tolerate the presence of that wretched woman for even a second, then he must love her very much.”
“From one meeting.”
Olivia looked at him. “If it’s the right meeting, one is all it takes… or do you not remember our not so chance encounter at the Somerfield Ball? It changed everything for us.”
“And now you think this ball will change everything for Algernon?”
Olivia nodded. “I certainly hope so.”
CHAPTER SIX
“I won’t do my letters and you can’t make me!” Caroline said, stamping her foot. For added measure, she picked up the simple slate from the table and threw it on the floor where she proceeded to stomp it.
“Fine. I can’t make you. But one day some young man will write you love letters and you’ll be too embarrassed by your terrible penmanship to write him back,” Percy replied and stooped to retrieve the slate.
Caroline stamped her foot again, narrowly missing Percy’s fingers. “Then I’ll do the stupid letters! But only because I want to marry a prince and have him put you in prison for being mean!”
Percy looked at the little girl’s flushed face and sighed. Prison wasn’t looking so bad, after all. There was no point in saying anything else, she’d won that round as much as it was possible to with any of her sister’s children. Leaving Caroline to work on her letters, she made her way over to Richard who was sitting stonily at another table glaring at her.
“I don’t need a governess. I’m going to Eton next month,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.
In point of fact, he was not going to Eton. Percy knew that because Daphne had told her maid just that morning that she would need an entirely new wardrobe since the fashions were changing so quickly and that Richard’s schooling would have to be economized. “Certainly. But it doesn’t hurt to do a bit of reading so that you’re all caught up with your peers when you get there.”
She had learned that it wasn’t impossible to get the children to do what she wanted most of the time, so long as she let them think it was their own idea. They were far, far worse on any day where they spent any degree of time with their mother, as they had the day before.
As the lot of them were by turns, sulking, outwardly defiant or even destructive, she simply went about the business of tidying up the room and acting as if what they did had no effect on her. She wasn’t always able to maintain her composure, but she’d learned the hard way that what the children wanted more than anything was their mother’s attention—until they got it. Daphne could be loving and effusive one day and coldly indifferent the next. Percy had also realized that if they couldn’t have Daphne’s attention, well any adult would do, and that attention did not have to be positive. To that end, she’d begun ignoring what they did that was terrible, as much as possible, and trying to give them praise, when they’d accept it, if they were well behaved. Thus far, she wasn’t able to see much of a difference, but honestly, outnumbered as she was, it would take a team of people to have an impact on all of them.
A maid tapped on the door. “There’s a lady here to see you, miss. The Viscountess Holland.”
He’d been true to his word, Percy thought. It shouldn’t have surprised her, yet she couldn’t quite make sense of it. He wasn’t the first man to have ever flirted with her, though he was certainly the first one she had any interest in flirting with in return. He was also the first one who seemed not to lose interest when confronted with her outspokenness, her bookish nature, or her complete and utter inability to behave like any normal female with the normal female accomplishments. Of course, he was the first man she’d ever become acquainted with bare bottom first. But it was his indifference to Daphne when he’d called yesterday that truly left her puzzled. No man, when presented with the both of them, had ever preferred her to her sister. Marital status aside, Daphne’s unavailability had never seemed to present any obstacle to them making their preference for her sister’s more obvious attractiveness quite clear. There were any number of unusual circumstances in their current situation.
“Is she with Daphne at the moment?”
“No, miss. Mrs. Fennelworth has gone out to pay a call,” the maid answered.
“Can