LITMIR.BIZ

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Miss Elizabeth Glendenning, the elder, and Miss Sophie Glendenning, the younger.’

       No, this couldn’t be happening.

      Refusing to look at the children as they dutifully made their curtsies, Hugh stared at Mr Allen. ‘My cousin’s solicitor informed me that Robert had named me guardian for the girls. As their closest remaining relative, I felt obligated to accept the task and was prepared to oversee the management of their inheritance until they came of age or married—in St Kitts. There was never any mention of the children being brought to England.’

      While Mrs Allen drew in a sharp breath, Mr Allen looked at Hugh, his expression incredulous. ‘You...were not expecting them?’

      ‘Certainly not!’ Hugh said. ‘And had I been consulted, I would never have authorised them to leave St Kitts. Why would they wish to? That has been their home all their lives.’

      ‘Oh, dear,’ Mr Allen said, looking alarmed. ‘I’m very sorry! We were given to understand that all had been arranged in advance. This is most distressing!’

      ‘Indeed,’ Hugh replied with feeling. ‘I suppose there is no possibility of you returning the girls to St Kitts?’

      ‘None at all,’ Mr Allen confirmed. ‘As I mentioned, we are removing to Yorkshire permanently, and have no plans to return to the islands.’

      ‘Perhaps they could go with you to Yorkshire,’ Hugh said, searching about for any solution that did not require him taking over their care. ‘As I recall, my cousin left ample funds for their maintenance and upbringing. Surely they would be more comfortable in a land so foreign to them if they lived with people who know and care about them, rather than with a total stranger. A childless widower to boot.’

       Although once he had been neither...

      The Allens exchanged uncomfortable glances. ‘The Misses Glendenning hardly know us better than they do you, Colonel. We only met them the day the ship sailed from St Kitts.’

      Though he was nearly seething with fury and distaste, Hugh hadn’t been a soldier for fifteen years without learning how to take responsibility for duties shirked by another—or recognising when a position was untenable. ‘I suppose they shall have to stay, then.’

      Looking visibly relieved, Mr Allen nodded. ‘I’m sure that will be for the best.’

      The butler arrived with their tea. For the next ten minutes, Hugh nodded as Mr Allen made desultory conversation. He sipped at his own tepid liquid, wishing it was his prized Scotch, all the while thinking furiously.

      There was no way he could undertake the care of two little girls. After all that had happened, the idea was simply unendurable.

      The housekeeper would have to look out for them until he could hire a suitable governess. With any luck, he’d be able to avoid seeing them more than once or twice a month—until they were grown and gone.

      Even better, after more reflection upon the matter, he might come up with some appropriately placed female to whom he could send the children for their upbringing. After all, governess or not, the care of two small girls should be overseen by a woman, shouldn’t it?

      Speaking of females, the Allens were finishing their tea and making departing noises—and his housekeeper still hadn’t arrived.

      Very well, he could stand being alone with them for a few moments. Fortunately, they were a mannerly pair, for they had stood stock-still and silent ever since Allen introduced them.

      All too soon, putting down his empty cup, Mr Allen said, ‘We are much obliged for the refreshments and hospitality—especially after the shock of springing the children upon you with no advance notice! I can’t imagine what happened to the correspondence from Mrs Glendenning arranging their travel.’

      ‘Nor can I,’ Hugh said drily. Though he had a pretty good idea what had happened to the ‘missing’ letters. His cousin’s second wife obviously had no interest in caring for the children of her predecessor; sending them unannounced precluded the refusal he would have returned, had his permission been sought.

      Despite his rage at having this charge foisted on him, he felt an inadvertent pang of sympathy for the two girls. They’d lost their own mother upon the younger child’s birth and now, so soon after the death of their father, they’d been exiled from the only home they’d ever known.

      He’d have to scour his London papers tonight and find an agency to provide him a governess with all possible speed.

      By now, his guests had risen, obligating him to rise as well.

      ‘We’ll be going now, girls,’ Mrs Allen said, kneeling to embrace the two in turn. ‘You must be as good for your new guardian as you’ve been for us.’

      ‘Yes, ma’am,’ the two said in unison, while the older added, ‘Thank you for watching over us on the journey, Mrs Allen.’

      Walking with the Allens to the door—very conscious of the two pairs of small eyes following his movements—Hugh said, ‘I wish you a safe homecoming.’

      ‘Very kind of you, Colonel,’ Mr Allen said. ‘We’ll be that glad to see our little stone cottage again, won’t we, my dear?’

      So, with a handshake and a murmured goodbye from the wife, the Allens departed.

      Hugh lingered in the doorway, but there still was no sign of an approaching housekeeper. If the damned woman didn’t show up in the next few minutes, he was going to have to escort the girls down to the kitchen himself.

      Taking a deep breath, Hugh turned around, the wave of anguish that washed through him as he forced himself to look at the girls less sharp than the first time, when he’d been taken unawares. Every step a painful duty, he paced towards the children, who were still standing silently by the sofa.

      Halfway there, it suddenly occurred to him that he should approach more slowly and put a smile on his face. A man as large as he was probably would look frightening, wearing the frown that usually furrowed his brow.

      As disturbed as he was about this unwanted burden, the two little girls must be even more upset. Tired and hungry, probably still grieving for their Papa, feeling lost and possibly terrified at having been plucked from everything that was familiar, ferried across an ocean and deposited like an unwanted parcel on the doorstep of someone they’d never met.

      He knew a little something about feeling tired, lost and grieving.

      Halting before them, he knelt, bringing his face almost down to the level of theirs. Despite his attempt to make his movements as unthreatening as possible, the younger girl shrank back against her sister.

      ‘Elizabeth and Sophie, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Your papa used to come here and play with me when we were boys. I know it must look very different from home, but I hope to make you comfortable here.’

       Until I can make alternative arrangements—the sooner, the better.

      Adding another curse on the head of the still-absent housekeeper, he continued, ‘Shall we go to the kitchen and get you something to eat? Then Mrs Wallace, my housekeeper, will take you up to the nursery and get you settled. It hasn’t been used since my brother and I were boys, so you will have to help her make it presentable again.’

      For a moment, the two simply stared at him—two pairs of large, bright blue eyes in frightened faces. Then the elder said, ‘You don’t want us either, do you?’

      In a flash, he remembered how honest children were, spitting out exactly what they thought with no subterfuge. Accurate as that statement was, he didn’t mean to make the situation worse by confirming it.

      ‘Well, it wasn’t—ideal, sending you here unannounced, with no time for us to prepare for you, was it? But we shall all muddle through.’

      ‘She didn’t want us either. Madame Julienne, Papa’s new wife. She was nice to us before baby Richard came. But after...’

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