18
“Tell me the truth now.” Violet Humphrey stared at Charles with a sharp gaze honed by years of raising rogues for children.
“Truth? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Charles hedged as best he could, but he knew he wouldn’t win any argument his mother began.
“There’s a woman.” Violet sat perched on a settee with Charles’s little sister, Ella, beside her. Ella had a book open in her lap but had not turned a page since this parental inquisition began. Her blonde hair, so much like his, framed her face as she peered blankly at her pages. She was pretty, of course, with eyes more blue than gray, like their mother’s, but her features were a more feminine version of their father’s. She was small and delicate, but fiercely intelligent and kindhearted.
“There are plenty of women. Yo
