Uncle Bronson was coming today?”

“That’s Chorley’s responsibility.”

“But Chorley found the bottle of brandy we left on the front hall table.”

“We cannot be held responsible for Chorley’s weakness in drinking from it, can we?”

“Only if Anne finds out.”

“If she asks us directly, did we sneak down a secret passageway into the back of the wine cellar and remove a bottle of brandy and deliberately leave it where Chorley could find it so that he would get too drunk to remember to tell Anne that Uncle Bronson is coming,” he paused for a breath, “then of course, we will have to tell her the truth.”

“I think it’s unlikely she will ask us that.” Anthony grinned at his brother. “Race you to the gate!”

They were both off like a flash, although by the time they reached the remains of the ancient stone gate that marked the edge of the Wylington estate, neither one paid any attention to who had gotten there first.

* * * *

Someone was shouting in a high-pitched voice, and Bronson reined in his horse. At first he could not determine where the sound was coming from, until he spotted two small boys, sitting each of them atop a stone pillar, looking like grubby little gargoyles.

“Uncle Bronson, we’ve been waiting for you.”

His wards. He should have known. Without worrying unduly, he watched them scramble down from their perches. As agile as the monkeys he had seen in the jungles of South America, the twins were just as fearless. In any event, he could not afford to let himself worry just because they were climbing around on stone pillars that were undoubtedly weakened by age until they could collapse at any moment, in the process likely crushing one or the other of the boys.

That was what the governess was paid for—to do his worrying for him, and to restrain his wards from the more death-defying feats. Except the governess so recently hired by Trussell was nowhere in sight. She did not appear to take her duties seriously, but then he had expected nothing better.

Deftly lifting one twin up behind him, he swung the other one up in front of him, then signaled his horse to continue at a walk in the direction of the house and stables.