Beatrice’s heart stopped. Peeking over her shoulder, she saw the marquess. His affable wide smile had frozen on his face, and his eyes were draining of their cheerfulness. Rage, hot and white, took its place. “Richard… I must be hallucinating.” His hand shot out to grip the door frame. “Tell me, is our brother sitting in the middle of the nursery floor wearing a maid uniform? It appears he is, but… it cannot be so.”
Richard flailed to find words, his mouth opening and closing but producing no explanation.
Beatrice snuck into his side, trying to give him some of her strength.
“I’m quite real!” Daniel waved the teacup. “Lovely seeing you, too, John. Congratulations on the happy news. I look forward to seeing you shackle yourself to one woman for the rest of your life. Tomorrow will be a happy day, I believe.” He sipped from the teacup.
“Oh, God.” Beatrice poked Richard in the side. “The children are drinking the tea. Do you think he’s?—”
“Hell.” Richard swept into the room and gathered up all the teacups, snapping away the one that Daniel wielded with a flourish. He inspected them. “Empty, and they do not appear as if they’ve had anything in them at all.”
“Of course not,” Daniel said. “It’spretendtea. What else would it be?”
That is when John transformed entirely. He barreled toward Daniel, a grumbling, yowling bear, and slammed his younger brother into the ground. “Get the children and run,” he bellowed.
Richard gathered the children under his wing. The boys were wide-eyed and trembling, and Lucy tucked herself into his side like a little bird seeking shelter. He shuffled them into Beatrice’s hold. “Please find Evie. Bring the children to her, or her mother if she’s about. I have to keep them from killing each other.”
The smack of bone on flesh. John had thrown the first punch.
Beatrice scrambled out of the room with the children. She found both Evie and her mother, Mrs. Hardy, downstairs and whispered to them both what was happening above stairs.
Mrs. Hardy immediately guided Lucy and the twins toward open garden doors. “Outside, dears. We’ll find something fun to do.”
And Beatrice and Evie raced upstairs. When they entered the nursery, it was only to witness a three-man brawl. They seemed a massive, grunting monster, six limbs tangled up with one another, three heads of dark hair, and big bodies. Only their clothing told them apart. But Richard was stronger and faster than the others. He worked every day in the sun, walking the fields, building things with his own hands, and he knew how to use his muscles. The marquess had rage on his side and honor, and he swerved to miss Richard as much as he flung out to hit Daniel.
Daniel seemed to be laughing through it all, as if he enjoyed the tussle. Richard tried to keep them away from one another, but as soon as he separated them, they’d surge back again, crashing together like animals brawling for dominance.
“Stop!” Evie yelled. “Stop right now!”
John lifted his head, his attention divided now between Daniel’s bleeding nose and his wife’s enraged voice. Richard poked his head up, too, immediately sighting Beatrice. His entire body sagged. His eyes seemed to say,Thank God you’re here finally. He might have rushed to her side, but she shot a finger out.
“Get him!” she cried.
John was lurching toward Daniel again, dove, grabbed him around the shins, sending him crashing to the ground.
Richard back into the fray.
Evie shot into the middle of it, too. She threw her arms out wide. “Stopnow, I say.”
The three men froze. John still hugged Daniel’s legs. Daniel palmed the top of John’s head, keeping him at arm’s distance. Richard had a hold of John’s ankles, trying to drag him off Daniel. It could have been a great work of art, a tableau captured in marble and titled,Three Men Act Like Children.
“John,” Evie snapped.
He released his brother’s legs, and that released the tension in Richard’s thighs. Richard cried out as he toppled backward, crashing into the floor with a string of curses. He’d be bruised tomorrow. And on that magnificent arse. A shame.
John jumped to his feet, and Daniel tipped his head back, pinching his bloodied nose.
“Here, John.” Evie stabbed the floor next to her, and her groom made his way to her side. “Richard, stay just as you are.” He stretched his legs out in front of him with a wince. “And you.” Evie’s gaze fell on Daniel. “Do not move.”
“Not even to wiggle my feet?” Daniel asked.
Evie growled. “What were you doing with my children?”
“I believe they aremychildren,” Daniel said. “Or they were at one point. And even now.” He cleared his throat. “Strictly speaking.”
“You gave up any right you have to them,” John said. “I’m their father now.”
Daniel rolled his eyes. “You always were a self-righteous prig.”
