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Josie just sobbed.

Henrietta wondered what Batt would do. Unfortunately, the maids had packed his Rules and Directions somewhere in the trunks. But she already knew that he didn’t say a useful thing about temper tantrums. Lord knows she’d looked hard enough.

She leaned down and tried to guide Josie up on the seat, but her small body proved to be wiry and resistant. Josie wailed louder.

Finally Henrietta managed to grasp Josie and haul her up on the seat. Unfortunately, she had to brace her legs against the floor, which sent such a jolt of pain down her leg that she gasped. She did keep hold of Josie, though. The little girl seemed to be losing steam, as well she might after a half hour of crying.

“I know you’re worried about finding a kind nanny,” Hen-Fool for Love 255

rietta said soothingly. “I can assure you that your brother and I will do everything we can—”

“I don’t like you,” Josie said, in a wretched tone. “I don’t like you, and I don’t want you to be my mother.”

The coach swayed along at its gentle pace while Henrietta held on to Josie and wondered what to do next. Josie solved that problem by wrenching her way out of Henrietta’s arms and crawling onto the opposite seat. Henrietta put up her chin and tried not to care.

She turned to Anabel just in time to notice that the baby was looking a bit white. Sure enough, Anabel made that funny dry coughing sound Henrietta recognized and, without further ado, threw up the remains of a meat pie all over the floor of the coach and Henrietta’s shoes.

As if on cue, Josie regained her strength. “I don’t want you for a mother!” she shrieked. “And neither does Anabel!”

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Of Babies in Baskets and Families in Carriages Darby and Rees arrived at the Bear and Owl around three in the afternoon. Rees spent the trip bundled up in a corner, tunelessly humming fragments of music over and over. It was enough to drive a man to drink. And the moment the carriage drew to a halt, he strode off down the street, muttering something about an organ and the village church. Darby arranged for rooms, found a woman to care for Anabel and Josie for the night, then strolled back outside and looked down the road they had traveled. He’d had a creeping sense of guilt for the past hour or so.

He’d mishandled the trip. The truth was that his feelings were hurt by Henrietta’s emphasis on their marriage as a convenience by which she acquired his stepsisters, as if they were an inheritance he brought with him. Still, it wasn’t right to leave his bride alone in a carriage with two children, no matter how much she talked about wanting to be a mother.

A seasoned nursemaid had been unable to cope with Anabel’s weak stomach and Josie’s tantrums. The trip from London had been hell; there was no reason to expect that the Fool for Love

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trip back would be different. With a sigh he turned to the innkeeper and began negotiating to hire a hack. Five minutes later he was trotting back down the road. A half hour later he caught sight of his traveling carriage. It was swaying gently along, looking like precisely what it was: a carriage containing a man’s family. He waved it over, tied his hack behind, and climbed in with a sense of dread intensified by the odor that greeted him. The first thing he saw was a large basket between the seats, holding a pile of crumpled linens and children’s clothing. Clearly, Anabel was no longer in the clothing she wore that morning. But all in all, it was a remarkably peaceful scene that met his eyes.

Henrietta was tucked into a corner, Anabel against her chest, both of them fast asleep. From the way Anabel’s eyes looked swollen even in her sleep, he guessed she’d probably wailed up a storm before napping. Josie was sitting on the other seat, one leg curled beneath her, sucking her thumb. As soon as she saw him, she took out her thumb and said,

“Shhh! Anabel is sleeping!”

“I see that,” Darby said, sitting down next to her and nodding to the footman, who closed the door. The carriage resumed its slow, lumbering journey. “I thought I would join you, in case Henrietta needed some assistance. Have you had a pleasant journey?”

Something about the dedicated way that Josie was sucking her thumb and staring at her boots made him suspicious.

“You have had an easy journey, haven’t you?”

She didn’t answer. “Josie?”

Finally his little sister took her thumb out of her mouth and said, “I can call her Henrietta, because she married my brother.”

Darby blinked. “Good.”

“She has a temper,” Josie said in an offhand sort of way.

“Look.” She pointed to one of the little lamps that was at-258 Eloisa James

tached to the carriage walls. It seemed fine to Darby, but Josie stared at it with satisfaction. Presumably the shade had suffered some sort of abuse.

Well, Darby thought, my mother threw roast beef. I suppose I could prepare myself for flying lampshades. Josie didn’t seem perturbed. In fact, displays of temper probably made her feel quite at home. He had a vague sense that she had been present the Christmas before last—well, obviously Josie had been summoned downstairs at some point, but was she downstairs when his stepmother launched a tureen at the vicar? All his father had said was, “Damme if you haven’t bent the edge.”

I can cultivate the same lassitude, Darby told himself. Now he had been in the carriage a few moments, he could hardly smell an unpleasant odor at all. What’s more, Henrietta’s hair was falling out of its snood, and she looked unusually disheveled, which made him remember that every journey had its end—and this one would be his wedding night.

Josie’s eyes were looking heavy, and Darby guessed that she would be asleep in a moment. He hesitated a moment, then picked up Anabel and plopped her into the half-empty basket on the floor. It could have been designed just for the purpose; the child barely shifted in her sleep. Then Darby sat down next to his wife and pulled her against his shoulder. She opened her eyes briefly, looked at him in a dazed sort of way, and said, “I warned you!” and went back to sleep.