“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.
“Theo! Miss Henderson!” they chorused.
Alex set the cup of fruits and nuts inside the large birdcage and closed the door, and the boys approached them.
“We’ve already fed the boa,” Alex said apologetically. “I’m sorry. If we had known you would come up here, we would have waited.”
“That’s all right,” Megan replied candidly. While she had grown up with boys and their variety of pets, watching a snake swallow several live mice did not appeal to her. “But you could introduce me to your other animals, if you like.”
“But first,” Theo put in, “I’ve brought Miss Henderson up here to tell you that she is going to be your new tutor.”
The two boys stared at her in surprise, but she was pleased to see that their surprise was quickly replaced by excitement.
“Wizard!” Alex exclaimed.
“You’ll be ever so much better a tutor!” Con added. “You’re not at all stuffy.”
“They usually are,” Alex explained.
“Well, I shall try my best not to be,” Megan assured them. “Now, why don’t we look at your animals! That’s a beautiful parrot.”
She pointed to the vivid red-and-blue bird sitting on its perch of a dead branch inside its large cage. It was busily cracking nuts with its powerful beak, but it paused to turn its head and regard her with one bright eye.
Dropping the nut in its beak, the parrot let out a loud squawk. “Hello!”
“Hello,” Megan answered, going over to him.
“Wellie. Treat. Wellie. Treat.” The bird began to shift from one claw to the other on its perch, turning its head this way and that to watch Megan.
“What’s his name?” she asked.
“Wellington. Everyone calls him Wellie,” Con answered, coming up beside her.
“Don’t put your finger through the bars,” Alex warned, joining them. “Wellington sometimes takes a nip at one.”
Behind them, Theo let out a snort. “Sometimes? Without fail is more like it.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a beautiful bird,” Megan said. “Where is it from?”
“The Solomon Islands,” Theo answered, coming up behind her. “I sent him to the boys, a fact for which much of my family never stops blaming me.”
“It’s not Wellington’s fault he gets out sometimes,” Con protested. “He only does what’s natural to him.”
“That’s true. A strong argument for leaving him in the jungle,” Theo responded. “There he can fly about all he pleases. I don’t really believe in taking animals from their habitat, but sometimes I find it hard to resist—particularly in this case, where I found him already caged in a market.”
“We’re awfully glad you did,” Con told him. “And Hercules, as well.”
“Hercules?” Megan asked, raising her brows.
“The boa,” Con replied, nodding his head toward the thick snake curled sleeping in another large cage.
“Come, see the others. Here are the turtle and frog.”
Megan let herself be led from cage to terrarium to cage to aquarium, admiring a variety of fish, fowl and reptiles, and even a rabbit and a fuzzy creature that the twins informed her was a guinea pig.
“You must be very responsible,” Megan told the boys.
They looked at her, slightly surprised. It was obviously not an appellation that they were accustomed to having attributed to them.
“Taking care of all these animals,” she explained.
“Oh.” The boys glanced at one another, and Alex said with a smile, “Yes, I suppose we are, actually.”
“Did you hear that, Theo?” Con asked, turning to his older brother.
“I certainly did.” Theo smiled at Megan. “I think Mother may have found the perfect tutor for you boys this time.”
Megan felt warmed all through by Theo’s smile. She could feel a blush rising up in her cheeks, and she looked away from him quickly.
It was crazy that she should react to him this way, she thought. Bizarre. She needed to get away and think this thing through by herself. Everything was different from what she had expected. She had not really thought of what she expected the Duke of Broughton’s family to be, but certainly it was not what she had seen of them. Theo’s sister, the twins, the duchess were warm and friendly, people who, if she had met them in any other circumstances, she would have liked immediately.
Even in these circumstances, she liked them, Megan had to admit. Of course, they were not responsible for what Theo had done. It was not beyond the realm of reason that they should be bright or concerned or humorous. Any family could turn out one bad specimen. Theo was not necessarily like his family.