The Duke And His Four Wards

Chapter 3.1 (Part 1)

   "No!" Felix shook his head stubbornly, a frown if quite dramatic proportions darkening his handsome face.

   Lady Hillsborough sighed mightily and frowned back. On recovering her wits, she had sternly repressed her mirth and sent the three younger Flemings into the courtyard. But after ten minutes of carefully reasoned argument, Felix remained adamant. However, she was quite determined her scapegrace nephew would not succeed in dodging he responsibilities. Aside from anything else, the situation seemed set to afford her hours of entertainment and, at her age, such opportunities could not be lightly passed by. Her lips compressed into a thin line and a martial light appeared in her blue eyes.

   Felix, recognizing the signs, got in first. "It's impossible! Just think of the talk!"

   Amelia's eyes widened to their fullest extent. "Why should you care?" she asked. "Your career to date would hardly lead one to suppose you fought shy of scandal." She fixed Felix with a penetrating stare. "Besides, while there'll no doubt be talk, none of it will harm anyone. Quite the opposite. It'll get there girls into the limelight!"

   The black frown on Felix's face did not lighten.

   Margaret widely refrained from interfering between the two principal protagonists, but sat beside Amelia, looking as innocent as she could. Felix's gaze swept over her and stopped on her face. His eyes narrowed. Margaret calmly returned his scrutiny.

   There was little doubt in Felix's mind that Margaret Fleming has deliberately concealed from him the truth about her sisters until he had gone too far in establishing himself as their guardian to pull back. He felt sure some retribution was owing to one who had so manipulated him but, staring into her large grey-green eyed, was unable to decide which of the numerous and varied punishments his fertile imagination supplied would be the most suitable. Instead, he said, in the tones of one goaded beyond endurance, "'Commonly held to be well to pass,' indeed!"

   Margaret smiled.

   Amelia intervenes. "Whatever you're thinking of, Felix, it won't do! You're the girls' guardian—you told me yourself. You cannot simply wash your hands of them. I can see it'll be a trifle awkward for you," her eyes glazed as she thought if Lady Portland, "but if you don't concern yourself with them, who will?"

   Despite his violent response to his first sight of all four Fleming sisters, perfectly understandable in the circumstances, Felix had not seriously considered giving up his guardianship of them. His behaviour over the past ten minutes had been more in the nature of an emotional rearguard action in an attempt, which his rational brain acknowledged as futile, to resist the tide of change he could see rising up to swamp his hitherto well-ordered existence. He fired his last show. "Do you seriously imagine that someone with my reputation will be considered a suitable guardian for four...?" He paused, his eyes on Margaret, any number of highly apt descriptions revolving in his head. "Excessively attractive virgins?" he concluded savagely.

   Margaret's eyes widened and her dimple appeared.

   "On the contrary!" Amelia answered. "Who better than you to act as their guardian? Odds are you know every ploy ever invented and a few more besides. And if you can't keep the wolves at bay, then no one can. I really don't know why you're creating all this fuss."

   Felix did not either. After a moment of silence, he turned abruptly and crossed to the windows giving in to the courtyard. He had known from the outset that this was one battle he was destined to lose. Yet some part of his mind kept suggesting to panic-stricken accents that there must be some other way. He watched as the three young girls—his wards, heaven forbid!—examined the fountain, prodding and poking in an effort to find the lever to turn it on. They were a breathtaking sight, the varied hues of their shining hair vying with the flowers, their husky laughter and the unconsciously seductive way their supple figures swayed this way and that causing him to groan inwardly. Up to the point when he had first sighted them, the three younger Flemings had figured in his plans as largely irrelevant entities, easily swept into the background for their elder sister. One glimpse had been betting scuttle that scenario. He was trapped—a guardian in very truth. And with what the Fleming girls had to offer he would have no choice but to play the role to the hilt. Every man in London with eyes would be after them!