Page 43 of Too Scot to Handle
They were boys—children—and capable of thinking more clearly than many grown men.
“How did you know how much cash was coming in each month?” Colin asked.
“Hitchings labels the packet when he puts it in there,” John said. “We can show you.”
“Be quick about it,” Anwen said.
Dickie brushed his knuckles over his sleeve, grinned at his fellows, and put his fingers on the lock. In less than a minute, the tumblers clicked and the box was open.
Tom was deep into an explanation of how much longer the available money would last when Joe grabbed Colin’s sleeve and pointed toward the door.
“Hitchings,” John whispered, putting the contents back into the box in the same configuration they’d occupied earlier.
Dickie slapped the lock into place just as footsteps sounded outside the door.
Anwen went to the door, while Joe and Tom silently repositioned the strongbox on the chairman’s desk across the room.
“Oh! Mr. Hitchings,” Anwen said, opening the door a few inches in response to Hitchings’s sharp rap. “You startled me. I beg your pardon. I don’t suppose you’ve come across my parasol? I’m almost certain I brought a parasol with me, but I don’t recall having it at the meeting. I grow scatterbrained when I’m peckish. Does that happen to you?”
She effectively blocked Hitchings’s view of the office for the few instants necessary for the boys to arrange themselves around Colin, peering over his shoulder at the budgets Hitchings had prepared.
“Um, er, yes,” Hitchings said. “I do tend to get a bit foggy when I’m hungry. I came to retrieve my—what are you lot doing here?”
Colin could feel the tension in the children, could feel them wondering how much of their behavior would be disclosed and with what consequences.
“Hitchings,” Colin said, shuffling the papers. “You write a very thorough budgetary report. The boys are developing a fine grasp of our financial posture as a result. You have my thanks.”
“But they’re supposed to be…Oh, never mind. I’m late for class. Miss Anwen, good day. Boys, I’ll expect to see you at dinner.”
“Yes, Mr. Hitchings.”
He withdrew, his footsteps faded, and a beat of silence went by, then Colin heard a snicker at his elbow. A chortle started at his right shoulder, a guffaw on his left. Anwen began laughing, and Joe—silent, stuttering Joe—joined in, until Colin was surrounded by merriment.
* * *
“I think his lordship was scared,” Dickie said, grasping a handful of greenery and yanking. “Ouch—blast it!”
“If it has thorns,” John observed, “it’s probably a rose or a raspberry. Something that belongs in a garden—not like us. Best leave it.”
“Never tasted a raspberry.” Tom sat back on his heels. “Lord Colin wasn’t scared of Miss Anwen. I think he was impressed.”
Every male in the room at yesterday’s odd gathering in the chairman’s office had been impressed. Miss Anwen had torn a strip off his lordship, when his lordship had been busily tearing strips off all four boys.
A fine sight, that. A fancy gent agog at the little miss, unable to argue with her because she was right, not only because she was a lady.
“I’m impressed,” John said, jabbing at a tangled mess of lily roots. MacDeever said they were lily roots, but Tom hadn’t been on the property long enough to know what might bloom along this wall.
They’d been at the books all morning, but after their luncheon, they were cast upon MacDeever’s mercy. He’d consulted a list Lord Colin had made, and declared the boys were to establish order in the garden.
Not in a day they wouldn’t. Not in a week, though when did a week pass in London without rain? Possibly not in a month.
“What do you suppose this is?” Dickie asked, holding up a sprig of greenery. “Smells good, and it’s tough.”
“Like Miss Anwen,” John said.
Dickie threw the plant at his brother, sending a shower of dirt from the roots. “If it weren’t for her, we might be at the Old Bailey instead of poking about in this dirt. Show some bloody respect.”
The four of them were poking about in the dirt, outside, beneath the sun, free from Hitchings’s lectures and glowers. The day was beautiful, and Tom was pleased as bloody hell to not be sitting on his arse in the detention room.
