“We ‘ad a dream that scared us,” Anne told him, speaking on behalf of her sister as she sometimes did.
The girls were often a we rather than an I.
“Mrs. Bunton were asleep,” Elizabeth added. “We couldn’t wake ‘er, so we found you.”
Could not wake her? Christ, was the woman gone to Rothisbone?
He tamped down the remnants of panic lurking in his chest and studied his children through the murk. “Was she breathing?”
“Snoring,” Anne confirmed.
Not dead, then.
He nodded, grateful he had not gone to sleep in the nude, as he oft did, but in a shirt instead. Jasper rose from the bed to light a brace of candles. After slipping on a banyan for modesty, something he did not ordinarily possess much of, he turned back to his daughters. They were watching him with wide, hazel eyes. In the low light, the similarity of their features rendered them almost impossible to tell apart. Little wonder almost everyone confused them.
“What dream plagued you?” he asked them, wondering if he ought to offer some sort of comfort.
But what sort?
He was unfamiliar with this new role he played, being a father. As the eldest and leader of his siblings, and in the absence of their parents, he had never been terribly adept at consoling his sisters. Caro was the healer of their motley lot.
But she was married now, and gone from The Sinner’s Palace.
“The dog with big teeth was chasing us,” Elizabeth elaborated.
“He bit me,” Anne added.
“You mean to say the two of you had the same dream, at the same time?” Suspicion stirred.
“Yes,” Elizabeth answered.
“No,” Anne said simultaneously.
He studied his daughters with great care, sensing there was more to their sudden appearance in his chamber and their unlikely story. “Are you fibbing, girls?”
They shared a guilty look.
And his suspicions were confirmed. He returned to the bed, where his daughters were snuggled together atop the coverlet in their night dresses, their long, dark hair running unruly down their backs. Jasper settled his arse on the edge of the mattress.
“Anne. Elizabeth.” He gave them his sternest stare.
The one he ordinarily reserved for his enemies. At least, he hoped it was. Attempting to be harsh with his daughters was damned difficult, even if he knew they were lying. They were just so cursed sweet-faced.
And there was a strange tightening in his chest—square in the vicinity of his black heart—every time he saw them.
“We wouldn’t fib,” Anne said.
“Not to you, Papa,” Elizabeth concurred.
More lies.
“Did you know that papas can always tell when their daughters are gammoning
them?” he asked, deciding upon a prevarication of his own.
Their eyes widened.
“Indeed, they can,” he continued. “And that is why I know the both of you are being dishonest with me. Tell me why you are here.”