The Double Wager Read Online Free PDF Page A

explained.
    “A dog,” she said, clapping her hands with delicate pleasure. “Little Timothy will be so pleased.” Then her face paled as what looked like a ragged pony padded out onto the driveway and proceeded to shake himself awake. All five members of the Roedean group tensed for a moment and emitted a collective sigh of relief when it became obvious that Brutus had not taken a fancy to Marian, or to Peter, who was hovering in the background asking Giles for details of their journey.
    “Bottoms up!” a piercing voice ordered from the depths of the carriage. Marian looked as if she would have swooned if she could have trusted her husband to break her fall.
    “Pen, get that infernal blanket over the cage,” Philip scolded.
    “I did!” she protested loudly. “You must have pulled it off when you went in for Brutus, you clumsy ox!”
    “Enough, children,” Peter said with chilling command. “If that is the parrot you mentioned in your last letter, you had better teach it manners, or out it goes.”
    “But, Peter,” they both chorused in protest.
    “Enough! Miss Manford, the footman will show you and the children to your rooms. Might I suggest an hour’s rest and then supper in the schoolroom?”
    “Oh, so kind, Sir Peter, Lady Tallant. Just what we need. So very thoughtful of you. Oh, please, we will be fine. Come along, Philip. Penelope? Oh, and Brutus. And Oscar? Are they to be allowed upstairs, too? So considerate. The children will be so grateful. Say thank you, Penelope. What’s that, my dearest boy? Oh, it is still big enough to cover the cage. Thank you, Sir Peter. So kind.” Miss Manford, flushed and embarrassed, fluttered her way out of sight and hearing.
    “Darling Henrietta,” Marian gushed, turning her attention to her sister-in-law, “how—how well you look, my dear. I have been so looking forward to having you here. Since little Timothy was born, you know, I have hardly been out in society. But I have a veritable host of activities lined up for you. I am determined to make you all the rage, you know, though I see that we shall have to get busy to make you acceptable.”
    Henry glowered but said nothing. She hated to lose a bet, and if winning the one against Douglas Raeburn meant having to be made over into a different person—a simpering miss, no less—then a simpering miss she would become. She smiled grimly as she removed her bonnet and shook out her short curls.
    Marian reached for a bell rope in the salon to which she had led Henry. “I shall have Mrs. Lane show you to your room, Henrietta,” she said. “You must rest for a while. I shall instruct the cook to set back dinner an hour.”
    “I would much sooner eat as soon as it is ready,” Henry declared candidly, forgetting in the instant her resolve to become a simpering miss. “I‘m starved. I could eat a horse.”
    Marian’s smile was strained. “Of course, dear. How thoughtless of me. Traveling does tend to invite an appetite, does it not?”
    Mrs. Lane entered the room at that moment, to Marian’s almost visible relief, and took Henry to a large, comfortable room and, blessedly, a bathtub full of warm suds.
    Marian meanwhile had collapsed gracefully onto a sofa after sending a footman for a tray of tea; she glanced despairingly at her husband, who stood with his back to the empty fireplace, hands clasped behind his back, a grim expression on his face.
    “My dear Peter, what are we to do?” she wailed. “They are all so . . . rustic.”
    “They are Tallants,” Peter answered stiffly, “and as I am head of the family, they are my responsibility.”
    “Oh, yes, of course, my love,” Marian added hastily. “It is just such a shame that no one has taken them in hand until now. The twins are quite wild. I really do not feel they should be encouraged to speak until they are spoken to. It appears that their governess has no control whatever over them. And that dog and that bird, Peter! Really, they cannot be allowed