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She’d called the children’s bluff.
It had been a risky strategy—she couldn’t stop them if they were set on running away—but acknowledging it, confronting it head on, might force them to see the danger in their escape plans.
Adele gave her a sheepish look. “I want to see Lady India’s daggers.”
“How silly of me. I forgot about the antiquities exhibition. You won’t want to miss that. Well in that case, shall we go back?”
Adele nodded.
They didn’t trust her yet. She was too new to them, and they’d been betrayed before. Abandoned by their mother, and, they felt, abandoned by their nurse.
She would have to tread carefully. Find ways of giving them ownership in their education, and a sense of pride in learning. But one step at a time.
The children were tired and, she suspected, disinclined to run away again until after Lady India’s exhibition.
Today’s victory would simply be a quiet, peaceful home for the duke to return to. She was determined to give him no reason to dismiss her.
“Come along then,” Mari said. “Best foot forward. We’ll be home in a trice.”
When Edgar arrived home all was superficially quiet, but he knew chaos must lurk somewhere in the house.
“You’re home early, Your Grace,” said Robertson as he took his hat and overcoat. “How was your day?”
“Unsatisfactory.” Why the devil had he agreed to take Lady Blanche riding? It was a losing proposition. If word got out that he was on the marriage mart it would be disastrous.
Edgar rarely attended social events. And he never,neverwas seen with an eligible young lady. But what choice had he been given? West had resorted to blackmail.
“Will you dine in?” asked Robertson.
“I already dined. Where are the children?”
“In the nursery, I believe.”
“And Miss Perkins?”
“With the children, Your Grace.”
“Any tears today? Constables? Cannon fire?”
“All has been tranquil since morning. I believe she took the children on an extended outing.”
Sound strategy. Tire them out so they couldn’t misbehave. Chalk one up for Miss Perkins.
Edgar took the stairs two at a time.
He had to see this purported tranquility with his own eyes.
Chapter 6
Edgar heard the murmur of voices from inside the nursery. Miss Perkins’s musical tones and Adele’s questioning ones.
Cautiously, he opened the door and entered the room.
Long shadows fell across the blackboard.
Only a matter of a few steps across the room and he slipped into place just outside of the doorway to the children’s adjoining bedchamber.
He had a view of Miss Perkins’s back where she sat in a chair between the children’s beds, reading to them from a book.
