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me.” She eyed him from head to toe. “I vow, but you look fresh this morning. Did you sleep well?”
    “Like a rock. Didn’t even hear you return. Tell me, how was the soirée last night? You didn’t stop by to see me when you returned, as you usually do.”
    Her gaze shuttered immediately. “It was lovely.”
    Was it, indeed? Sir Phineas leaned back in his chair. “Any interesting gossip to be heard at the refreshment table?”
    She shrugged, but volunteered no more information.
    Sir Phineas waited patiently. When his granddaughter did nothing more than stare down at the tips of her slippers, he said, “Come, child. I want the latest gossip, descriptions of which women wore the most diaphanous gowns, and which men made asses of themselves. It’s the least you can do since I was unable to attend myself.”
    Anna stood and went to wind the clock that graced the mantel, her face carefully averted. “There was one thing…”
    “Yes?”
    “Lord Northland. He tripped and spilled my orgeat.”
    Sir Phineas looked at Anna’s hand, which was bunched about the clock key so tightly that her knuckles shone white. Damn it all, he should have been with his granddaughter and not tucked into bed like an invalid. “I hope you drew his cork.”
    The air of tension eased a bit, and she turned to smile at him over her shoulder, a look of great satisfaction softening her face. “Nothing so dire as that. Just a little orgeat up his nose. I think I made my point rather nicely.”
    It was a pity he hadn’t been present to defend his granddaughter. “Wish I could have done the honors for you,” he said sourly.
    “I handled him quite well myself.” She set the clock key back on the mantel, a quiver of some emotion lurking in her gray eyes. “It was a lesson to me. I should never have gone to the Dandridges’. I stepped out of my station by doing so, and Lord Northland’s behavior reminded me of that fact.”
    Sir Phineas had to grind his teeth to keep a scowl from his face. In over seven hundred years no Thraxton had done more than dally in trade, and it was a demmed shame to see it start now. Not that he was averse to hard work; he understood the benefits of using one’s own hands to assist those in need.But the Thraxtons were not common laborers. In fact, there was nothing common about any of them. And seeing his granddaughter slaving for a few pence like a mill worker was heartbreaking.
    Anna’s gaze suddenly flickered past his shoulder. “Grandpapa, you were smoking, weren’t you?”
    “Heavens, no. Wouldn’t think of it. Nasty habit, smoking. Often thought they should ban cigarillos and—”
    “ Someone was smoking. And they caught the shrubbery on fire.”
    Phineas turned to see a thick column of smoke rising in front of the window. “Damnation, I thought I had extinguished that blasted—” He caught his granddaughter’s amused gaze and added hastily, “Don’t just stand there, yammering away! Tell Hawkes to put it out before the whole house goes up in smoke. As ramshackle as this place is, it would spark like a tinderbox.”
    Her gaze narrowed on him a moment, but she obediently left, and Sir Phineas could hear her talking to the butler. A few moments later the smoke gulped, then turned to steam. Cursing the ill fates that hounded him, Phineas pulled himself from his chair and crossed to the window, where he watched Hawkes pour more water on the blackened bush at the bottom of the stairs.
    It was almost too much to bear, he thought sulkily. And now he was going to be subjected to yet another lecture on the hazards of smoking. Sir Phineas muttered noisily, hurrying to resume his seat before Anna returned.
    She entered the room while he was trying to think of a safer topic than his beloved cigarillos. He cleared his throat. “I say, m’dear, is that a new gown?”
    Sir Phineas wasn’t conversant with his granddaughter’s wardrobe, other than to note that she seemed to have a lot ofit. But his innocent