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“Not unless they were firstborn,” Darby said, his mind obviously elsewhere. “I don’t have an entailed estate trailing behind me like the wag on a dog. There’s a fair number of us out there just like myself, you know. Now, if you’ll excuse me, love—”

But she managed to gasp, even as he eased between her legs and that familiar melting ache spread down her body, “I still think they would have wanted children.”

The muscles in his shoulders bulged. Henrietta flicked one with her tongue.

“They wouldn’t give a damn,” Darby said. “They wouldn’t give a damn if they could just be here with you.” He looked down at her so fiercely that she knew he spoke the truth—

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as he saw it, anyway. “But they can’t,” he said against her mouth. “No one will ever have you but me. You’re mine, Henrietta.”

There was nothing to do but smile.

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Knowing One’s Enemy

“That’s not the proper way to advance your troops,” Josie said uncompromisingly, reaching out her hand and stopping Henrietta’s contingent of tin soldiers. One fell on his face, and she carefully set him back in formation. “If you bring them around the turn of the hill there, you’ll be seen by my sentry. You mustn’t be seen. That’s a rule.”

Henrietta blinked. She didn’t remember games with her sister being quite so fraught with rules. “You should let me play my part, even if I do make a mistake,” she pointed out.

“You’ll win all the faster.” Josie’s troops always won, since Henrietta spent most of her time trying to figure out how quickly she could sacrifice her own men and escape the battle.

“It wouldn’t be any fun that way. If you bring your men around to the west, they can try to attack from the rear of the castle.”

Henrietta sighed and started moving her troops all the way around the little crimson hassock to the “west” for a rear attack. It was tedious enough to make her look hopefully toward Anabel’s crib. Surely her afternoon nap was almost over. The tin soldiers were looking rather more worn than they Fool for Love

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had a few months ago, when Josie found them in Esme’s nursery. The red soldiers could only be identified by a faint rosy tint that hung around their belts; all the rest of their paint had worn away. The blue soldiers were doing better, as Josie didn’t like them nearly as much. Some of them even had faint uniforms left. They weren’t given daily baths, after all, and they didn’t have to sleep with their commander, the way the red soldiers did. Henrietta had grown accustomed to feeling around Josie’s sleeping little body at night for hard metal lumps of male soldiery. As far as Henrietta knew, Josie never inquired how her troops managed the nightly climb from bed to bedside table.

“If you make a rear attack,” Josie said now, busily lining up her men on the battlements of the castle (alias the red hassock), “I am likely to pour boiling oil on you.” She looked up earnestly. “That’s not to discourage you, but I thought perhaps you should be warned.”

“What a bloodthirsty idea!” Henrietta said. “Where on earth did you learn about that revolting custom?”

“My brother Simon told me. He never makes a rear attack for that very reason. But then, he’s knows a great deal about everything.” Josie cast Henrietta a pitying look.

“Hmmm,” Henrietta said. “And just when did brother Simon teach you about the fascinating practice of boiling one’s enemies?”

“This very morning,” said a deep voice, just over her head. Henrietta looked up with a start. “I wouldn’t have thought you knew anything about battle strategies,” she said, resisting a wayward impulse to throw herself into her husband’s arms and kiss him senseless.

“There are many things you don’t know about me,” Darby said, crouching down next to his stepsister. “Why have you placed these men in a double rank, Josie? If a flaming arrow comes over the battlements here, you’ll lose all the men at one blow.”

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Josie stared for a moment. “I’ll put them behind a pillar,”

she said, pointing to empty space.

“Good idea,” Darby said, and Josie began carefully moving her soldiers.

“Couldn’t you construct these poor men some clothing?”

Henrietta said idly to her husband. She held up a blue soldier.