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R omulus “Wolfe” Craigston, the Duke of Wolfebourne, stared after the most infuriating…the most presumptuous… Damned if he could even come up with a suitable word to describe her. “Who the devil does that woman think she is?”

“She told you who she was,” Connor said, “and when I get old enough, I intend to marry her. She is beyond compare.”

Wolfe swung about but caught himself before stinging his little brother with an acerbic retort the child did not deserve.

He pointed to the south, the direction of Wolfebourne Lodge.

“Start walking. I am most displeased with the two of you—yet again. You could have been injured or kidnapped and no one would have been any the wiser. Where the bloody hell have you been, and how did you escape Miss Hannah this time?”

“Miss Hannah said we could play in the garden since we did our lessons so nice,” Sissy said.

“This is not the garden, Sissy.” He walked along beside them, leading his horse. “Connor?”

“What?” The lad trudged along, clutching his trembling pup to his chest.

Wolfe eyed his brother, taking in the boy’s stubbornness and bravado.

His sister was much the same. The children were indeed a pair of unrepentant little terrors, but they had been through so much, abandoned by their mother, and tormented by terrible nannies and governesses.

Wolfe was at his wits’ end with the precious siblings his father had left in his care.

He had sorely failed the cast-aside mites he had always adored.

But they had certainly taken to the scandalous Lady Grace, and she had taken to them, defending them as if they were her own.

Maybe the woman wasn’t so infuriating after all.

Wolfe allowed himself a sigh as heavy as his heart.

“Mr. George can have a look at Hector’s leg and ensure he heals properly. What happened to him?”

Connor sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. “A rabbit tricked him and he got him all tangled up in a snarl of woodbine. If Grace hadn’t come along and cut him free, I don’t know what we would have done.”

“ Lady Grace,” Wolfe corrected him. “She should be addressed as such.”

“She told us we could call her Grace,” Sissy said, “and I told her she could call me Sissy.”

Wolfe deflated with a weary groan, too exhausted to argue.

The fear that the children had come to some horrible end when they could not be found had raged through him and worn him down as if he were poorly forged metal against a grindstone.

“I am sure she meant you could call her Grace in informal settings. If we happen to come upon her in the village or at gatherings, it is more respectful to address her as Lady Grace. It would make her more comfortable.”

With a thoughtful nod, Connor gave his sister one of the looks the twins often shared. Wolfe had decided long ago it was their own secret language. “We should make her comfortable, Sissy. After all, she is going to be my wife.” Connor turned back to Wolfe. “How long must I wait to marry?”

“You have many years before you should marry. Look at me. I am six and thirty, and I have yet to marry.” Wolfe tousled the boy’s ink-black hair that matched his own. Raven hair and sooty eyes marked all the Wolfebournes. “How many years until you are six and thirty?”

“Stop trying to trick me into doing sums,” Connor retorted.

“Nine and twenty,” Sissy supplied for him, always ready to help her twin.

Connor groaned, then frowned up at Wolfe. “Not everyone waits until they are as old as you to marry. How ’bout when I am ten?”

“Ten is not old enough,” Sissy told him before Wolfe could answer. “You need to wait until you are taller than her. That way the two of you will look nice whenever you stand together.”

“I could be taller than her by ten.” Connor tipped a decisive nod. “Father said I would prolly be just like him and Wolfe—big and tall.”

“Before we decide when you shall marry,” Wolfe said before the conversation devolved any further, “there is the matter of your punishment for disobeying Miss Hannah and leaving the confines of the garden. The entire household turned the place upside down because we could not find you. We were all worried you had come to some sort of harm.”

“No one worries about us,” Connor said, portraying a disturbing lack of emotion that broke Wolfe’s heart. Was that how the child truly felt?

“That’s what makes it so easy to slip away,” Sissy added, confirming Wolfe’s fears.

He halted and knelt in front of the children, taking them each by the shoulder.

“ I worry about you. You are my only family. My brother and sister. I would be overwrought if anything were to happen to you.” He stared into their dark eyes that mirrored his own, wishing he knew how to be a good father to them rather than a bumbling guardian that had, so far, failed them miserably.

“I know I have chosen poorly when it comes to nannies and governesses—”

“Father chose the nannies poorly,” Connor said, without a qualm about interrupting. “You just got tricked into bringing on the wrong governesses.”

Wolfe narrowed his eyes at the child, waiting for the boy to realize he had been rude.

“You interrupted,” Sissy whispered loudly with her hand cupped to her mouth, aiming the sound advice at her brother’s ear. “Say sorry.”

“Sorry.” But the lad didn’t sound as if he meant it.

“What am I going to do with you two?” Wolfe slowly shook his head, wishing the children knew how much he cared about them.

“Give us to Grace,” Sissy said, sounding entirely too excited about that plan.

Connor gave him a solid nod. “Grace would take us. She likes us. You heard her say so—did you not?”

Wolfe let his hands drop from their shoulders but remained crouched at their level, even though the scarred knee he’d injured in the war ached like the dickens. “You think I do not like you?”

They both frowned at him, as if seeing him for the first time.

“You like us,” Susannah finally said, “but we are a bovver to you. All the nannies and governesses said so, and so did Lady Longface. We heard her once when we hid behind the tea cart in the parlor, and she didn’t know we was there.”

Wolfe clenched his teeth to keep from laughing at his little sister’s apt description of his fiancée’s mother. Lady Euphemia Longmorten did indeed have the face of a mule. “Sissy—would you care to restate that in more polite terms?”

The child rolled her eyes. “Lady Longmorten said we was a bovver to you too.”

While he had no doubt the spiteful woman had said such a thing, it would not be prudent to fuel the children’s low opinion of his future mother-in-law.

He almost shuddered at the thought of that.

Lady Longmorten was one of the many reasons he had yet to find the inclination to formalize the union his father had arranged when Wolfe was just a little older than Connor, and Lady Margaret, his affianced, was still a babe.

At present, he would rather walk straight through the doors of hell than to the wedding altar.

“The two of you are not a bother to me,” he said, “and we do not place store in the idle gossip of those who do not matter. The unacceptable nannies and governesses were all dismissed because of their dreadful behavior.”

Connor gave him a sly grin. “You do not like her either, do you?”

“Whom?”

“Lady Longface.”

“Connor.”

The boy resettled his grip on Hector, who was now sleeping soundly in his arms with his muzzle propped on the lad’s shoulder. “Fine. Lady Longmorten.”

“She is an upstanding woman of Society.” Wolfe almost choked on the words, but it was best that he not encourage the children’s unruliness—no matter how accurate they might be.

“That does not mean you like her,” Connor said. “Grace’s mother is already in heaven. I won’t have the problem of an old woman being rude to me when I marry Grace.”

Wolfe rose to his feet before his knee grew so stiff that he couldn’t walk. “How do you know Lady Grace’s mother is already in heaven?” Although he vaguely remembered talk of the Broadmeres’ losses. Apparently, the children had enjoyed quite the visit while Lady Grace was rescuing Hector.

“She told us when we asked her whether or not she was married, and how come she was wearing those clothes,” Sissy said.

“She said her papa always let her wear them as long as nobody saw her, and that her brother would be mad if he found out we had seen her. That is why we agreed not to tell as long as she didn’t tell you—” The little girl clamped her mouth shut, and Conner groaned.

“As long as she did not tell me what?” Wolfe braced himself, wondering what else his siblings had done while adventuring with their dog and cat.

Sissy set Galileo on the ground, but rather than bound off, the cat sat in front of her as though guarding her. “As long as she did not tell you where she found us.”

“So she lied to me about where you were?” Wolfe decided then and there that he would be having a stern conversation with Lady Grace rather than her brother. Especially since she had accused him of being too cowardly to deal with her directly. “Where were you? The truth, if you please.”

“On Broadmere land,” Connor said quietly. “It was my fault. I couldn’t stop Hector from chasing after that rabbit.”

“I see.” Damned if Wolfe didn’t owe the woman an apology for accusing her of trespassing when his own siblings had been the ones to ignore proper decorum. “Is there anything else I should know?”

“She said her parents never promised her to anyone when she was a baby because they wanted her to marry someone she loved,” Sissy said. “She said her mama and papa loved each other very much and wanted the same for her. She said they watch over her from heaven.”

“I love her,” Connor said, “and I think she likes me well enough. Maybe she could love me too. I am going to marry her.”

“Yes, Connor. You have made that abundantly clear.” Wolfe stanched a groan and continued their plodding walk.

“I think we should go visit them,” Sissy said. “They are our neighbors.”