An Unexpected Pleasure (The Mad Morelands #4)(40)

Megan knew that the only way she could save herself was to put the key back into the desk where it belonged without the duke noticing. She probably should not even risk waiting until she had searched the room to do it.

She slipped her hand into her pocket, feeling for the key.

There was nothing there!

Megan paused, unwilling to believe. She stood up and dug into her pocket, pulling until it was completely turned inside out. On the chance that she had put it in the other pocket—though she was certain she had not—she searched the other pocket in her skirt and found it equally empty.

She had lost the key!

Megan let out a groan. Somehow it had slipped out of her pocket.

Anxiously, she backtracked over her path from the door to her bed, but she found no sign of a key. Just to make sure, she lit a candle and went over the same path, bending over to light the area with the candle’s glow. There was no glint of metal.

It was lost.

And she was in trouble.





CHAPTER 8




Theo was sitting on a bench at the edge of the garden, waiting for the twins to come barreling past, heading for Thisbe and Desmond’s workshop at the back of the property. He had noticed that they did so every afternoon. Thisbe had happily told him that their new tutor was letting her teach the boys science.

It made sense, he knew. Thisbe and her husband knew far more about chemistry, biology and physics than any tutor they could hire. But no tutor before had been willing to turn over even part of their job to someone else. What Theo wondered was whether Miss Henderson was wise enough not to let pride stand in the way of the boys’ education—or was using Thisbe’s willingness to help as a way to hide the fact that she was not a tutor.

Theo had found it difficult from the start to believe that the woman was actually a teacher. She was far too attractive, to begin with, and there was nothing in her demeanor that seemed like a governess. Why would a woman apply to teach two boys with the reputation that Con and Alex had? And why would an American travel to England to tutor children? Megan’s explanations were not completely implausible, but they had not been convincing, either.

Most of all, there was the bizarre fact that she was the woman whom he had seen in his dream years ago. The whole thing was completely inexplicable, and Theo would not have told anyone about it, sure that they would think he was crazy. Of course, he supposed, the strangeness of it did not preclude her being a tutor, but the more oddities that piled up, the less inclined he was to believe the story Miss Henderson had told. The fact that Reed’s wife, Anna, had had one of her premonitions that Megan was somehow dangerous had certainly done nothing to quiet his suspicions.

Last night, when he had found her in his father’s study, slipping a key from the duke’s desk into her pocket, his suspicions had solidified. He could think of no logical reason for the twins’ new tutor to be trying to sneak into his father’s collection room.

“Theo!” Alex’s cheerful voice roused Theo from his reverie, and he turned to see Alex and Con running out of the garden.

“Hello, boys,” he greeted them as they skidded to a halt beside him.

“Hallo,” Con replied. “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting to talk to you.”

“Really? Why?” Con dropped down onto the ground beside Theo’s bench, heedless of the effect the grass and dirt would have on his clothes.

“You going down to see Thisbe, too?” Alex asked. Somewhat tidier than his brother, he sat down on the bench beside Theo.

“No. Actually, I was just—well, I wanted to see how you were liking your new tutor.”

The boys’ immediate grins told him how much they liked Miss Henderson.

“She’s bang up to the nines,” Alex responded, and Con nodded his head in agreement.

“Don’t you like her?” Alex went on. “Why do you want to know about her?”

“Yes, I do like her,” Theo replied candidly. “I just wondered…well, how she was as a teacher.”

“She’s ever so much better than all our old tutors,” Con told him.

“Oh, yes. She lets Thisbe teach us.”

“And she lets us have time to go outside and play. She says it burns off energy and makes it easier for us to study.”

“I see. Well, I can see how that would make you like her. But what I wondered…” He paused, trying to think how to phrase his question so that the boys would not grow either suspicious or defensive about their new teacher.

“Whether she’s really a teacher?” Alex prompted.

Theo grimaced at his own stupidity. He might have known that the twins would figure it out as quickly as he. “Yes. That’s exactly what I want to know. Obviously she has made you wonder, as well.”

“She’s much too pretty,” Con gave Theo his own argument.

“And much too nice,” Alex added with a sigh.

“Why would anyone like her want to be a tutor?” Con went on, wrinkling his forehead in genuine perplexity.

“You must have noticed something more, though,” Theo urged.

“Well, she’s too practical. None of our other tutors related anything we learned to life.”

“She called Pliny the Elder boring,” Alex added.

Theo suppressed a grin. “Honest, at any rate.”