Passions of a Gentleman (Gentlemen of Honor #3) - Rose Gordon Page 0,33

a rigid Rae. Now it was his turn to comfort her. He moved closer to her and placed his hand on the small of her back.

“Well, he’s mine,” said Jane, coming up to grab Simon’s free hand.

“Heaven have mercy,” Peter said, rolling his eyes, garnering another round of laughter from his siblings. All except Jane who was very adamant in her claim to Simon.

He’d be flattered if Rae had made such a declaration. He immediately pushed away the thought and squeezed Jane’s hand. She wanted so terribly bad to be treated like a debutante. He could do that. “How about if we start with today and see where it goes from there?” Simon said to the little girl.

The little girl’s face beamed at his words as he imagined Rae’s did, too.

“Perhaps it should be the girls and Simon against us young bucks,” Joseph said, puffing his chest out.

If only it had been so simple.

But as Simon was quickly learning, it wasn’t just the upper class that made everything more difficult than it needed to be. No, that was a trait that knew no class for the seven children aging in range from barely out of leading strings to bordering on old enough to be working to support the family were shouting, “Stone, parchment, shears! Stone, parchment, shears!” in unison.

Simon lifted his eyebrows at Rae. “What’s going on?”

“They’re chanting how they want to divide up their teams.”

“Huh?”

She started to giggle then stifled it with an awful-sounding cough. “Stone, parchment, shears,” she said, her voice still uneven from her laughter. “It’s another game.”

Simon knit his brows. “So, children play games…to determine how they’re going to play another game?”

“Yes.” Rae’s simple answer confused him even more.

He shook his head. “This is madness.”

“Not yet,” Rae countered. “You’ll see madness in a minute when they start playing.”

“I’m eager beyond words.”

“Simon,” Samuel called.

Simon jerked his head in the lad’s direction. “Yes?”

“You play against Peter first.”

Simon had a sinking feeling in his stomach that said they weren’t talking about him rolling his lawn bowl toward the jack. They wanted him to play their ridiculous game. “Why don’t you all work out the teams, and I’ll join where you tell me.”

“No,” Samuel shook his head wildly, his loose curls waving about. “You have to play for your spot. It’s a rule.”

“I don’t remember that rule in bowls,” Simon challenged, garnering him a little nudge in the side from Rae’s elbow. He looked at her. “Well?”

“It’s part of the rules at the Hughes’ house,” Peter said, taking the bowl from Simon and handing it to Lucas. He turned back to Simon and held his left hand flat with his palm up. With his right hand he made a fist and placed it sideways, with the thumb on top, on top of his open palm. “Let’s go.”

Around them, the others continued their noisy chorus of “stone, parchment, shears.”

Resigning himself to the fact that he wasn’t getting out of this nonsense, he put his hands into the same position as Peter and said, “Now what?”

All noise stopped as the bowl that Simon had handed Lucas hit the ground with a soft thud.

“You…you…you don’t know how to play?” Peter asked when he was able to close his mouth enough to form words.

“No.” Simon banged his fist on his palm. “Are you going to show me or gape?”

“Gape,” Peter said automatically.

He wasn’t the only one, either. Dara, Jane, Lucas, Joseph, Samuel, and even little Jacob who couldn’t be more than two years old all had their mouths open, too.

The only one who didn’t was Rae who wore a wide, unabashed grin. “I don’t think we’ll be needing the bowls, after all,” she said in a sing-song tone. “Now, that you all can sleep peacefully tonight that you haven’t been cheated by not being able to attend a fancy school, why don’t you educate him?”

“It’s only you who feel cheated about such nonsense,” Peter said flippantly as he moved his right leg back and reached his hands out in front of him as if he were a warrior in the Crusades.

From the corner of his eye, Simon noticed the way Rae winced at her brother’s words. It must be hard for her to live in her older sister’s shadow. Lady Drakely had been allowed to attend a girls’ school and turn right around and snare herself a viscount.

“All right, toff,” Peter said in a tone Simon couldn’t place, hitting his fisted hand against his open palm. “This is stone.” He flattened his top hand