An Unexpected Pleasure (The Mad Morelands #4)(32)

Her greatest good fortune was Thisbe’s offer to teach the twins in science, for she quickly found out the first afternoon that the twins knew far more than she about plants, animals, the stars, chemical reactions and such. They were filled with glee when Megan told them that she was going to hand over their tutoring in the area to their eldest sister.

What made it even nicer was the fact that it would free up another hour and a half that she could use to search the house. Megan spent that time, as well as the twins’ outdoor period, in wandering about the mansion, poking into nooks and crannies. She reasoned that if anyone questioned her about being somewhere, she could always claim that she had gotten lost in the huge house.

She started with the third floor and moved downward. There were several empty rooms just down from the nursery, but the next room she opened had an occupant.

A small, stoop-shouldered man with a shock of disordered white hair was bending over a large table, and he turned in surprise to look at her. A pair of spectacles rested on the end of his nose, and he pushed them up into his hair as he gazed at her.

“Oh!” Megan exclaimed. “I’m so sorry. Forgive me. I did not realize the room was occupied.”

“No harm, my dear,” the elderly man said with a shy smile. “You merely startled me. I was laying out my Welsh longbowmen.”

With a closer look, Megan now saw that what she had thought was a large table was in fact a large piece of thin wood propped up on two wooden sawhorses. On the piece of wood was a topographical layout of land, painted green. There were a myriad of little iron figures, some arranged in careful rows, but the majority still lying in a heap.

This was not the only such “table” in the room. Several flat pieces of plywood stood on sawhorses. All the others were finished products, with rolling land and flat land, and even small bodies of water. The landscapes were dotted with trees and hedges and brown roads. Miniature armies and navies were spread across the various tables, all laid out in precise order. It was all Megan could do to keep her jaw from dropping in astonishment.

This man, she realized, must be the great-uncle about whom Theo and Mrs. Bee had spoken. But the man’s use of lead soldiers went far beyond anything Megan had imagined.

“It’s Agincourt,” Lord Bellard was saying now, looking at her hopefully.

“Ah, yes.” Megan remembered that the housekeeper had said something about Agincourt. “‘Cry God for Harry, England and St. George!’”

History might not be her specialty, but she did know Shakespeare.

The small man’s face brightened, and he quoted back, “‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.’”

Her bit of knowledge, apparently, was all it took to win over the twins’ great-uncle, for he took her on a guided tour around his workroom, identifying all the battles and explaining the layouts to her. It was unfortunate, he told her with regret, that his favorite piece, the pièce de résistance of his collection, the Battle of Waterloo, was at home at Broughton Park, with the other more modern battles.

The old man did not seem to question her presence in his family’s house—or, indeed, even ask her name. When at last she took her leave of him, she made a point of telling him that she was the twins’ new tutor, just in case he might wonder later to whom he had been showing his collection.

He seemed only faintly interested in her words, saying merely, “Ah. How interesting. A woman. I see Emmeline’s hand in that.” He smiled at her. “Welcome to the house, Miss Anderson. If you need any help…”

Megan smiled, not bothering to correct her name. The old gentleman was a bit odd, but she could not help but like him. It was clear that questions of propriety or rank—or even identity—did not signify to him in the least. Scholarship, she suspected, was the only thing that mattered to the sweet old man.

She made her way through more of the house, peering into empty rooms and cautiously opening closed doors. Bedchambers predominated, although there were also various drawing rooms, sitting rooms, studies and a library, as well as a large and ornate ballroom. She encountered a few servants, and a time or two she saw a member of the family in the distance, but each time she quickly ducked back around a corner or into an empty room to avoid being seen.

She was most intrigued by the locked room that she found on the second floor next to the library. The door from it into the hallway was locked, and when she entered the library, she found a door in the middle of one wood-paneled wall that she felt must surely lead into the room next door, as well. When she tried it, she found that it was locked, too. Her curiosity was well up by then. A locked room in this open, friendly household was an unusual thing. It must contain something valuable, she reasoned, and it would therefore be the place where she was likeliest to find whatever rare and/or expensive item Theo Moreland might have taken from her brother.

Megan strolled back up to the nursery, where she took high tea with Con and Alex. The boys had returned from their science class with smudges of various sorts on their hands and faces, and smelling faintly of sulfur. They chattered animatedly about the chemical experiment, which had gone, according to them, “almost perfectly.” Megan decided it was best not to inquire as to exactly what had not been perfect about it.

“Once you clean up a bit,” she said, “I thought we might go down to the library and look for some books you might like to read.”