Charlotte Louise Dolan by Three Lords for Lady Anne Page B

to drink some of it. Then, wiping the tears from his eyes, he said in a calmer voice, “He wrote a sonnet to her right ear and an ode to her left eyebrow, and he sleeps every night with a rose from her nosegay tucked under his pillow. She is sorry to break my heart, but he threatened to throw himself from London Bridge if she went through with our wedding. Oh, I am undone.” Laying his hand dramatically on his forehead, Demetrius fell backward into a leather-covered chair.
    “The gods sometimes take pity on fools,” murmured Bronson. “But might I suggest we depart this house, ere your un-in-laws decide that it is your responsibility to follow hotfoot after the eloping pair and rescue Diana?”
    “Ecod, you may be right. By morning it will be too late to do anything but send an announcement to the Gazette ,after which I plan to flee like the craven coward I am back to Devon. But for tonight, may I take refuge with you?”
    “Of course, dunderhead, need you ask? Although the accommodations are not as grand as here, most of the rooms being in Holland covers, the company is unexceptional and not prone to having the vapors.”
    “On a night like this I would be happy to sleep on a dirt floor under a sod roof. But now that I think on it, I feel not the least bit sleepy. In fact, I am quite rejuvenated. I am for celebrating my last-minute reprieve. Are you with me?”
    “Till the cock crows.”
    * * * *
    One of the twins is left-handed, Anne realized with dawning satisfaction. The three of them were seated cross-legged on the ground inside a rough circle of stones, busily occupied with making snares to catch rabbits. Both twins were engrossed in their efforts, and their movements were amazingly identical, except reversed. It was like seeing one boy sitting beside a mirror.
    “Anne?” the right-handed twin asked without looking up from his work. “You never told us who rescued your Aunt Sidonia from the Indians.”
    “Oh, she rescued herself. She managed to steal a tomahawk and killed her captor. Then she walked over two hundred miles through the forest, crossing innumerable streams, eating berries and trapping small animals for food, until she finally arrived at the village where Skanadajiwah’s tribe lived. By that time it was too late in the fall for her to continue on to the nearest English settlement, so she remained with them until spring.”
    “But that is impossible. You are making that up,” the left-handed twin said with assurance.
    “Oh? Pray tell me why I must be making it up.”
    His brother looked up from his knotting and explained. “Women can’t do things like that.”
    “And how did you arrive at that conclusion?”
    “Well,” he hesitated, then turned to his twin. “You explain, Drew.”
    Aha, Anne thought. The left-handed one is Andrew, Lord Wylington, which means the right-handed one is his brother, Lord Anthony. Now I just have to learn which one is which when they are not doing anything with their hands.
    “There’s nothing to explain,” said Andrew. “Everyone knows it is a fact.”
    “Before Columbus discovered the New World, everyone ‘knew’ the world was flat. It was a fact.”
    “I have the feeling we are about to have another lesson. You argue with her this time, Tony.”
    “Coward,” his brother hissed at him before laying down his snare and looking directly at Anne. “Very well, I shall explain. Women cannot do things like rescuing themselves from Indians because they are weaker than men.”
    “I am a woman. Does that make me weaker than men?”
    “But you are an exception. Most women are not as strong as men.”
    “So, you think, for example, that the Reverend Goodman Thirsk, since he is a man, is stronger than, oh, let us say Kate, the washerwoman?”
    “You are talking your way into a corner, Tony,” Andrew whispered with great glee.
    “But I can talk my way out again. Pay attention, and you will learn something.” He took a deep breath, then faced Anne