Page 36 of The Duke In My Bed (The Heirs’ Club of Scoundrels #1)

“Then this will be a good learning experience for you. You’ll manage just fine. Come on and let me help you down. Keep remembering you are the oldest and act like it.”

She still didn’t move.

Bray struggled to hold on to his temper. Miss Lillian sniffed and looked as if she might start crying at any moment, and Bray felt as if he might start yelling at any moment. But he bit down on his tongue and refrained.

Staying firm, he asked, “How many times do you think your sister has done things for you she’d rather not do?”

Miss Lillian remained quiet, so he said again, “How many?”

“Often, Your Grace,” she finally mumbled.

“That’s right. Has she ever complained and said she didn’t want to play a children’s game with you and your sisters, or sit by your beside when you were sick?”

Miss Lillian raised her head and shook it. Tears collected in her eyes.

Louisa started to speak again, and he gave her a warning look. She returned it.

“That’s right, Miss Lillian, and neither should you.”

“I don’t want to stay,” she said, and the first tear rolled down her cheek.

Bray reached into the chaise, took her by the upper arms, gently lifted her out, and stood her on her feet. He heard Louisa gasp, but he didn’t even look at her as he continued talking to Miss Lillian.

“Now, as for the young boys, they scream and yell and run around as wildly as you and your sisters do. I have no fear that if they step out of line with any of you, you have the fortitude to snap them right back in their place with a few choice words. Now, come along so we can go meet the Seaton family.”

Miss Lillian looked at Louisa and sniffled. “Where are you going?” she asked her sister.

“Nowhere but here in the park,” she said, taking her sister’s hand and gently squeezing it. “I promise we are not going to leave you here with the Seatons for very long. We will be back for you very shortly.”

“Come along,” Bray said again. “I’ll introduce all of them to you. If you try, you might even enjoy yourself.”

Less than ten minutes later, the girls were settled and Bray and Miss Prim were walking back to the carriage.

“Don’t you think you were a little harsh on Lillian?” Miss Prim asked as soon as they were a few steps away from the girls.

“No,” he said, thinking no more commentary was needed.

“I thought you were,” she countered. “You were almost rough with her when you lifted her out of the carriage.”

Bray looked behind him at the girls, and then back to Miss Prim. He shrugged. “I don’t believe I was rough—in fact, I made sure I handled her gently—but sometimes adults have to be stern with children. That is how they learn.”

“You know this from experience, I assume.”

“I do,” he said a little testily. “Just as no doubt you learned your gentle and loving nature from your father.” Bray paused. “He was gentle, wasn’t he?”

“Yes. I don’t think I ever heard him raise his voice in anger at any of us, and he surely never lifted any of us from the carriage when we didn’t do what he commanded.”

Bray looked behind him again. “Well, whatever I said or however roughly I lifted her from the carriage and set her on her feet, it must have worked. Look—she’s not crying.”

“If I were her, I’d be afraid to cry in front of someone with such an authoritative manner as you.”

Bray grinned confidently. “If only you were half so frightened of me as you seem to think Miss Lillian is, that would be wonderful.”

It was then that Miss Prim smiled. “Well, you are a beast at times.”

“And a monstrous beast at others.”

“True, Your Grace,” she said in a good-natured voice as she turned and waved to the girls once more. “Still, I’m not at all sure I’m comfortable leaving my sisters with strangers.”

“They are fine, and Seaton is not a stranger. I’ve known him more than ten years.

I wouldn’t leave them if I had any fears for their well-being or safety.

He will treat them as if they were his own grandchildren.

A puppet show will be much better for them than riding cramped in this carriage for an hour with you and me. ”

“I think you were thinking of your own well-being and not theirs.”

She was right. He liked the teasing light that shone brightly in her sparkling eyes. “Perhaps I was.”

“Perhaps?”

“All right, hell yes, I was. And don’t forget that ‘hell’ is a biblical word, Miss Prim.”

Again, she smiled at him. “How could I when you get such enjoyment out of reminding me.”

Bray helped her back onto the chaise and then climbed up beside her. She moved over to the other side of the seat, leaving a respectable distance between them.

“Now, what did you say was the color of Miss Gwen’s parasol?”

“You aren’t going to let me worry about the girls, are you?”

The relaxed tone of their conversation was enjoyable.

Louisa had seldom been so calm and easy with him.

He admired her for taking the responsibility of caring for her sisters so seriously, even if she seemed to carry it to the extreme on occasions, when she did things such as putting her hands over her sister’s ears.

“I’m willing for you to worry all that you want about the girls, but which ones do you want to worry about first this afternoon—the three with the grandfather and other children to play with, or the one with the rake?”

“All right, all right, you win.” She smiled and then laughed lightly. “Let’s go find Gwen and her green parasol.”

Bray picked up the ribbons, released the brake, and they started riding through the bumpy park again. Louisa was no longer sitting right up next to him, and he couldn’t feel her heat, but it was blissfully quiet.

“I suppose you have been patient today, Your Grace.”

“Very patient,” he said.

“It was nice of you to let the girls come with us.”

“Very nice,” he added, and threw a grin her way.

“I know they loved the ride, and they will enjoy the puppet show, too.”

She would never know how happy he had been to see Seaton and with his grandchildren. “I didn’t really mind,” he lied without really thinking about it.

“Are you sure?”

“No,” he said, and clicked the ribbons on the horses’ rumps to pick up their pace. “But I’m trying to be as nice today as you seem to think I’ve been.”

“That will make your mother very proud of you.”

“I doubt that, Louisa. I am her only child, but my mother has never favored me.”

“Did you just call me Louisa?”

“Yes, so what are you going to do about it, Miss Prim and Proper?”

“I’m going to say that is a terrible thing for you to say about your mother.”

He laughed. “Terrible, sad, and true. She would agree with me, I assure you. The duchess was an only child and never quite knew what to do with a child of her own, but the nurses, tutors, and governesses she hired did. Her Grace’s happiest day was when I was sent off to Eton to live.”

“I’m sure that’s not true, either.”

Bray looked over at Louisa’s wide eyes and realized how much he enjoyed being with her. “I’m sure it is, but don’t look so aghast. We get along well enough now that I’m grown.”

“What about your father? Was he the same way?”

Worse.

But he didn’t like to talk about his father.

He didn’t even like to think about the man.

“I saw very little of him when I was a child. My parents weren’t fond of each other, Miss Prim.

Their purpose for getting married was to give my father an heir.

After I was born and declared a healthy child, my mother moved into her own house.

She and my father never lived together again. ”

“Oh, I see,” she said softly. “That must have been a challenge for you.”

“Not really,” he said, watching for Standish and Miss Prim. “Boarding schools were always in my future. I adapted.”

“I suppose your life has been very different from mine.”

“I’m sure. For some reason, I envision you growing up with the whole family sitting around a dinner table, enjoying your food and your chatter. In the evenings, all of you probably played chess and cards, or listened to your father read to you by the light of a roaring fire.”

Her eyes brightened. “Yes, we did so often. Dinner and evenings were always family time. How did you know?”

I see it in all you say and do .

“My friend Harrison had family. He told me about his life.”

Bray looked away from her and clicked the ribbons again.

A sudden longing for that elusive thing called “family life” gripped him tightly.

He felt a lump in his throat and heaviness in his chest. He quickly shook the unwanted feelings away.

Bray knew what family time was, though he’d never experienced it.

When he was a young boy, his meals were taken on a tray in his room with his nurse or governess.

At boarding school, their food was served in a large hall at a long table with all the other boys who were just as lonely as he was.

And as an adult, he never ate at home in the evening.

He ate at one of his clubs. Bray’s father had invited him to dine with him one evening a couple of years before his death.

Bray decided to be a good son that day and obliged him.

The meal was so painfully long and quiet that repeating the occasion was never broached again by either of them.

His mother was barely a little better, inviting him to dine with her only on Christmas day and Easter.

Family time was for vicars and the like, not for dukes, and it was best he not forget that.

“Look, Your Grace, to your right,” Miss Prim said. “There they are. See them, sitting on a blanket under that tree?”

Thankful for the change in conversation, Bray pulled on the reins to slow the horses.

He surveyed the terrain, which was lightly dotted with trees and tall shrubs.

“We’ll go past them and move around to the other side.

We’ll find a place that can shield you from your sister’s view.

If you can recognize her from this distance, she will know you, too. ”

“That’s a good idea. They don’t seem to be sitting too close together. What do you think?”