but because she’d been told to always wear her bonnet. Shy, quiet, studious, Lydia was rather like a just-budding blossom, her head dipped to avoid attention lest she be picked from her comfortable spot in the garden before she was ready to bloom.
Right now Lydia’s chin was bent so near her chest that almost all Charlotte could see of her were those huge blue eyes swimming with guilt.
Nicole’s small, pointed chin, however, was fully raised, almost defiant.
If a portrait artist could capture the twins as they posed now, no volume of ten thousand words could do more to make clear the character of the two sisters.
Or who was in charge.
“Girls, how wonderful,” Charlotte said after only a heartbeat in time—one that had felt longer than an age. “Your brother is returned to you. I’ve already explained that your Aunt Emmaline has placed me in the role of chaperone while she is traveling, and what a lovely time we’ve all had with me residing here with you until her return. Now don’t just stand there like sticks, come welcome your brother home.”
Lydia looked up, goggling in confusion at this full budget of lies Charlotte had just loosed on them. But Nicole, her mind always alert for mischief, never so much as blinked as she said, “And quite the dragon of a chaperone she is, so that we’d never dare to be on anything save our very best behavior, as suits the sisters of a duke. A duke, Rafe! Isn’t it above all things wonderful?”
As she spoke, she advanced across the seeming mile of carpets, her arms outstretched, so that by the time she finished speaking she was close enough to launch herself into her brother’s arms.
Rafe glanced at Charlotte as he slowly put his arms around his sister, a look very much akin to panic in his eyes.
“You…you’ve grown,” he said at last, when Nicole finally stepped back, grinning up in his face. “I…I didn’t realize…” He coughed into his fist. “Which, er, which one are you?”
“I’m Nicole, of course. You called me Nicky, which I hated, but now I think it a lovely name. Lydia, don’t just stand there like a lump, come say hello to Rafe.” She turned back to her brother. “You call her Lydia,” she whispered conspiratorially. “Really, there’s precious little else you could call her, not with a starchy name like that.”
Charlotte wanted to poke Rafe with her elbow, nudge him into some sort of speech. He needed to say something, he needed to put Nicole in her place immediately or else risk never having control of the reins. But he said nothing. Nicole had flummoxed him completely, her own brother. This did not bode well for the day the girl was set loose in London!
“Welcome home, Your Grace,” Lydia said in her quiet, reserved voice as she curtsied and then held out her hand to him, quickly drawing it back when, Charlotte supposed, she realized her brother might feel the need to kiss it.
“Thank you…Lydia,” Rafe said, and then watched as she returned to the settee and sat down, settling her skirts around her. “Lyddie?” he asked Nicole quietly. “I didn’t even call her Lyddie?”
Nicole bit her bottom lip as she shook her head. “You wouldn’t have dared. Mama says thank God we’re not of the Roman persuasion or else Lydia would have crawled into one of their nunneries years ago. But she’s all right. It’s all in knowing how to handle her.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Which you do, correct, and always to your advantage?”
“She’s my twin. I protect her,” Nicole stated, her violet eyes dancing in her head. “Would you like me to pour you a glass of wine, Your Grace? When we were informed that you were seen on the drive, I just had time to order Grayson to fetch one of Uncle Charlton’s best from the cellars. I’ll pour a glass for everyone. We should make a toast and celebrate your return.”
Rafe turned a questioning eye on Charlotte. “You allow them wine?”
“I most certainly do not,” Charlotte told him, glaring at Nicole. “You’ll have lemonade, my girl, and like it.”
Nicole’s full bottom lip came out in a pretty pout, but then she smiled. “See, Rafe? Charlotte is a veritable dragon of propriety. Aren’t you, Charlotte? Why, I don’t know what we should have done without her these weeks, with Aunt Emmaline gone.”
Rafe was beginning to look like a man outnumbered by hostiles, and without a weapon to protect himself. “Weeks? Emmaline’s been gone for weeks? She said nothing about that in any of her letters.”
“Duly chastised by my dragon chaperone, I’ll just go ring for Grayson to pour you that wine, Rafe,” Nicole said, and hurried away, sparing only a moment to shoot a desperate glance toward Charlotte, one that warned we’ll be fine, as long as you don’t muck it up now.
Charlotte swallowed hard and turned to Rafe. He looked much too inquisitive. So she went on the attack. “Is that your way of saying that you don’t believe I make a suitable chaperone for your sisters?”
“I…No, no, of course not. Please forgive me. Clearly, if Emmaline considered you competent to be in charge of the twins, who am I to question her judgment? But they’re…they’re not little girls anymore, Charlie, are they?”
“Charlotte,” she said without much hope of him heeding her. “And, no, they’re not. Nor are they young women, much as Nicole would like to believe otherwise. Last week I caught her in Emmaline’s chamber, attempting to put up her hair and wearing a rather garish pair of gold and ruby earrings Emmaline must have regretted the moment she purchased them.”
Rafe shot a glance toward the settee, where the girls were holding hands and whispering to each other. “I begin to miss the war,” he said dully. “Too old for the nursery, too young for a Season. What in God’s name am I supposed to do with them?”
“What else?” Charlotte said. “You leave them here in the country while you go cut a dash in London. You conveniently forget about them until it’s time to dress them up like Christmas puddings and send them out to the marriage mart, praying nineteen to the dozen that at the end of the Season you don’t have to haul either of them back to the country again. What else do families do with daughters?”
Rafe grinned. “Do I detect a hint of censure in your voice, Charlie? Were you one of those hauled back to the country? Well, of course you were. Are all the men in London blind? Or were you really waiting for me to return home?”
Charlotte felt a rush of color invade her cheeks at his words, even if she probably shouldn’t take any of them seriously. “I only said that because you’d made me angry,” she lied, and then nearly cheered as Grayson approached them to inform His Grace that his friend Captain Fitzgerald had arrived.
“A most…singular gentleman, Your Grace,” Grayson said, his tone making it clear that he had not just complimented the captain. “He desires your presence at once, sir.”
“He does, does he? I’d rather think my good friend Captain Fitzgerald demands my presence.”
“Yes, Your Grace. I knew him for your friend the moment he opened his mouth.”
“An insult wrapped in velvet. Very good, Grayson.” Rafe took Charlotte’s hand and turned her back toward the entrance hall. “Come on, Charlie. I want you to meet a fellow reprobate.”
“I
