An Unexpected Pleasure (The Mad Morelands #4)(17)
“Yes.” Megan smiled at Thisbe. She could not help but like the woman, whose candid, unaffected manner was very refreshing, especially compared to the other upper-crust women whom Megan had met, both English and American.
Theo let out a chuckle. “Actually, she met them in a typical situation. They let loose some mice on Lady Kempton and her daughter.”
“I am sure no one deserved it more,” Thisbe commented dryly. She turned to Megan to say earnestly, “There is no harm in Alex and Con, really. They are merely—”
“Lively?” Theo supplied. “Isn’t that how you described them, Miss Henderson?”
“Yes. There is nothing wrong with having energy,” Megan said stoutly. “It simply needs to be directed.”
“Quite right, Miss Henderson.” Thisbe beamed at her. “I say, I think you will deal nicely with the boys. Desmond—that is my husband—and I are always happy to help in the scientific areas. I find traditional texts quite lacking in that field.”
“As are my skills, I am sure,” Megan replied honestly. “I would welcome any help you could supply.”
No answer could have pleased Thisbe more, it seemed, for she seized Megan’s hand and shook it again with enthusiasm, promising that she would meet with her soon regarding her lesson plans. Then, with a quick smile for her brother, Thisbe was off down the rear hall, almost instantly deep in thought again.
“She and Desmond are excellent teachers in all things scientific,” Theo told her. “It is only with such small practical matters as remembering supper that they have problems. So if you want her help, I feel sure you will have to seek her out. The twins can show you where her laboratory is located—it is at the back of the yard, since she set fire to her first one and not only alarmed the servants but did some damage to my father’s workroom.”
“Your father’s workroom?” Megan asked, puzzled. She wouldn’t have expected a duke to have a workroom. She could not have said what she thought a duke did all day, but she would have supposed it involved anything but work.
“There are those who would call it a junk room, I imagine,” Theo explained. “It is a shed where he keeps his potsherds and the other artifacts he is working on. He sorts and identifies them, restores them if it’s possible. The more important pieces, of course, he puts in his collection room in the house—he has one here and one at Broughton Park—but the overflow is consigned to shelves in his workroom.”
“I see. He is interested in…antiquities, then?”
“Yes. Though only Greek and Roman. I am afraid he finds the rest of the world of little importance—the same can probably be said of everything since, oh, the time of Nero, as well.”
“I see.”
“Now, Uncle Bellard is interested in much more modern times—even as recent as the Napoleonic wars.”
“Uncle Bellard?” Megan repeated.
“Great-uncle, actually. He lives here, too. But it will probably be some time before you meet him. He is somewhat shy and usually sticks to his rooms in the east wing.” He grinned down at her. “Don’t worry, that’s about all the people present here at the moment. We are rather down from most years—we usually have a surprising number of relatives pop out of the woodwork when the season arrives. Fortunately, Lady Rochester has decided not to grace us with her presence this year—she chose to torment her daughter-in-law instead—or I would have to warn you to avoid her at all costs.”
Megan could not help but chuckle. There was something infectious about Theo’s smile. She looked at him and once again felt that strange tug inside her. The feeling was bizarre and unsettling, and she could not understand why she was experiencing it. She was not even sure what the sensation was.
However, she was sure that she should not be feeling it for this man. He was her sworn enemy, the man she had hated for ten years.
She put her hand to her midsection, as if to quiet the tumult there.
“I’ll take you up to the nursery,” Theo said. “It’s something of a climb, I’m afraid. In general, Mother has never approved of the notion of sequestering children away in the nursery. However, given the twins’ collection of animals, it seemed the most logical thing to stick them and their menagerie at some distance from the rest of us. So they are up on the third story.”
Megan, never having lived in the sort of wealthy household that had a separate nursery area for the children, was not sure exactly what to expect. From tales she had heard and read, she half expected some sort of gloomy area tucked away under the eaves, but when they reached it, she found that the Moreland nursery was a pleasantly sunny place with a large schoolroom and several smaller rooms leading off from it.
Shelves filled with toys and books lined the two long walls of the rectangular room. Four desks lined up back to back stood in the center of the room, and at one end of them stood a large globe on a stand. A chart of the solar system and an astronomical map of the night sky were pinned to the wall, as were several smaller maps of England, Europe and the world. The world map, Megan noticed, was dotted with pins of various colors, the predominant ones of red. Along the far wall, in the sun streaming in through the windows, were several cages containing animals.
The twins were engaged in feeding their various animals, the dog, Rufus, beside them, gazing hopefully into the cages. Con and Alex turned at the sound of their entrance, and broke into smiles when they saw Megan and Theo.