“I know. And it was two toads, one under his pillow and one deep beneath the covers, so that he thought he was safe once he’d removed the more obvious one.” He took her arm, and she didn’t even bother to pretend she didn’t feel a small frisson of awareness course through her body. “And one thing more, although I would have thought you’d know. There is something about the configuration of the ceilings of the entrance hall that allows even whispers to carry to every corner.”
“The devil you say.” Rafe and Charlotte both then looked over their shoulders at Grayson, the man a good twenty feet from them. A man whose rather large ears had turned a most alarming shade of puce.
“Carry on, Grayson, carry on,” Rafe called brightly to the majordomo, and then, his hand tightening slightly on Charlotte’s forearm, he hastened her the rest of the way as Billy scampered ahead to fling open the double doors. “I’m not making the best of starts, am I?” he whispered.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Charlotte said as she looked ahead into the enormous main saloon, anxious to locate Nicole and Lydia. “I thought falling at my feet a nice touch. Ah, there they are, your dear, sweet sisters, eager to welcome you home.”
Charlotte watched as Nicole leaped to her feet and then signaled with an impatient twist of her hand that Lydia also should rise.
The two of them stood in front of one of the satin settees, not moving, as if the backs of their knees had somehow become glued to that piece of furniture.
The twins were sixteen now, hardly the awkward near-nursery infants Rafe had last seen before he departed for the war. Charlotte wondered if he even recognized them, or they him.
The pair was as alike in their looks as chalk and cheese. In fact, all three Daughtry children bore little resemblance to each other.
Nicole did share Rafe’s near-black hair, but her eyes were far from sherry brown. They were violet, a shade Charlotte had never seen in any other eyes, and Nicole’s dramatically arched brows and long black lashes only made that violet more startling, almost mesmerizing. Witchlike, Charlotte’s father had once commented, not completely in jest, warning that in an earlier century the girl would have doubtless ended burning at the stake.
Nicole had lovely pale skin, but because she refused to wear her bonnet and loved to run free, there was always a beguiling sprinkle of freckles across her nose and cheeks and a glow to her skin that, although most unladylike, was perfect for Nicole.
In short, Nicole looked as she was—fresh, unbridled, a child of nature and full of mischief.
The complete opposite of Lydia.
Nicole’s twin, who favored their mother, had hair the color of corn silk and eyes as blue as a summer sky. Her skin was unmarked by freckles because she was always careful to wear a bonnet—not because she feared freckles, but because she’d been told to always wear her bonnet. Shy, quiet, studious, Lydia was rather like a just-budding blossom, her head dipped to avoid attention lest she be picked from her comfortable spot in the garden before she was ready to bloom.
Right now Lydia’s chin was bent so near her chest that almost all Charlotte could see of her were those huge blue eyes swimming with guilt.
Nicole’s small, pointed chin, however, was fully raised, almost defiant.
If a portrait artist could capture the twins as they posed now, no volume of ten thousand words could do more to make clear the character of the two sisters.
Or who was in charge.
“Girls, how wonderful,” Charlotte said after only a heartbeat in time—one that had felt longer than an age. “Your brother is returned to you. I’ve already explained that your Aunt Emmaline has placed me in the role of chaperone while she is traveling, and what a lovely time we’ve all had with me residing here with you until her return. Now don’t just stand there like sticks, come welcome your brother home.”
Lydia looked up, goggling in confusion at this full budget of lies Charlotte had just loosed on them. But Nicole, her mind always alert for mischief, never so much as blinked as she said, “And quite the dragon of a chaperone she is, so that we’d never dare to be on anything save our very best behavior, as suits the sisters of a duke. A duke, Rafe! Isn’t it above all things wonderful?”
As she spoke, she advanced across the seeming mile of carpets, her arms outstretched, so that by the time she finished speaking she was close enough to launch herself into her brother’s arms.
Rafe glanced at Charlotte as he slowly put his arms around his sister, a look very much akin to panic in his eyes.
“You…you’ve grown,” he said at last, when Nicole finally stepped back, grinning up in his face. “I…I didn’t realize…” He coughed into his fist. “Which, er, which one are you?”
“I’m Nicole, of course. You called me Nicky, which I hated, but now I think it a lovely name. Lydia, don’t just stand there like a lump, come say hello to Rafe.” She turned back to her brother. “You call her Lydia,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Really, there’s precious little else you could call her, not with a starchy name like that.”
Charlotte wanted to poke Rafe with her elbow, nudge him into some sort of speech. He needed to say something, he needed to put Nicole in her place immediately or else risk never having control of the reins. But he said nothing. Nicole had flummoxed him completely, her own brother. This did not bode well for the day the girl was set loose in London!
“Welcome home, Your Grace,” Lydia said in her quiet, reserved voice as she curtsied and then held out her hand to him, quickly drawing it back when, Charlotte supposed, she realized her brother might feel the need to kiss it.
“Thank you…Lydia,” Rafe said, and then watched as she returned to the settee and sat down, settling her skirts around her. “Lyddie?” he asked Nicole quietly. “I didn’t even call her Lyddie?”
Nicole bit her bottom lip as she shook her head. “You wouldn’t have dared. Mama says thank God we’re not of the Roman persuasion or else Lydia would have crawled into one of their nunneries years ago. But she’s all right. It’s all in knowing how to handle her.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Which you do, correct, and always to your advantage?”
“She’s my twin. I protect her,” Nicole stated, her violet eyes dancing in her head. “Would you like me to pour you a glass of wine, Your Grace? When we were informed that you were seen on the drive, I just had time to order Grayson to fetch one of Uncle Charlton’s best from the cellars. I’ll pour a glass for everyone. We should make a toast and celebrate your return.”
Rafe turned a questioning eye on Charlotte. “You allow them wine?”
“I most certainly do not,” Charlotte told him, glaring at Nicole. “You’ll have lemonade, my girl, and like it.”
Nicole’s full bottom lip came out in a pretty pout, but then she smiled. “See, Rafe? Charlotte is a veritable dragon of propriety. Aren’t you, Charlotte? Why, I don’t know what we should have done without her these weeks, with Aunt Emmaline gone.”
Rafe was beginning to look like a man outnumbered by hostiles, and without a weapon to protect himself. “Weeks? Emmaline’s been gone for weeks? She said nothing about that in any of her letters.”
“Duly chastised by my dragon chaperone, I’ll just go ring for Grayson to pour you that wine, Rafe,” Nicole said, and hurried away, sparing only a moment to shoot a desperate glance toward Charlotte, one that warned we’ll be fine, as long as you don’t muck it up now.
Charlotte swallowed hard and turned to Rafe. He looked much too inquisitive.