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“Come on, Marsh, no’ again,” Bull whined. “My arse still hurts from last time.”

And now he deserved what was coming, simply for using the word arse in front of Griffin’s daughter.

“Don’t be a baby. Papa won’t let us go, otherwise.”

Now it was time for Bull to roll his eyes and sigh. But to give him credit, he stepped up behind Marcia and—even knowing what was coming—clapped his hand on her shoulder. “Well, hello there, beautiful.”

Marcia simpered and batted her lashes ridiculously. “Oooh, I’m flattered.”

“Dinnae be,” Griffin growled. “And dinnae hesitate.”

His children would be safe. He demanded it.

With yet another sigh—teenagers were good at making adults feel like idiots—Marcia reached both hands for the larger one clapped on her shoulder. She twisted and pulled, at the same time turning and sweeping one foot out, and using her hip for leverage.

Bull flipped arse over teakettle and landed with an oof on the threadbare study rug.

Griffin resisted the urge to grin. Instead, he nodded solemnly to his proud offspring. “Well done.” If he hadn’t known how she did it, he would’ve missed it. “Ye’ve been practicing?”

Marcia was grinning as she reached down to help a still-groaning Bull to his feet. “Just as often as Bull will help me.”

“Usually I make her put down pillows,” the lad moaned, rubbing his lower back. “That’s no’ fair that ye can do that sort of thing in dresses.”

Marcia lifted her skirt slightly and stuck out a trim ankle. “I know. Will you lend me a pair of trousers?”

Bull had the sense to glance at Griffin, who was back to glaring at both of them, before hazarding, “I…dinnae think I should answer that.”

Griffin addressed his daughter. “Ye will only go to the shop around the corner, but ye may stop in the park as well.”

Her face lit in a smile, and she offered a curtsey which would’ve made her mother proud. “Thank you, Papa! Come on, Bull, let’s go find Rupert!”

But Bull wasn’t paying attention. He was leaning over Griffin’s desk. “What’s this?” The wee shite craned his head to the side so he needn’t read the headline of the newspaper upside down. “Some kind of contest?”

“It’s nothing.” Griffin picked up the paper, intending to toss it into the wastebin where it belonged, but the lad was faster.

Bull snatched it from his hand, offered a cheeky grin instead of an apology as he danced out of the way, then dropped his gaze to the article.

Before Griffin could reach him, the lad had darted behind Marcia as he read. “…should apply to the address listed below,” he murmured, then sucked in a breath as his gaze skimmed over the words. “Did ye ken yer name’s listed here, Gruff?”

“Aye,” growled Griffin, “and dinnae call me that.”

Instead of shooting back with a quip, the lad was focused on the paper. “Are ye going to write to this duke?”

Marcia stepped toward her friend. “What are ye talking about?”

“Nothing!” Griffin barked, glaring at Bull. “It is no’ important. Toss it with the rest of the rubbish.”

“Peasgoode, Peasgoode,” muttered Bull, even as he folded the paper. “His estate’s up near Mackenzie land, aye?”

The lad was Scots, for certain; the brogue had confirmed it the moment Marcia had introduced them after Griffin moved his family and their pitifully few possessions back from New York. There’d been no explanation for why Bull spoke with a brogue while his mother did not, nor why they carried different last names, nor why his mother seemed awkward around the lad.

But this was not a mystery Griffin needed to worry about now. Not while his family’s future was in danger.

“How should I ken?” he growled in response to the lad’s question. “I’ve never heard of the man.”

A lie. Even younger sons of younger sons could marry a duke’s granddaughter. But the relation was so tenuous, Griffin had never thought of it.

“It says here…” The lad hummed as he tapped the folded paper with two fingers in that never-still way of his. “It says that if ye have a strong sense of family, ye can apply to be the duke’s heir.”