Derek chuckled at his uncle’s sour expression. “Heard a rumor Uncle James was out for your hide. What’s set him off this time?”

“If I knew, then I’d know how to defuse him, but I’m deuced if I know. Ain’t seen James for a good week, not since I dropped off Jack after the outing I took the girls on.”

“Well, James would have let me know if he wasn’t coming,” Jason pointed out. “So when he gets here, kindly take any altercations outside. Molly seriously objects to blood staining the carpets.”

No one would think it strange that he called Haverston’s housekeeper by her first name. After all, Molly Fletcher had held that position for more than twenty years. That she was also Jason’s very longtime mistress—and Derek’s mother—was not something that everyone in the family was aware of, however. In fact, only a couple of members had ever learned or guessed the truth. Jason had only told Derek, his son, about this time six years ago.

And around that Christmas, Jason, who deplored all scandals attached to the family, was willing to create one in giving his wife, Frances, the divorce she wanted, just to keep her from revealing what she knew about Molly.

But since then, Molly had remained the housekeeper. Jason had tried, ever since Derek found out the truth, to get her to marry him, but she was still refusing.

Molly didn’t come from gentry. She had in fact been just a parlor maid when she and Jason fell in love more’n thirty years ago. And although he was willing to make one of the worst scandals possible, that of an esteemed lord marrying a commoner, she wasn’t willing to let him.

Jason sighed, thinking of it. He had been forced to come to the conclusion that she would never give him the answer he so wanted to hear. Which didn’t mean he was giving up, not by any means.

He was drawn back to the conversation when Amy said, “There is a little idiosyncrasy our twins have developed. Strangest behavior. When Stuart wants Warren’s attention, I might as well be a stranger to him, he ignores me so thoroughly, and vise versa, when he wants my attention, Warren can’t do a thing with him. And Glory does the same thing exactly.”

“Least they do it at the same time,” Warren, who had finally arrived, added as he reached for Stuart and handed Gloriana to Amy.

“I’ve been meaning to ask Uncle James and Aunt George if they’re having the same problem with theirs,” Amy said with a sigh.

“Has he gotten used to them yet?” Jason asked Anthony, since Anthony, being closest to James, saw him the most often, and Jason didn’t get to London often.

“Course he has,” Anthony assured the family.

Yet they all still remembered his reaction when Amy had borne twins and he’d asked his wife Georgina, who was Warren’s sister, where they came from. “Good God, George, you could have warned me that twins run in your family every other generation. We are not having any, d’you hear!”