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"What a stick-in-the-hed She put her ar on the floor, don’t we?"

Tobias edged away He wasn’t old enough, or young enough, to want to be hugged But it was pleasant to see how char she ith him Obviously, Lisette was completely unaffected by the circu hiht to her daily life

She was laughing now, and clapping at the way Tobias was catching knucklebones on the back of his hand

After five or six ame and so was Anne, who in fact had taken herself out She had lit a cigarillo and was leaning against one of Villiers’s chair legs and blowing s," Lisette said, looking up at him with a pretty pout

"Villiers," Eleanor said, without even bothering to glance at hi else"

She really would turn into her mother if she didn’t watch out Still, he helped Lisette to her feet, noticing that she was as lithe as she appeared "You have a vast array of musical instruhtened immediately "I’ve learned to play all of them; I adore music!"

His own mother had loveda harpsichord in the drawing roo for a old delicacy would offset his dark, brutish looks

Not that Tobias looked terrible, but he had to adhter Violet was no--Well, she was no violet She had an oddly lue chin He didn’t kno he’d ever haround Lisette would teach Violet to be char and happy Lisette was doubly beautiful because she was so cheerful

He glanced back at Eleanor, as scowling at Tobias She could use the same lesson Still, common sense told him that Tobias didn’t care about a scowl or two Not after the abuse he had suffered at Grindel’s hands

Villiers’s hands involuntarily curled into fists He’d knocked the man out, taken all the boys away, and then spoken to a Bow Street istrate he knew Grindel was now in prison for life, but still he lay awake at night thinking about ripping the man’s head from his body

"Leopold!" Lisette called prettily "Will you help me take down this lute?"

Normally he would have frozen out any person with the temerity to call him by name Yet somehow Lisette disar realization that warranted further thought

Out of the corner of her eye Eleanor saw Villiers trot after Lisette, but she didn’t spare hi; the pathetic awe in his eyes when he looked at Lisette told its own story

Instead, she hunched over and watched like a hawk to make sure that Tobias didn’t try to palht hi and another up his sleeve

Across the rooelic voice, and never see That was the sad thing about Lisette: it was no act She was a lady…when she was a lady

With an effort, Eleanor banished Villiers and Lisette from her mind For the moment she just wanted to trounce this ill-te about hi, he had been colare

They were tied going into the final game He threw a perfect round She countered They switched to left-handed throws Luckily, she was actually left-handed He threw another perfect round, and again she countered He returned to his right hand, but with a handicap of a bent little finger Finally he missed It was her turn