Page 9 of A Virgin for the Duke of Depravity (Ton’s Beasts #2)

Leo woke up early in the morning to a knock on his door. A servant coming to fetch him this early after a late night at Olympus could only mean one thing: there was a problem with Annie and Kitty.

Again.

“The girls are not in their rooms, Your Grace, and we must get them ready before the guests arrive,” Joan announced when he opened the door.

The older woman was a fantastic governess, the only reason he had been able to keep up with the girls thus far. She cared for them in a way Leo was unable to.

“Have you looked beneath the stairs?” Leo asked, running a hand through his dark hair.

He wished Margaret were close by so that she would help him find the girls and put a stop to their mischief.

“Well, I thought you might know their whereabouts, but it is clear I have interrupted your slumber.” Joan turned around and stepped back into the hall.

“I will get dressed and help you look for them,” Leo said with a sigh.

“Your help would be much appreciated, Your Grace.” Joan was already walking back down the stairs, albeit slowly.

At her age, her back pained her, and climbing the stairs was hard on her. It did not escape Leo’s notice that she had come all the way here in search of the girls.

Quickly, he shed his night clothes and put on something more presentable.

Where could the girls be hiding this time?

Leo flipped through their usual haunts in his mind. While he trusted that Joan had already looked in many of them, he decided to tackle the ones that would be more difficult for her.

Annie preferred to play outdoors while Kitty watched from the window with a book in her lap. But it was too early for the girls to step out of the mansion, so he ruled out the possibility that they had split up. No, they were definitely together, wherever they were.

Leo’s stomach growled as he entered the front sitting room and checked behind the settee.

“I suppose I could check the kitchens again,” he muttered.

The girls would not be in any danger if he stopped to grab a piece of toast with jam before resuming his search for them.

It would not surprise Aaron at all to learn that the girls were missing when he arrived. Even Theresa might have better luck at finding them.

He left the sitting room and went to the kitchens. When he pushed the door open, he plucked a croissant off the plate that was meant to be taken to the breakfast room. As he stood there, chewing and thinking about the mess he was in, he heard a small voice.

“You must sit still, Annie. How else will I finish braiding your hair?”

Leo set the pastry down and moved deeper into the kitchen. At first, it was not clear where the girls were, only that they were close by. Kitty did not speak again.

He stepped into the pantry off the kitchen and found them both sitting on stools that they had borrowed from the cook. Annie sat in front of Kitty while Kitty did up her braids.

“Why are you two holed up in the pantry?” Leo asked, arms crossed in front of him.

No matter how stern he was with the girls, they always seemed to know that he did not mean it. Both of them were just as likely to hide from him later today, no matter what punishment he meted out.

“Getting ready for the day like Joan asked us to,” Annie said.

“I believe she intended for you to get ready in your rooms, not in the pantry. She would have helped you braid your hair.”

“Kitty is gentler,” Annie explained.

With that, Kitty pinned up her braid, and her nimble fingers went back into her lap. Of the two of them, Kitty was the less likely to cause trouble, but she would follow Annie to the ends of the earth.

Leo sighed and rubbed a hand down his face, still tired from his long night. It would not do to mete out punishment to the girls so early in the morning. They would not take his reprimands to heart anyway.

“We will be having guests over for the next few days,” he said, looking each girl in the eyes. “You must be on your best behavior to make a good impression on our guests.”

“Will the pretty lady from the other night be here, too?” Annie asked. Her eyes widened with excitement at the prospect of meeting someone new.

He wondered what she recalled about Margaret, how well the girls would get on with her.

“Yes,” Leo said. “Would you like that?”

“Yes, we did not have time to introduce ourselves,” Kitty said with some reserve.

Annie took Kitty’s hands in her own, and the two girls giggled at the prospect of meeting the lady with red hair who had helped locate them. They likely thought she would give them more ideas for hiding places, and he did not doubt that they were right.

“Great,” he muttered. “The women in this house may make me lose my mind before the week is over.”

Annie and Kitty looked at him with curiosity. His exasperation was nothing new to them. Annie slipped off her stool and tugged on her twin’s hand. The girls walked out of the kitchen and back up to their chambers, where Joan was no doubt waiting for them.

With the girls found and breakfast in hand, Leo went back to his chambers to finish getting ready. He splashed his face with the cool water that the servants had left in the basin.

He pulled a set of dark clothing from his armoire and began to dress.

The current fashion was lighter colors, the shades reminiscent of the spring flowers that bloomed in the gardens.

But Leo always wore the darkest colors he could find.

It suited him fine not to have to buy new clothes every time new trends started.

He was fastening his pants when another knock sounded at the door.

“Your guests have arrived, Your Grace,” the footman said from behind the door.

“Tell them I will be with them shortly,” he called.

He took one last look at himself in the mirror. He was ready to face whatever Margaret would throw at him today.

“He is no doubt getting ready,” Aaron said. “This is early for him, but it was his invitation.”

“I cannot believe I have not been invited to Leo’s estate before,” Theresa said as she paced around the room. She ran a finger along the spines of his books. “I have been to Olympus, but I have not seen his sitting room.”

“He is not much for social gatherings,” Aaron explained to Margaret.

She did not comment on the types of social gatherings she knew Leo partook in. He claimed to be King of Olympus, and his parties were certainly just as decadent as what the ancient gods themselves would have participated in.

Theresa continued pacing around the room, taking in the art adorning the walls. She stopped at the third painting and turned to her husband. “Why are there none of your paintings in your friends’ homes?”

“Those are for my enjoyment. I do not want to force them on my friends,” Aaron laughed. “Perhaps you are the only one who enjoys what I create, dear wife.”

“I would not mind having one of your original paintings,” Leo said from the hall. “I would give it a place of honor in the dining room.”

“You are up and dressed early today. No late nights at the club last night?”

“A late night, indeed. But the girls went missing again today, and Joan summoned me to help locate them.”

“And where did you find them?” Margaret asked.

Theresa gave her a strange look, and Margaret remembered that she should not know about the girls or their habit of hiding from their uncle. She hoped to move past the indiscretion.

“They were in the kitchen,” Leo said, before turning his attention to Theresa. “Forgive my manners, ladies. I have not greeted you properly.”

He walked to Theresa first and took her hand, placing a brief kiss on the back of it. Theresa drew her hand back and watched carefully as he walked back to the center of the room and did the same to Margaret.

As his lips brushed the back of her hand, Margaret suddenly had a vivid recollection of one of the images she had seen in the books that the couples were reading at his book club.

She thought about what it would feel like for a man’s lips to be not just on the back of her hand but also on other parts of her body.

She blushed at the thought, but tried to hide the color in her cheeks.

Get over it. He is cold and annoying. Good-looking, too. But you are almost a nun! You just need to hide here for the week.

She had not hidden away in a convent for all this time only to fail at the last minute. Her vows were the only thing standing between her and her grandfather. They promised her safety—the one thing she was able to appreciate about the convent.

With Theresa gone, the convent was lonelier than it used to be, but she could get used to that. What she could not get used to was knowing that she would sin if given the first opportunity.

The nuns had warned her, and she had not listened.

When she finished berating herself inwardly for the impure thoughts that seemed to be taking over her mind, she looked up to find that Leo’s eyes had never left her face. He raised his eyebrows at her, a question on his lips that he did not voice.

Another flush crept into her cheeks and spread down her neck.

“Where are the girls now?” Aaron asked, sparing her from having to explain why the color rose in her face. If he noticed, he chose not to say anything, but Theresa watched her friend carefully.

“The young ladies are still getting ready, I’m afraid. Would you like to take a walk around the orangery until your rooms are prepared?” Leo said smoothly, easing the tension in Margaret’s chest.

“The weather is lovely,” Theresa said. She rubbed her swollen belly. “I should enjoy such a walk while I still can. I fear that I may soon be too large to comfortably walk anywhere.”

“Shall we go then, dear wife?” Aaron asked, offering her his arm.

Theresa accepted it, and they stepped out of the room. Aaron seemed to know the path to the orangery already, which left Leo and Margaret in the room alone together.

“It would not do for us to abandon our friends to the gardens,” Leo said, coming to stand beside her.