“We don’t have luncheon,” Cat said. “We have dinner at one o’clock.”
Bertie winked at her. “Well you enjoy your fancy dinner then, and I’ll nip home.”
Andrew’s voice went up in volume. “You shouldn’t leave us alone.”
Bertie looked at him in surprise. “You’re not alone. Goodness, you’ve got oceans of people living under this roof, haven’t you? There’s Macaulay and Mrs. Hill, Charlotte the downstairs maid, the lad Peter, a cook and the other maid who comes up here for you . . . what’s her name?”
“Aoife,” Andrew said. “She’s Irish. Mrs. Hill says we have to call her Jane, because Aoife is outlandish, but that’s her name, so it’s what I say.”
From the good-humored twinkle she’d seen in Aoife’s eye, Bertie thought she must appreciate Andrew’s candor.
“And there’s Richards, the coachman,” Cat said. “We don’t see him much, because he stays in the mews, with the groom and the gardener.”
“See?” Bertie said. “All sorts of people. You don’t really need me all the time, do you?”
“Yes, we do!” Andrew declared at the top of his voice.
“The others say we’re unruly and a handful,” Cat said without inflection. “That we’re holy terrors, and no one can do anything with us.”
“I’m a holy terror!” Andrew shouted. “That’s what Richards said when I let out the horses to run free. But it was Cat that opened the door.”
Cat took the time to press a kiss to her doll’s head, but Bertie saw the flush on her cheek.
Bertie rested her elbows on the table. “Did Richards take the back of his hand to ya?”
Andrew stopped shouting and stared, round-eyed. Cat lifted her head. “No,” she said, sounding surprised Bertie would ask.
“Dad would have torn his head off,” Andrew said. “The governess we had that week sent us to bed without supper, and Dad sacked her.”
“Good on your dad.” Even Bertie’s father had never made her go hungry as punishment, knowing what it was like to be hungry in truth. Her grandfather, dead before Bertie was born, had spent all his money on drink while his wife and son starved. “Even so, sounds like your dad spoils you a bit.”
“He gives us anything we want,” Andrew said, his voice getting louder again. “Anything, anytime we ask.”
“But he’s never home,” Cat said quietly.
Bertie thought about how late Mr. McBride had come in last night and how early he’d rushed off again this morning. “My dad stays out all the time too,” she said. “But I’ll nip home and make sure he’s fixed, and be right back here before you know it.”
Cat looked down at her doll again. “You won’t come back.”
The words were quiet, nearly drowned by Andrew bouncing in his chair and yelling again that he wanted to go with her.
Bertie leaned down to Cat until she could look her in the eye. “Now, Miss Caitriona, you put that idea right out of your head. Of course I’ll come back.”
“If you go, we’ll climb out the window and come after you,” Andrew said.
Bertie grew alarmed, realizing Andrew might do just that. “No, you won’t,” she said firmly. “I want to come back here and live with you a spell. Now, we just have to convince Aoife or Macaulay that you’ll be fine with them while I’m gone.”
“Aoife says naughty children in Ireland get dropped down a well,” Andrew said. “But she laughed when she said it, so I don’t believe her. And Macaulay gets so mad. Mrs. Hill doesn’t—she goes all cold and stares at me until I think a ghost has grabbed me. Except she sneaked us cakes when Miss Evans was here.”
Bertie’s respect for Mrs. Hill grew. But it sounded as though the rest of the household had grown wise to the children’s ways and wouldn’t be welcoming a chance to watch over them.
“We could stay with Aunt Eleanor,” Cat said.
Andrew jumped up on his chair, even more animated than before. “Aunt Eleanor! Say we can, Bertie. Say, say.”
Bertie regarded them warily. “Who is Aunt Eleanor?”
“She lives in Grosvenor Square,” Cat said. “She’s a duchess. She’s married to the brother of Aunt Ainsley’s husband.”
Bertie didn’t bother to follow the line of relationship—families in the East End could be extensive and convoluted. As long as you said someone was “our Mary” or “our John,” outsiders didn’t waste time figuring out exactly who was related to whom. “She a real duchess?” Bertie asked, her interest piqued.
“Uncle Hart is a duke,” Andrew said. “The Duke of Kilmorgan. A Scots duke.”
“An English duke too,” Cat corrected him. “Fourteenth duke of Kilmorgan in the Scottish line, second in the English.”
Bertie had no idea what any of this meant, but her interest grew. “I think I’d like to meet a real duchess,” she said. “I say we try that.”
The real duchess lived in a mansion not far from Mr. McBride’s house. Mrs. Hill, who’d thought taking the children to this duchess a good idea, offered to have Richards bring the coach around, but Bertie saw no reason not to walk. The December day was crisp but bright without many clouds, and the house was only a block or two away.
When Andrew pointed out the house in Grosvenor Square, however, Bertie thought it might have been wiser to roll up in some style. The place was much bigger than Mr. McBride’s house, taller and twice as wide. Its grand door was positioned between two columns, and arched windows rose up the walls to a dormer roof far above.