“Don’t act surprised; you knew of it.”

“Of course I knew of it.” A slow curve touched Desford’s mouth. “Selena put the ink on there this morning.”

Anthony looked at the little girl. She stared back with wide eyes, still sucking on her finger. “You must be joking.”

The boy gave his sister a look. “Tell them, Selena. Tell them it was you.”

She removed her finger from her mouth and lisped dutifully, “It was me.” She beamed at everyone while Anthony glared at Desford.

The boy’s expression shimmered with triumph. “Do you want anything else? We were getting ready to play cricket.”

Anthony stood staring down at the boy and the tiny girl, his hands curling and uncurling. He couldn’t very well visit punishment on a four-year-old child who looked uncomfortably like a cherub, and Desford knew it. This new strategy was brilliant, and Anthony wondered wearily how many more confessions he was to hear from Selena over the course of the next few months.

Frustrated, he snapped at Desford, “You and I both know that Selena did not think of this little trick by herself.”

“Yes, I did,” Selena said, suddenly indignant. “All by myself.”

Anthony grit his teeth, aware of Sara’s interested gaze. “We will discuss this later. Return to the nursery.”

Desford shrugged, then bent and picked up his sister, who glared at Anthony over her brother’s shoulder. Jenkins quietly followed the two and closed the door.

Sara turned to Anthony, her eyes dark with understanding. “Oh dear!”

Anthony rubbed his eyes wearily. It was always like this. The children would do something wrong and he would be forced to become a yelling boor in an effort to control them. At first it had worked and they had capitulated before the force of his anger, but they had swiftly banded together until he was outnumbered. Now they not only didn’t care when he was angry, they worked hard to keep him in that state.

Anthony was not used to feeling like a tyrant, especially in his own house. He rubbed a hand over his face. Bloody hell, but what had happened to his well-ordered plans?

“There is only one answer,” Sara said into the silence.

Anthony didn’t open his eyes. He already knew what she was going to say.

She said it anyway. “Anna Thraxton.”

“No.”

“But Anthony, she is the only one who could—”

“You are exaggerating. She’s only been a governess for a year or so. Surely there are better trained—”

“Anna only takes the most difficult positions; I daresay because she can charge higher fees. And she is always successful. She even tamed Lord Radcliffe’s twins and you remember what horrors they were.”

That gave Anthony pause. He’d once had the misfortune of being trapped in a conversation with Radcliffe while the man was taking his sons for a walk. Though Anthony had excused himself with all possible speed, the meeting had confirmed his beliefs that children were best left in the nursery until they were of a more advanced age…like twenty. “She transformed both of Radcliffe’s brats into better-behaved children?”