Robin, at his own insistence and to his father’s amusement, was installed in the grandest room in the castle. Charles lay collapsed on the drawing-room sofa. Garth kicked him. ‘Don’t kick him, Garth. He can’t defend himself.’ Lily carefully arranged their father’s legs, wrapping one of Gryffed’s old blankets round them. Garth turned on Clover and Columbine. ‘You should never have tampered with their carriage. You should never have painted that notice on to Tinker’s cart. We should never have let them stay here. Never.’ ‘We didn’t tamper with the carriage,’ Clover or Columbine retorted. ‘We don’t know how that happened. But when we saw it, we just thought . . . we just thought . . .’ ‘You didn’t really think at all,’ shouted Garth. ‘You never do.’ ‘That’s not fair!’ cried Clover and Columbine. ‘We did think. We thought that at least if they were here, they couldn’t be at the lawyer’s drawing up papers and we could still put them off.’ Their father groaned.
