Hyacinth winced as John pulled Alice’s hair, then swallowed uncomfortably as Alice slugged John in the stomach. “The situation is growing desperate,” she whispered to Sophie.
“Blind man’s bluff!” Sophie suddenly exclaimed. “What do you think, everyone? How about a game of blind man’s bluff?”
Alice and John nodded enthusiastically, and Elizabeth gave a reluctant, “All right,” after carefully considering the issue.
“What do you say, Nicholas?” Sophie asked, addressing the last remaining holdout.
“It could be fun,” he said slowly, terrifying Sophie with the devilish gleam in his eye.
“Excellent,” she said, trying to keep the wariness out of her voice.
“But you must be the blind man,” he added.
Sophie opened her mouth to protest, but at that moment, the other three children started jumping up and down and squealing with delight. Then her fate was sealed when Hyacinth turned to her with a sly smile and said, “Oh, you must.”
Sophie knew that protest was useless, so she let out a long-suffering sigh—exaggerated, just to delight the children—and turned around so that Hyacinth could fasten a scarf over her eyes.
“Can you see?” Nicholas demanded.
“No,” Sophie lied.
He turned to Hyacinth with a grimace. “She can see.”
How could he tell?
“Add a second scarf,” he said. “This one is too sheer.”
‘The indignity,” Sophie muttered, but nonetheless, she leaned down slightly so that Hyacinth could tie another scarf over her eyes.
“She’s blind now!” John hooted.
Sophie gave them all a sickly-sweet smile.
“All right now,” Nicholas said, clearly in charge. “You wait ten seconds so that we can take our places.”
Sophie nodded, then tried not to wince as she heard the sounds of a mad scramble around the room. “Try not to break anything!” she yelled, as if that would make any difference to an overexcited six-year-old.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
No response. That meant yes.
“Blind Man!” she called out.
“Bluff!” came five voices in unison.
Sophie frowned in concentration. One of the girls was definitely behind the sofa. She took a few baby steps to the right.
“Blind Man!”
“Bluff!” Followed, of course, by a few titters and chuckles.
“Blind M—OW!”
More hoots and squeals of laughter. Sophie grunted as she rubbed her bruised shin.
“Blind Man!” she called, with considerably less enthusiasm.
“Bluff!”
“Bluff!”
“BLUFF!”
“BLUFF!”
“BLUFF!”
“You are all mine, Alice,” she muttered under her breath, deciding to go for the smallest and presumably weakest of the bunch. “All mine.”
* * *
Benedict had nearly made a clean escape. After his mother had left the sitting room, he’d downed a much-needed glass of brandy and headed out toward the door, only to be caught by Eloise, who informed him that he absolutely couldn’t leave yet, that Mother was trying very hard to assemble all of her children in one place because Daphne had an important announcement to make.
“With child again?” Benedict asked.
“Act surprised. You weren’t supposed to know.”
“I’m not going to act anything. I’m leaving.”
She made a desperate leap forward and somehow managed to grab his sleeve. “You can’t.”
Benedict let out a long breath and tried to pry her fingers off of his arm, but she had his shirt in a death grip. “I am going to pick up one foot,” he said in slow, tedious tones, “and step forward. Then I will pick up the next foot—”
“You promised Hyacinth you would help her with her arithmetic,” Eloise blurted out. “She hasn’t seen hide nor hair of you in two weeks.”
“It’s not as if she has a school to flunk out of,” Benedict muttered.
“Benedict, that is a terrible thing to say!” Eloise exclaimed.
“I know,” he groaned, hoping to stave off a lecture.
“Just because we of the female gender are not allowed to study at places like Eton and Cambridge doesn’t mean our educations are any less precious,” Eloise ranted, completely ignoring her brother’s weak “I know.”
“Furthermore—” she carried on.
Benedict sagged against the wall.
“—I am of the opinion that the reason we are not allowed access is that if we were, we would trounce you men in all subjects!”
“I’m sure you’re right,” he sighed.
“Don’t patronize me.”
“Believe me, Eloise, the last thing I would dream of doing is patronizing you.”
She eyed him suspiciously before crossing her arms and saying, “Well, don’t disappoint Hyacinth.”
“I won’t,” he said wearily.
“I believe she’s in the nursery.”
Benedict gave her a distracted nod, turning toward the stairs.
But as he trudged on up, he didn’t see Eloise turn toward his mother, who was peeking out of the music room, and give her a big wink and a smile.
* * *
The nursery was located on the second floor. Benedict didn’t often come up that high; most of his siblings’ bedrooms were on the first floor. Only Gregory and Hyacinth still lived adjacent to the nursery, and with Gregory off at Eton most of the year and Hyacinth usually terrorizing someone in some other section of the house, Benedict simply didn’t have much reason to visit.