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fellow. He probably mistook old Mrs. Hobbes for his mama.”
    “I didn’t realize you knew the story,” she said. “You should have said so, Mr. Greyson. I could have read something else. How bored you must have been.”
    “I wasn’t bored.” He turned to her. “You have a most expressive reading voice. Because I was familiar with the tale, even the most harmless passages became fraught with foreboding, and gave me gooseflesh.”
    “Delia and Livy have ghoulish tastes, I’m afraid. They like nothing better than stories that frighten them out of their wits. And Mama must tell the tale in a creepy, bloodcurdling voice, of course.”
    “Ghosts and goblins?” Marcus’s eyes widened. “I can’t believe it of those delicate little girls.”
    “I believe it is a rebellion of sorts,” she said. “Their activities were strictly circumscribed by others. There was a great deal not permitted. These last two years we seem to be making up for it.”
    She looked up then. “At present, the twins’ manners aren’t all they should be, as you saw in the playroom. On the other hand, two years ago they were so timid they wouldn’t have dared speak to you. I did not want to undo their progress. I had rather they be a bit overbold than... stifled.”
    “Certainly,” he said, stifling his own surprise. “Children aren’t adults in miniature. As to manners—ah, well, I’m no judge, for mine were always dreadful, deliberately so, and still are, though I’ve polished the roughest edges. I saw nothing objectionable in your daughters’ behavior.” He managed a smile. “On the contrary, it swelled my vanity to be fought over.”
    She picked up the book again, and straightened the marker. “I assumed you were capable of expressing your disapproval—or simply leaving—if they annoyed you. I thought they must deal with the consequences of their behavior, for Mama will not always be there to make everything as they wish it.”
    “A life lesson,” he said.
    “Perhaps.” The corners of her soft mouth turned up a very little bit. “Although their aunts would be appalled at what would appear to be a lesson in vying for a gentleman’s attention.”
    “Oh, yes. Aunts.” He moved a step closer. “Travers had four unwed elder sisters, I recollect. I suppose you were a great comfort to one another after... after your loss. I was sorry to hear of Travers’s passing,” he said dutifully. “It must have been a great shock to you. You’d known each other from childhood, hadn’t you?”
    She nodded, laying the book aside. “He had never been strong. His sisters had reared him, and they were accustomed to pampering him. They coddled me, too, and the children. I’m sure the ladies meant well, but they were—oh, I can’t think how to say it without sounding horribly ungrateful—but they were narrow. Their world was small, their views—It wasn’t what—” She shook her head. “Once Arthur was gone, I found I couldn’t live that way any longer,” she went on hurriedly. “He left me well-fixed, as all the world knows. I bought another house, and simply left. The aunts descended upon that house and tried to convince me that grief had disordered my wits. And so I’ve fled again. After the New Year, the girls and I depart with my great-aunt Georgjana for the Continent.”
    He wasn’t sure what he had expected to hear. He knew only that this wasn’t it: hearing her complain of a narrow, conventional life, hearing her speak of rebellion. There was no female in England less likely to rebel against anything than Christina. Or so he’d thought. But then, she’d surprised him earlier, too.
    “You’ve changed,” he said, moving another step nearer, “a great deal.”
    “Most people change after ten years.”
    “Have I?” he asked. “Do you agree with Penny that I’m much changed?”
    She nodded. “You’re more confident. You always were outwardly, but now you are inwardly as well. As you should be,” she quickly