Her sigh was loud enough to hear across the room. “Maudlin, no. Finally realizing that putting this off isn’t going to make it go away, yes, their story did help me to see that the unavoidable can’t be avoided. So you may as well know, there’s nothing to forgive you for, James.”

“Well, I always knew that, but what the devil d’you mean by nothing?”

She lowered her gaze and mumbled something that he couldn’t make out. This had him crossing the room to stand in front of her. He lifted her chin. Her large brown eyes were inscrutable. She’d learned how to do that from him.

“Let’s try this again, shall we?” he said. “Now, what d’you mean, there’s nothing to forgive me for?”

“I was never angry with you. The way I’ve been behaving had nothing to do with you—well, it did, but not for the reason I let you think. I was already upset about something else when Jack said what she did. I used that as an excuse, because I wasn’t ready to fess up to the other. I didn’t want to upset you.”

“I hope you know, George, that you haven’t made one bloody bit of sense. Didn’t want to upset me? Do I look like I haven’t been upset?”

His frown answered that question quite satisfactorily. She actually smiled.

“Let me rephrase that,” she suggested. “I didn’t want to upset you with what was really bothering me, which was not wanting to upset you at all.”

He made a sound of frustration at that point. “I know it’s American reasoning that makes what you say sound like gibberish to the English mind, but do try—”

“Rubbish,” she cut in with a snort. “I’m just still hedging, is all.”

“Good of you to own up to that, m’dear. Now own up to why.”

“I was getting to that,” she continued to hedge.

“Notice I’m patiently waiting.”

“You’re never patient.”

“I’m always patient, and you’re still hedging,” he all but growled. “George, I’m warning you, I’m bloody well at the end of my patience.”

“See?”

He gave her a scowl worthy of decimating an ordinary opponent. She was unaffected, well aware she had nothing to worry about from his scowls. But she was pushing it. Finally she sighed again.

“I know you love the twins,” she said. “You can’t help but love them, they’re such darlings. But I also know you were horrified at the thought of having them, when Amy and Warren produced twins, and him being my brother, you realized we might have some, too.”

“Not horrified,” he corrected. “Just bloody well surprised that they run in your family, when your family didn’t have any to show for it.”

“Horrified,” she reiterated stubbornly.