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“I have an idea,” she told them. “The two of you can ride my horse while holding Hector. I shall get you close enough to the lodge so you can carry him the rest of the way, but still far enough away so no one will see me. Do you think that might work to keep all of our secrets safe?”

“We will make it work,” Connor said.

“But what about Galileo?” Sissy asked.

“Did Galileo not make it here on his own four feet…er…paws?” Grace eyed the cat, unsure what to do about him.

“Yes,” the little girl said. “But he’s tired now. Just look at him.”

Galileo yawned.

“I am afraid I am not an expert on cats.” Grace liked felines well enough.

Especially after being around so many of them while visiting her married sisters.

Blessing and Thorne’s home was full of them, and Fortuity had four roaming her and Matthew’s house.

“Would Galileo stay put in Gastric’s seat behind the saddle? I won’t have him scratching Pegasus.”

“Galileo likes horses.” Sissy picked up the great ginger cat and held him up to Pegasus’s nose. “Meet Pegasus, and be polite. He is our ride home because Hector can’t walk with his sore leg.”

Horse and cat touched noses and appeared to reach a peaceful accord.

“Will Galileo allow me to help him into the seat?” While the cat had ceased growling or hissing at her, Grace had not missed that he still gave her a wide berth.

Sissy nodded and held out the cat as if the question was silly.

“All right, Galileo. No scratching, if you please.” Grace gingerly took hold of the cat and deposited it into Gastric’s seat behind the saddle.

Galileo settled into the seat as if claiming it as his throne.

“Well done.” Grace waved the children forward. “Let me help the two of you, and then I shall hand up Hector.”

“I need to be in the front,” Connor said. “I am the eldest.”

“Only by a few minutes,” Sissy said. “I should be in the front not only because I am a girl but because you need to hold Hector between the two of us to keep him safe.”

“Your sister makes a sound argument,” Grace told the boy.

“She always does,” he said, sounding thoroughly disgruntled.

New to the role of peacemaker, Grace decided to do what her parents always did.

“What shall it be, my friends? We are losing daylight, and the later you get home, the likelier it is you might receive a scolding from your governess or nanny or whoever looks after you. At your ages, I am not certain of your caretaker’s title. ”

“A maid for now,” Connor said. “Wolfe told our last governess to pack her things and get out after he heard of her telling Sissy she’d probably never be anything more than a dirty little lightskirt, just like our mother.”

Grace clenched her teeth to keep from saying something entirely too harsh for the children’s tender ears. “Thank goodness he turned out that evil woman,” she said after several deep, calming breaths. “Both of you are as fine as fine can be, and I am honored to know you and call you my friends.”

“Sissy can sit in front,” Connor said with a worried glance in the direction of Wolfebourne land. “We do need to be getting back.”

“Up you go, then.” Grace seated him in the saddle first, put his sister in front of him, then handed Hector up. The pup curled into a tight ball, cowering in Connor’s arms. “Will you be able to hold him like that, or do you think he would ride better if you supported him on the saddle?”

“I have him just right.” Connor gave her a determined nod. “He’s afraid and counting on me to protect him.”

Grace forced a smile and swallowed hard, touched by the boy’s devotion and understanding of his sweet little dog. She took hold of the reins and set out across the meadow at a fast yet steady stride to ensure Pegasus gave the children and their pets as smooth a ride as possible.

After a short while of companionable silence, Connor asked, “Are you married?”

“I am not.” Grace prayed the rumors about the boy’s elder brother looking for a wife weren’t true. Connor’s question worried her. What was the child up to? “Are you married, Connor?”

“Of course not, silly. I am but seven years old.”

“Did your parents not promise you to anyone when you were born?” Sissy asked her.

“No. My parents wanted me to marry a man that I loved—not someone that somebody else chose for me.” Grace inwardly flinched, wondering if she ought not to have said that. “My mother and father loved each other very much. They want my sisters and I to enjoy that same happiness.”

“Are they gone?” Connor asked quietly, echoing a maturity well beyond his years.

“Yes,” Grace said. “They are together in heaven, watching over me and my sisters and probably shaking their heads at my brother.”

“So you have not found anyone you love yet?” Conner asked, steering the conversation once more.

“No. Not yet.” She hoped this particular discourse would not prove to be a problem.

“Wolfe got promised to Lady Margaret when he was our age,” Sissy said. “She was nothing more than a baby at the time. When she smiles, she looks as though she’s about to bite you.”

“Her mother is worse,” Connor said. “We call her Lady Longface. She looks like a horse.”

“No offense, Pegasus,” Sissy said with a pat to the thoroughbred’s neck. “You are quite the handsome fellow.”

Grace bit the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. This conversation reminded her so very much of the chats she and her sisters often had. Once she was certain she had her mirth under control, she asked, “If your brother got promised when he was your age, when did he marry?”

“He has not married her yet,” Sissy said. “We are doing our best to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Sissy! You can’t tell a secret plan and expect it to work.” Connor groaned, bemoaning his sister’s inadequacies. “Why could my twin not have been a brother instead of a sister?”

“Connor.” Grace used the same tone that Papa had always used when determined to make Chance feel guilty over his treatment of his sisters.

“You and Sissy balance each other. Always remember, everything happens for a reason. The two of you are as you are because you are destined for greatness. Would you spoil that by wishing your sister away?”

“Lady Margaret says I am destined for boarding school and Sissy is going to be sent abroad to learn how to paint or dance or something.”

The more Grace learned about Lady Margaret, the less she liked her, and what sort of person was Wolfebourne to agree to send his siblings away when it was more than obvious they needed their elder brother’s love and care? For heaven’s sake, the children were only seven years old.

“I don’t want to go away,” Sissy said, the tears back in her voice. “Wolfe was always so nice whenever he came to visit us before Father died.”

“Is he not nice now?” Grace knew she shouldn’t ask, but she had to know.

She had already heard quite a bit about the children’s lives that she didn’t like.

If there was more, she might have a word with Chance about confronting the Duke of Wolfebourne about his behavior.

Papa had done that once at Mama’s insistence after they had discovered a peer mistreating a child.

It had sent ripples of shock through the ton , but Mama and Papa hadn’t cared, and the little girl they had rescued from the cruel guardian’s clutches, married now with children of her own, still sent letters singing Mama and Papa’s praises.

Grace slowed her pace and glanced back at the children. “Is your brother not nice to you?”

“He is nice whenever he is with us,” Sissy said. “But he says he knows nothing about being a father. Which I guess being our guardian makes him. I think he likes us still—just maybe not as much as before Father died and left us hanging around his neck. That is what our first governess told us.”

Grace wished she could hunt down those heartless women and scratch out their eyes. How could they say such hurtful things to these two?

Movement just above the tops of the tall, swaying grasses farther across the meadow caught her attention, making her squint to sort out what it was.

She prayed it was nothing more than a deer having a good stretch of its legs.

They were on Wolfebourne property now, and this particular bit of land was an undulating length of dips and rises.

The small hills and valleys, paired with the tall grass, repeatedly hid, then revealed, whatever was coming toward them.

The source of the movement topped a hill again. It was not a deer.

“Drat.” Grace adjusted her hat, making certain her hair was well tucked up inside it.

The rider headed their way was a man—a man the size of a freestanding continent—and he urged his equally enormous mount into a hard gallop as if the hounds of hell chased after them. The gleaming ebony shire stretched out its long legs, its nostrils flaring, its mane whipping in the wind.

“We are in trouble again, Connor,” Sissy said with a resigned sigh.

“And brother looks even angrier than usual,” Connor added with a low groan.

Grace resettled her footing and braced herself.

So the beast of a man headed their way was none other than the Duke of Wolfebourne.

Good heavens, had his ancestors descended from bears?

She supposed he could be considered handsome in a dark, dangerous sort of way.

She almost smiled, remembering one of her sister Fortuity’s stories about the devil taking the form of a stunning man to successfully seduce the maidens.

The duke’s black hair was a tad overlong for the style of the day, and the streaks of gray glinting like silver at his temples surprised her.

She wanted to ask the children how old he was, but he was nearly upon them.

“Sissy! Connor! Where the devil have you been?” He leapt from the saddle before his horse came to a full stop.

“Poor Hector hurt his leg,” Sissy said.

“Gray helped us,” Connor told his brother. “Bandaged his leg and everything.”