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“How did it get up there? Did you put it there?”
“If you have a sudden memory of visiting the Underwood Orphanage, Mr. Shadwell, you may find me at Number Seventeen, Grosvenor Square. I’m in the employ of the Duke of Banksford. Good day, sir.” She stormed out of his office and back to the street.
Mari gulped a breath of air to clear her head and watering eyes after the close confines of Mr. Shadwell’s disreputable office. It didn’t seem possible that her search could have ended so abruptly and in such drunken ignominy. Arthur Shadwell. That was the name Mrs. Crowley had told her, she was sure of it.
Could it be Shadewell, perhaps? Arturio, or Arlin, instead of Arthur? She would try every variation, because that drunken man inside that squalid office was definitely not the man she was searching for.
Disappointed and a little disheartened, Mari trudged toward High Holborn Street. She would visit Lumley’s Toy Shop and ask about P.L. Rabbit.
The duke had said the toy shop was a magical place.
And she needed a little magic right now.
Visiting lawyers and kissing dukes were not so dissimilar, she reflected. Both of them made her pulse race with anticipation... and both ended in frustration.
Edgar could never kiss Miss Perkins again. Never. And that meant never, ever, not in a thousand years. He could never kiss her again, but he could follow her instructions.
She’d told him to take the twins to Lumley’s Toy Shop. Therefore here he was, outside the toy shop, with a child on either side of him.
“Why isn’t Miss Perkins with us?” asked Adele, for the third time.
“It’s her off day,” Edgar said patiently, for the third time.
“What’s she doing?” asked Michel.
“She’s off...” What was she doing? She’d gone out early, Mrs. Fairfield had told him. Did she have friends in London? Family?
“She’s off having tea with the bishop, for all I know,” he said.
She’d avoided his questions about her family. She’d said her father was a vicar, hadn’t she?
He didn’t know much about her background, really.
He only knew that Mari Perkins, superior governess, drove him to distraction with her insightful conversation and her passionate kisses. And he was sending her and the children to the seaside. All of the arrangements had been made. He’d rented the entire top floor of the Royal Hotel in Seaside. Today, he would purchase the twins everything they required for a seaside holiday.
His footman, Carl, opened the door for them and a bell tinkled deep inside the shop, setting off a long-buried memory.
Nine years old, entering the doors of paradise, where kind, jolly Mr. Lumley was sure to make him laugh, and give him some boiled sweets from his candy jar.
The shop had been a special place for Edgar. He’d even pretended Mr. Lumley was his father, instead of the cold, bitter man who lived at Edgar’s home, but whom he saw only on rare occasions.
And on those rare occasions when the duke was home, they’d walked on eggshells, he and India, and their mother.
They’d never known what might set him off. A wrong word. A toy left in a hallway.
Adele tugged on his hand. “May we have a sweet?”
“I’m sure Mr. Lumley will give you one,” he replied.
The candy dish was still there on the oaken counter with the glass top. Everything was exactly the same.
“That’s a lot of toys,” said Michel in an awed tone of voice, his gaze darting around the shop.
Edgar could tell he was trying to sound unimpressed, but his eyes were lively, jumping over the display shelves filled with toys and games.
“I loved coming here when I was your age,” said Edgar.
Two pairs of dark eyes stared up at him.
