Verity would be destroyed if she had to give up those children—especially to people who hadn’t come running to take them.
“How the devil do I protect the children, my wife, the inn, the village, while riding all the way to Bath to look for a Bee and Boo?”he cried in frustration, flinging the letter back to Fletch.
“You don’t.”Unwilling to do more, Fletch stalked back to the kitchen looking for food.
Rafe winced as someone, most likely Kate, flung a pot at his partner, who didn’t know how to ask politely.
The army had been simpler.
Twenty-four
Verity
“Rafe believesMr.Elton broke into the parsonage, since the thief used the same method to steal from his cash box.Mr.Parsons says he slept through the robbery, but he has no witnesses until Rafe checked on him at noon.We can’tknowElton is the killer, but the men...”Trying to explain to Verity, Brydie shrugged.“They’re behaving as if this is war and have turned all medieval on us.They’ll be building drawbridges next.”
“I am glad of the company, for whatever reason,” Verity admitted.“I love children but I miss adult conversation.Mr.Birdwhistle is pleasant, but he has two excessively active boys to mind, plus Rob and Daniel.That’s more than a handful and doesn’t leave him time to converse.”
“Rob hasn’t been naughty, has he?”Brydie sounded appalled, as if little boys never misbehaved.Sitting at one of the school desks, she was showing her niece how to embroider a stitch for her quilt edging.
“They’re building forts.”Lynly spoke up cheerfully.Despite the difference in ages, she was nearly as small as her fairy-blond companion.“They put me and Daphne in the dungeon.”
The solemn five-year-old, her hair in beribboned pigtails, looked up at the sound of her name and nodded with a cherubic smile, indicating she enjoyed the game.That small smile nearly broke Verity’s soft heart.The children were adapting.
“The Reid heirs have created a maze of the furniture,” Verity murmured.“I suspect the attic may now contain as many snares and pitfalls as any medieval castle.They do not trust locks and have taken it into their heads that it is their duty to protect the weak.”
“Meaning you and Daphne?”Brydie asked in amusement.“That’s thoughtful.Did they learn that from the men?They start young, if so.Although if I remember correctly, as heirs to a few fortunes, the boys are in more danger than us.”
Verity wrinkled her nose.“I would disabuse them of their beliefs that women are weak, but it keeps them occupied.I am beginning to understand that males need goals and targets to direct all their energy.”
Brydie appeared to digest that observation.Having spent half her life quietly watching, Verity thought her friend needed to apply that understanding to Damien so she did not stand—or gallop into—his path.
“Will you and Damien be eating dinner downstairs tonight?”she asked, changing the subject.
Brydie glanced down at her woolen gown.“Lavender has promised that she can make over the bodice of one of Patience’s dinner gowns to fit me, but I lack finery and finesse.I would be more comfortable here with you.”
“You cannot uncover evildoers while lurking up here.Do you know what color the gown is?Rafe packed a trunk for me, but I can’t leave the children unattended.Paul and the blacksmith are still working on the locks.”Verity rose from the desk where she’d been scribbling lesson plans.
Wearing a dubious expression, Brydie pushed out of her too-small chair.“Lynly, will you be all right here for a little bit?”
“Oliver and Davey are hiding in the wardrobes.”Lynly nodded at two massive cabinets guarding the tower entrance.“We are princesses in the tower.”
“And where are Rob and Daniel?”Verity asked, knowing she’d left all four boys with Mr.Birdwhistle.
“They are planning an attack on the castle.We are to be rescued before dinner.”Lynly shook out her almost-finished quilt.
Smothering a grin, Verity steered her reluctant friend from the chilly schoolroom toward the warmer interior.“Come along.You’ll turn blue if we don’t get you somewhere warm.Lynly is wearing mittens and coat.You aren’t.”
“Who thought to cut the ends off her mittens so she could sew?You?”Brydie stopped to study the layout of the narrow hall between the stairs and the new schoolroom, before taking the wide corridor down the middle of the attic.Through the open door of the old schoolroom, they could see Mr.Birdwhistle drawing at an easel, from which position he supposedly kept track of his charges.
“They are old mittens we found in one of the trunks, already moth-eaten.I know the two of you have thin skin and need extra warmth.I will watch over Lynly, Brydie, I promise.You need to help Rafe catch a killer so those poor orphans can be safe and happy again.”Verity led her into the small cubicle she’d claimed as her own.
She hoped Rafe might join her here tonight, but he was busy wearing himself ragged setting up protection for the entire manor.
Seeing Rafe’s wolfhound emerging from the maze of trunks and furniture the boys had created of the storage area, Verity snapped her fingers and set Wolfie to guard the new schoolroom.The patient dog allowed a head scratch before settling in front of the door.
“I heard the captain’s hounds earlier.Did Rafe set them loose?”Brydie peered into the miniature nursery Verity had set up for the orphans.
“They’re not as well trained as Wolfie, but he’s taught several of the former soldiers how to walk them around the grounds.Hunt says he can justify paying the soldiers from the trust if he calls them grounds men.The earl apparently left a very large trust for maintaining the manor, if not its inhabitants.”
