Any amusement he’d felt at his aunt’s antics drained away. “What do you mean you’re not sure? Are you telling me they’ve run away? Or worse?” His sisters were heiresses, after all. Minors. Swift thoughts of ransom, kidnapping or worse ran through his mind.
“Oh, no, no,no,” his aunt said quickly. “Nothing like that. As I said, they’ll be down for breakfast in the morning.” She gave him a reassuring smile. “They always are.”
“They always are?”Cal’s eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me theyoftengo missing?”
Aunt Dottie wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. “I wouldn’t sayoften.”
“Good God!” He stared down at his aunt. “So they’re out there somewhere, alone and unchaperoned? Unprotected? Good God, they’re only”—he did a quick calculation and came up with a figure that surprised him—“eighteen and nineteen.”
“Yes, dear, I know.”
“How the hell could you let them go out like that?”
“Well, of course I don’tletthem,” she said indignantly. “How could you think such a thing?”
“What? But—”
“No, they do it all on their own. I have tried remonstrating with them, but”—she gave a helpless shrug—“they go anyway. Well, it is hard on them, you must admit, being so young and pretty and full of life, and not being able to attend parties or balls. If we’dknownyou were coming, I’m sure they would have stayed in, but the letter arrived after they went to bed.”
Cal focused on the most relevant point. “Why can’t they go to parties and balls?”
She gave him a shocked look. “Because they’rein mourning, of course.” She gestured to her own outfit of unrelieved black. “Which is why they’ve taken it so hard, your brother dying just eleven months after your poor papa’s sad passing.”
Cal frowned. “I didn’t know Henry and the girls were close.”
“Oh, they weren’t. Henry never came near them. I doubt he would even have recognized them if he bumped into them in the street. Which is why the girls were so upset at his passing.”
Cal thought about it, then shook his head. “I don’t follow you.”
Aunt Dottie gave him the kind of look one might give to a simpleton. “Another year of mourning, you see, and this time for someone they only cared for in a... adutifulway. Or not at all, if we are to be honest.” She added meditatively, “It wouldn’t have been so bad if Henry had died soon after your papa, instead of just before their mourning period was up.” She shook her head. “But then, he always was an inconsiderate boy.”
Cal ignored that little leap of logic. “And another year of mourning means another year of no parties or balls for you and the girls?”
Aunt Dottie nodded. “Henry was their half brother, and my nephew—and the head of our family, after all. Not to honor him with full mourning would be scandalous.”
His brows rose. “And letting two young girls roam the streets at night is not?”
She made a cross little sound. “I keep telling you, Cal, I don’tletthem do anything. I have pointed out the error oftheir ways; I have remonstrated with them and explained possible consequences. All to no avail.”
“You could lock them in at night, send them to bed with no supper—any one of a dozen things that would teach them to mind you.”
“I willnotact the jailer toward my beloved nieces!” she exclaimed, outraged, and then added, “Besides, it doesn’t work. I had Logan lock them in their bedchamber once, and they climbed out the window instead—which you must admit isfarmore dangerous than... whatever it is they do when they’re out. I still shudder to think of them lying smashed on the cobbles outside.” She produced a lace handkerchief, which he took as an ominous warning of waterworks to come. “And what if there was a fire?” she finished distressfully. “Would you have them burned in their beds?”
“Aunt Dottie—”
“Don’t look at me like that—I don’tknowhow they get out—Logan says by the kitchen door, so he leaves it unlocked for them to return—well, we can hardly lock them out at night, can we? Anything could happen to them then! Besides they always come down for breakfast perfectly well and happy.”
“I just bet they do,” Cal muttered. Good God, no wonder Phipps had urged him to come to Bath. His aunt obviously had no control over the girls whatsoever.
“There’s no harm in them,” she insisted. “They’re just young and lively and... a little impatient.”
Cal disagreed. Lack of discipline was clearly the problem, but there was no point in arguing. It was obviously pointless to expect his softhearted little aunt to administer any kind of control over his sisters. As for enlightening an innocent maiden aunt of the kind of thing that could befall unprotected young girls—if she didn’t realize it by now, Cal wasn’t going to try. It would only distress her further—and to no purpose.
Besides, after tonight the girls’ misbehavior would come to an end. Cal would see to that. Assuming they returned home unharmed.
***
After his aunt had gone to bed—genuinely tired this time—Cal stationed himself at the kitchen table with a recent newspaper and a glass of cognac and settled down to await the return of his recalcitrant sisters.
