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Rhys swallowed a smile. “You look like a squirrel, dear.”
Millie giggled, her mouth bursting, and all the grapes sputtered all over Rhys’s front.
“Perhaps we’ll need a lot of lessons,” Lady Isabel said in defeat.
Millie shot up, giggling. Button also stood and started barking and jumping around his mistress.
“Here, let me.” Lady Isabel scooted toward Vane with a handkerchief and started gently wiping the grape juice away.
“See how many grapes I can eat at once, Papa?” Millie cried, jumping in a circle with Button.
Vane chuckled. “I don’t think that counts since all of your grapes are currently on my person.”
Lady Isabel’s hand moved down his torso, cleaning off the grapes. “As much as I hate being a bore, that behavior is unacceptable. You should know that.”
She rubbed violently at his chest, then her hand moved lower toward his breeches.
“Neither is this,” he croaked, then caught her hand and snatched the handkerchief out of her hand. “I can finish this myself now.”
Lady Isabel blushed a pretty pink, realizing her folly. “I apologize.” She turned away and started cleaning up the picnic area.
“Papa, can we go now?”
Rhys looked at Lady Isabel, and she nodded.
Millie and Button ran forward, screaming and playing while Rhys and Lady Isabel followed.
“I am certainly not an expert,” Rhys said. “But it seems to me that chastising a little girl for her unladylike activities is not the best way to bond with her.”
“I just wanted her to know that there are other activities worth her while.”
“Well, it didn’t work.”
“Well, of course, it didn’t! How am I supposed to entice her to sit at home and play the pianoforte when she spends most of her day running around like a little wild thing? And she needs to be interested in that before we hire a governess. Otherwise, it is bound to fail.”
“Perhaps lean on your personal experience,” he said, and Lady Isabel narrowed her eyes on him. “Oh, do not pretend, my dear scandalous marchioness, as if you haven’t managed to fool thetonfor years.”
“I have not!” she cried.
Rhys raised a brow. “So you cannot swim or sling rocks?”
He knew for a fact that she could.
“That was in the past,” she grumbled.
“When you were six, perhaps? Or even sixteen?”
Lady Isabel frowned in thought. “Perhaps you are right. But you still should support me in endorsing more decorous behavior. She looks up to you.”
“Papa!” Millie stopped a few feet away from them and pointed at the horizon, her eyes filled with awe. “Look how dark it is there.”
Rhys disengaged from Lady Isabel and hurried toward his daughter. The patch of the horizon was dark gray, like a wall of clouds.
“Yes, it’s raining there,” Rhys said. “Perhaps even a storm.”
“Is it far away? Is it coming toward us?”
Rhys shrugged. “It is hard to say. But it is in the direction of the Thornsby estate.” Thornsby was another of Rhys’s estates, the smallest and closest to Vane. “I should probably visit them once the storm passes and make sure everything is well.”
