Chapter 9

Torie woke up in the morning with a terrible feeling of foreboding. What would happen if the twins were wards of a man with

no connections to her family other than a broken betrothal to her sister?

Moreover, a man who didn't seem to like her very much.

The idea of not watching them grow up was heartbreaking. She felt swamped with sadness.

The day before, Leonora had brooded in a corner of the carriage the whole three blocks from Kelbourne House before accompanying

Lord Bufford to a musicale in the afternoon. After that, she claimed to have a headache and took her supper on a tray in her

room.

Leonora almost certainly intended to return Kelbourne's ring.

Torie couldn't argue with her sister's decision. She'd never understood Leonora's ruthless adherence to social rules, but

there it was. Kelbourne would have to find a different viscountess to introduce the twins to society.

The ironic thing was that in Torie's opinion, Leonora was wrong. Seven years from now, Florence and Valentine would stroll

into London ballrooms and effortlessly command attention. They had easy confidence, a quality that could not be taught. Their

aplomb , as Florence called it, was innate.

Torie was more observant of that quality than most because she did not have it. No one who'd spent her life so aware of failures

could.

In short, she was addle-headed.

She'd never felt more addled than in the aftermath of the moment when she blurted out that offer to "take" the children. Even thinking of it made her hands curl into humiliated fists. How could she have been so stupid?

Lord Kelbourne had been appalled.

Appalled.

She'd seen it in his eyes. And he was right. Florence and Valentine were extraordinarily intelligent and deserved to be cared

for by someone who was as brilliant as they.

Never mind her instinctual feeling that the twins just needed to be loved. Kelbourne did love them, in his own way, but he

showed it by expressionless nods and frequent additions to the Prohibited List—with the best motives, of course.

Florence and Valentine needed someone in their lives who'd put them first . Before society's rules, before the House of Lords, before lovers (in the case of their mother), before their reputed paternity

(in the case of their father).

If Torie had taken the children to the country, she would have put a minuet low on the list of skills to be mastered. The

pirate game was the first time she saw the twins playing. They needed to learn to have fun outdoors.

Who better to teach that than Torie? She'd spent her childhood dodging nannies waving books that she couldn't understand. Leonora may be able to read, but she'd never walked through Torie's favorite glade, where the wild bees thronged and rabbits raised their kits. Torie had climbed trees to peer into robins' nests, and clung to a tall elm in a windstorm, pretending to be a ship's boy. More than one summer had been spent trailing after the estate gardeners. When she painted roses, she knew their names; when she painted rabbits, she knew the precise pink of their velvety noses.

Now she folded her arms behind her head and stared up at the gathered draperies over her bed. If she had Valentine and Florence, she'd take their books away after breakfast and chase them out of the house.

Florence would soon have more to write about than severed limbs. Or they could make her descriptions more realistic by dissecting

a dead squirrel. If Leonora hadn't started screaming when Torie cut open a dead frog, she would have extracted all its bits

and pieces for a closer look.

The bedchamber door burst open while she was imagining a daily picnic. She and the children could lie on their backs in a

field of cow parsley and watch starlings circle. Or listen to Val read the Odyssey .

Emily dashed in, threw open the curtains, and screeched, "Miss Sutton is gone !"

Torie sat up. "What?" She squinted at the window. It couldn't be more than nine in the morning. Her heart sank; she could

guess where her sister was. "I expect Leonora is calling on Lord Kelbourne before he leaves for the House of Lords, Emily.

She likely slipped out of the house and walked there."

"Miss Sutton doesn't walk anywhere," Emily retorted. "No, she has left for good!"

"If you are suggesting that my sister has eloped, you are mistaken. She would rather die."

"She rang for me at dawn," Emily said dramatically. "I dressed her in that new gown, the one with hand-painted flowers."

Torie nodded.

"I had no idea, but Sir William's valet had dressed him early as well! He and Miss Sutton left together without breakfast. And now the master's returned alone and announced that Miss Sutton won't return to the house— ever !"

"I doubt that very much," Torie said, swinging her legs out of bed. "Did Sir William have brandy with his morning tea?"

Emily shook her head. "He was sober as a judge, though now he's in the library with the decanters, so who can say? He's in

a regular snit, I can tell you that. Sent for Lord Kelbourne, or so the butler says."

Torie winced. Apparently, Leonora had left the unpleasant business of breaking off her betrothal to their father. "I suspect

my sister has traveled to Wales to stay with my uncle for a few months, until the gossip about breaking her engagement dies

down."

Emily gaped. "Miss Sutton jilted the viscount?"

"I think so," Torie said.

Leonora's flight to Wales was a remarkable concession, given that she disliked their uncle to the point of refusing to be

in a room with him. In fact, it suggested that her unwillingness to settle on a wedding date reflected genuine reluctance

to marry Kelbourne. After all, if the viscount had insisted on keeping the twins in London, Leonora could have just pretended

that the nursery didn't exist, a time-honored practice amongst noblewomen.

Torie suspected that Kelbourne was too male for Leonora, with his blunt mannerisms, his burly physique, and his obsession

with rapiers, as her sister had acidly put it.

"Wouldn't Sir William have sent Miss Sutton to Wales in the barouche?" Emily asked. "If she is paying your uncle a visit, I mean."

Torie frowned. "Perhaps the barouche is not equipped for such a long journey, and the threat of scandal forced her onto the

stagecoach. Leonora loathes gossip, and she's certain to be on everyone's lips this week. She may have demanded to leave immediately.

You know how she is."

"Stubborn as a stone," Emily agreed. "But Miss Sutton on a common stage without a maid? I can't imagine it. And if she's paying

your uncle a visit, why's the master in such a canker, saying that she will never return?"

"He doesn't mean it. Sir William is enraged because Leonora instructed him to break her betrothal," Torie surmised. She stood

up, feeling foolishly near to tears.

No more twins, at least until they were old enough to debut in society.

The Duke of Queensberry had been angling for a kiss, and she should probably indulge him. As a duchess, she could ensure that

Florence was a success among the ton.

"Please call for a bath," she said dully.

Emily rang for hot water while Torie brushed her teeth.

"Lord Bufford is going to be so disappointed," Emily said, clicking her tongue as she pulled Torie's nightdress over her head.

"The gentleman actually thought Miss Sutton might accept his proposal. He thought to lure the most beautiful lady in London away from a viscount, though he's old as the hills and likely takes his

teeth out at night!"

In her bath, Torie resolved to pay a visit to Kelbourne House to say goodbye to Florence and Val. She didn't have to worry about running into the jilted bridegroom; the viscount would hear the bad news and go straight to the House of Lords. He wouldn't allow a broken engagement to come between him and the laws of the land.

She refused to be another person who simply disappeared from the twins' lives. If only she could write, she would correspond

with Florence. She pushed that wish away with a practiced grimace.

Forty minutes later, she was laced into her favorite robe à l'anglaise , strawberry pink with a deep green hem trimmed with white ruffles. Emily darted forward to position the matching ruffled hat

with a playful tilt to the left before pinning it in place.

"It's odd to think of Miss Sutton without a maid," Emily said, stepping back to check every detail of Torie's appearance.

"How will she dress herself?"

"My uncle will assign her one of his upstairs maids. I'm sorry about how the jilting affects you, Emily. You deserve to be

the personal maid to a viscountess." Torie hesitated and then added, "I am certain that Lord Kelbourne's household would have

been far more comfortable than ours."

Emily's sigh took in their oft-drunken butler and equally inebriated master. "You are a pleasure to dress, Miss Torie. Your

sister always demanded a fichu wound halfway up her neck, and I couldn't persuade her to raise her hems, despite fashion's

demands."

Torie cocked her hip and slid forward a darling slipper so she could see the strawberry ribbons that crossed over her ankle—which

brought a rueful smile to her face as she remembered Florence wiggle-waggling across the nursery.

Somehow, she would remain friends with the twins. Even if Lord Kelbourne took a justified dislike to her entire family after being jilted.

Torie drew a deep breath and prepared to go downstairs.

Beside her, Emily gave a little squeal. "Pray take care!" She reached over and tweaked the ruffle that adorned Torie's low

bodice. "Your nipples will be served up on a platter if you aren't cautious."

"I'll breathe shallowly," Torie promised, picking up her reticule. Perhaps she'd go to Delbart's Book Emporium before visiting

the nursery. Mr. Delbart had become quite good at advising her about books the twins might like. Florence had adored The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest and had promised to read it aloud once Odysseus finally found his way home.

No Necromancer .

No more Odyssey , either. Though to be honest, she had started to find Odysseus frustrating. If Torie had a loving family waiting at home,

she wouldn't skip from island to island, seducing witches and letting her men be eaten by cyclopes and turned to pigs.

Achingly empty days and months without the twins stretched ahead of her. Of course, she had her painting. She'd been working

on the cabbage roses forever, and the piece was finally coming into focus. She tried to muster some enthusiasm for finishing

it.

"I shall work in my studio this afternoon," she told Emily. "I promised to join Clara for the evening meal, but under the

circumstances, I will remain home. Will you please send her a note?"

One of the more humiliating aspects of her illiteracy was that her maid wrote all her messages and read aloud any responses. "I'm sorry that Leonora changed her mind about marrying the viscount, but I am glad that you're staying with me," Torie said, dropping a kiss on Emily's cheek.

Her maid nodded. "If Leonora had become the viscountess, I would have had to leave you as you are... It didn't feel right."

As you are : a delicate way of classifying an addled brain.

"Please let Roberts know that I shall visit the bookstore, so he should bring a purse," Torie added. Even though she was certain

she could manage such a simple transaction, well-bred ladies never touched coinage.

Not unusually, no footman was to be seen when Torie arrived at the bottom of the stairs. In their household, staff invariably

needed to be rousted from belowstairs. She turned to enter the breakfast room but froze when she heard her father's raised

voice coming from the library.

"You drove my daughter away!" Sir William thundered. "Leonora had no choice but to break her betrothal."

It seemed Viscount Kelbourne had responded to her father's summons and was now being informed of his fiancée's departure.

Torie sighed. Sir William was hardly presenting Leonora's decision in a tactful manner.

Long experience of judging Sir William's voice suggested he was mildly tipsy. But—and this was unusual—he was genuinely enraged.

Her father was an amiable drunk who could be compared to a lady prone to fits of vapors: at some point in the evening, he

would collapse on a nearby couch.

But now he was furious. Of course, Leonora's betrothal, celebrated far and wide as a brilliant love match, had done much for the family's consequence. In contrast, Torie's betrothal—if there ever was one—would be followed by animated speculation about the intelligence of her offspring.

A low rumble from the viscount followed, interrupted by her father.

"Leonora is delicate , with a gentlewoman's sensibilities. You allowed her to be insulted by your wards and, not content with that, indulged them

as they disparaged my St. Paul's wager!"

It was unclear which was the greater affront: the disrespect to his daughter or to his most famous bet.

"You made unreasonable demands," Sir William continued. "No lady would want to introduce those young fiends to polite society,

and you oughtn't have asked it of her."

Torie scowled and headed toward the library door. Val and Florence were not fiends, and she wouldn't allow anyone to say so.

When she entered, Kelbourne was standing before the window, light glazing his hair to the color of blackberries. He was at

his most autocratic, jaw stony, eyes ferocious. She had to stiffen her knees; some cowardly part of her saw raw emotion in

his eyes and wanted to soothe his irritation.

Which would be precisely the wrong way to respond. He was far too used to having his own way when people cringed before his

temper. It wasn't good for him, any more than it had been good for Leonora.

"Good morning, Father," Torie said, dropping a curtsy. "Lord Kelbourne." She dropped another.

The viscount gave her a forbidding stare and bowed. Her father just glanced at her. His cheeks were adorned with purple circles, like a lady whose face was inexpertly painted.

"My children are not fiends," the viscount stated. His voice was calm but all the more threatening for it. "I take offense,

Sir William."

" I take offense," Torie's father snapped. "I gave you my daughter, the most beautiful debutante in all London, and you failed

to tie the knot for years ."

"Your daughter refused to set a date for our wedding," Kelbourne retorted. "Am I to understand that Miss Sutton now refuses

to marry me at all?" His voice was even, but Torie had learned to read his expressions over the last few months.

He too was outraged, which was somewhat surprising. After all, he'd had a taste of Leonora's temper.

He must have truly loved her. Guilt flashed down Torie's spine. Of course Kelbourne had loved—still loved—Leonora. She was lovable. Rigid, but lovable. Not to mention beautiful and intelligent. Ladylike

most of the time. She would have been a practically perfect viscountess, if the twins hadn't come along.

"Leonora cannot marry you," Sir William said, following the declaration with a hearty swallow of brandy.

"Oh?" Kelbourne asked.

"This morning she married someone else."