by Abby Ayles
“Of course I will,” Lord Dunthorpe said, reaching across the table and taking his sister's hand. “Every day, if you wish it. So much, in fact, it will be as if I am still here and you wish me gone.”
Lady Louisa gave a soft smile of relief at this promise. She had been at her brother’s side so much of her life, she feared how she would go on with him away. What brought an even colder shudder to her was the thought that this endeavor might result in losing her brother permanently.
Chapter 1
“James, you little rascal. Where are you hiding?" Jackie called out down the long hall of Wintercrest Manor.
She took her slippered steps very carefully with her little cousin, Elisabeth, holding her hand. They paused for a moment, as Jackie was sure she heard a giggle.
Sure enough, the sound came again. It was the soft laughter of a three-year-old who couldn’t contain himself. Elisabeth gave her own toddler laugh in reply, covering her mouth with her free cherubic hand.
“We’ve caught them now,” Jackie said to her partner.
Jackie slid open the door to what seemed like an empty bedroom. She could, however, hear the rustle of bedding.
Jackie put a finger to her lips and pointed under the bed for Elisabeth's benefit. They both snuck over and got down on their knees before the long bed covering.
With a swift movement, Jackie lifted the bedding to reveal Elisabeth’s twin brother hiding under the bed.
“Got you!” Elisabeth called out to him.
“Where is Aunt Abigail?” Jackie asked as she helped pull the three-year-old from under the bed.
It wasn’t a room that was often used, and his clothes and dark hair were now covered in a light coating of dust.
James promptly sneezed as Jackie attempted to brush it off. Mrs. Murray wasn’t one to rise to a temper, but she would be very unhappy to see the boy in such a state.
Elisabeth decided to search the room as Jackie did her best to brush her brother off. She knew her Aunt Abigail couldn’t be far away from her hide-and-seek partner.
“Found you, too,” Elisabeth called out as she poked behind a privacy screen.
There, she did find her Aunt Abigail, much too old for silly games, but still happily playing with her two nieces and nephew.
“Oh, dear. I thought I really had you fooled that time,” Lady Abigail Grant said as she was led by the hand from behind the curtain.
“Aunt Abigail couldn’t fit under the bed,” James said with a giggle.
“I could so fit,” Lady Abigail retorted with a hand on her hip. “I just didn’t want to get all dusty like you.”
The children all happily laughed with their aunt before she returned them all to the nursery. It would soon be time for Lady Abigail to dress for dinner.
“May I come down with you too, tonight?” Jackie asked.
“I am afraid not. We are to have Captain Jones and a few of his officers from the militia with us tonight.”
“But I am almost twelve years old. Certainly that is old enough,” Jackie retorted.
Lady Abigail knew that her niece was now at that age where she no longer wanted to be treated as a child left in the nursery. She had struggled with the same frustrations as a young girl.
“I know it doesn’t seem fair now, but you would not want to come anyway. “Captain Jones is an ancient, very boring man. I fear you would fall asleep during your first course and never want to come to dinner again,” Lady Abigail added, trying to make it seem less enticing.
“I don’t care, I still want to go,” Jackie grumbled.
“I know, my dear. Very soon you will and wish you didn’t have to.”
Lady Abigail would have been more than happy to stay the night in the nursery with the twins and let Jackie go in her place. Not only was Captain Jones incredibly unentertaining, he was also very long-winded.
It was going to be a very long night of pretending to be interested. Lady Abigail’s only hope was that at least one of the three lieutenants that would be joining the captain would be of some interest.
Lady Abigail was now nineteen years old and of a marrying age. She thought the prospect of finding a gentleman who would interest her very unlikely. They all wanted a quiet, prim, proper lady. That was not Abigail at all.
She much rather fancied the idea of marrying an officer instead. Though he might not have been one of the peerages, he was undoubtedly considered a gentleman. Men of this social standing would also be less likely to be put off by a less than gentle manner.
Lady Abigail had of course been bred to be an entirely proper lady by her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Wintercrest. They also had, however, given her the freedom to grow into her own personality.
Lady Abigail hoped to marry someday. She wished to find that love that seemed to defy any barricades of social standards, as her brother, the current Duke of Wintercrest, had done when he first met his wife, Isabella.
She, however, did not want to marry solely because social graces dictated that she do so. If she did marry, she had long ago determined it would be someone she loved dearly and who would care for her just as she would them.
Sadly, Lady Abigail was sorely disappointed with the night's dinner guests. Captain Jones had brought three of his lieutenants and a colonel. The colonel was much too old for Lady Abigail’s liking, two of the three lieutenants were already married, and the third betrothed.
Lady Abigail half wondered if her brother had purposefully only invited the otherwise unavailable to dinner that night.
The duke often had the high-ranking officers from the militia come to dinner when they were in the area. It was an important gesture for him to give, but it also allowed nostalgia for his own days in the Royal Navy.
The duke was aware that Abigail was now of the age when courtships became pressing and engagements were on the horizon. He rather overprotected her when it came to opportunities of meeting gentlemen.
“You know he did it on purpose,” Lady Abigail said softly to her sister-in-law after dinner.
The whole party was now seated in the drawing room. The men were by the fire talking politics while Lady Abigail, Isabella, the Duchess of Wintercrest, and the dowager duchess played a game of cards.
* * *
“I am quite certain he did do it on purpose,” the duchess agreed.
“What a rotten thing it is to do,” Lady Abigail said, setting down her cards rather exaggeratedly.
“What is it you two are whispering about?” Lady Abigail’s mother asked over her own hand of cards.
The dowager duchess was now deteriorating quickly in her older age. Lady Abigail suspected, with the loss of her husband a few years back, her mother had since lost much of the light in her life.
Lady Abigail’s parents could not have been more opposite creatures. Not only were they different in manners and personality, but there was a very vast age difference. For an outsider to look in on their marriage, it would have been assumed the arrangement was made for practical purposes.
It was well known, however, by all the late duke and dowager duchess’s children that their parents did, in fact, have a deep affection for each other.
“Abigail is not very happy to see that the gentlemen invited tonight are not of her preference,” the duchess explained to her mother-in-law.
“Your brother hopes better for you than a common militiaman,” Lady Abigail’s mother explained.
Lady Abigail didn’t like this response, nor did she look forward to the idea of her overly protective brother choosing dinner guests in the future.
“Don’t worry,” the duchess said, taking her sister-in-law’s hand and patting it softly. “Soon, the season will be upon us. You will have more suitors than you know what to do with.”
It was an accurate statement that, due to Lady Abigail’s beauty, she caught the eye of many potential suitors during her time in London each year. What was upsetting to her was that, so far, no one had caught her eye in return.
Lady Abigail
brushed a rust-colored ringlet back from her shoulder. It was an act of irritation that both the duchess and Lady Abigail’s mother knew well.
“I have to say, I am surprised that His Grace is allowing you to go at all,” Lady Abigail said with emphasis on her brother’s proper title.
The duchess patted her belly that was beginning to show the swell of life beneath.
“ I have plenty of time before this little one comes. I have been away from London for so long, I could not bear to spend another season away. And as for the duke,” she said with a raised brow, “I did not ask. I merely announced my intentions.”
All three ladies laughed at this. They had become quite a close trio with all the time they had spent together over the last four years.
Though up until now the duchess had chosen to stay home with her young children, Lady Abigail and her mother had still attended the season at their lavish city house. They always came home in time to spend the remainder of the year with the duke, duchess, their ever-growing family, and the late Lord James Grant’s daughter, Jaqueline De’belmount.
“You will give my best to my sister, won't you?" Lady Abigail’s mother asked after they all contained their rather girlish giggles.
“Of course I will,” Lady Abigail assured her mother.
Lady Abigail rather looked forward to her time each year in London, less for the prospects and more for time with her favorite cousin, Lady Fortuna Rosh. She dearly loved this extension of her family and, in times past, had spent many weeks visiting with her uncle and aunt, the Marquess and Marchioness of Huntington.
“I do wish you would come though, Mother," Lady Abigail added.
“I am not feeling at all up to it this year. Plus, with all three of my grandchildren staying here at Wintercrest, I dare say I will be much happier to have them about than the ladies of the town.”
“I must confess, I am happy to have you here with them too,” the duchess added. “It will be my first time away from the twins. I didn’t think I could do it but knowing you will be with them brings me comfort.”
“Remember you said that, my dear, for when you return, you may find them entirely spoiled,” Lady Abigail's mother said with a happy glow around her aging face.
Lady Abigail couldn’t help but notice that, despite the wrinkles that now curled around her brown eyes and the large amounts of silver hair that glowed in the light of candles, her mother was still a gorgeous woman.
Chapter 2
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go,” the duke said the following night as the whole household sat around the fire.
“Don’t worry, my love,” the duchess reassured her husband. “I will be able to go to town and return home at the end of the season all before this little one is even ready to come out.”
“But the twins came early. What if that happens again?”
“It has only been two months since we discovered the pregnancy. I can’t imagine that this child will make its debut so vastly early as to arrive in London.”
“Still, all this traveling in your condition makes me nervous,” the duke said, taking his wife’s hand and kissing it gently.
“I don’t want to go to town just for myself, but also for Abigail. With your mother not feeling up to it this year, she will need a chaperone.”
“I can be her chaperone,” the duke retorted.
Isabella had to smile at this idea. Protecting Lady Abigail from having her brother as her chaperone was what she had meant. She loved her husband dearly, but he was far too protective of his younger sister.
Not to mention the fact that there would be many instances where Lady Abigail would be in need of a female chaperone to make her way among afternoon parties with other ladies. Finding your place was just as much dependent on these social gatherings as the more commonly thought of balls and large evening events.
“I think it will be more to her comfort if I am there with her,” the duchess tried to explain as efficiently as possible to her husband.
She watched the fire glow reflected off his red hair as he swiveled his look from his wife on the couch to his sister sitting at a distant table with the twins. His angular face darkened as he tried to make sense of her meaning.
“I am not that horrible,” he said once all the lines connected in his head.
“My love, were you not there at last night’s dinner party? Could you not have invited at least one gentleman for Abigail to have found even an ounce of interest in?”
“She is far too good for a militiaman,” the duke retorted.
“I didn’t mean for her to marry, though I would be happy for her no matter what vocation the person she chooses to marry has. She is young and in want of some excitement. I fear, with just you taking her to London, her whole season would be much like that dinner party.”
“It’s just hard for me. She is my little sister, after all.”
“I know,” the duchess said softly, touching her husband’s cheek. “I fear the day that Elisabeth comes of age. Even Jackie, for that matter,” Isabella added with a smile.
The duke looked at the whole of his family in the drawing room. Though Jackie was his niece, he had treated her as if she was his own daughter and not just his ward to take care of. He could scarcely imagine his own behavior when the time came for either Jackie or his darling little Elisabeth.
Lady Abigail couldn’t help but sneak a peek at her brother and his wife as they spoke on the couch by the fire. Though their relationship had begun on unsure waters, it had blossomed into something wonderful.
As Isabella ran a soft hand along her husband’s face, Lady Abigail felt that pang of wistfulness deep inside her heart. She wondered if she, too, would ever find someone that she could look upon with such love and admiration as her sister-in-law did on her brother.
“Lord James, Lady Elisabeth,” the children’s governess, Miss Smith, called from her seat. “It is just about time to retire to bed.”
The announcement woke Lady Abigail from her wishful thinking. Her young niece and nephew’s governess was a very time efficient lady. Everything seemed to run on an exact schedule.
Lady Abigail expected it was a necessity when dealing with two children of the same age. Not only did that mean double the mischief, but they also seemed to have a unique connection between them that often led to more trouble.
Miss Smith had taken over the task of educating Miss Jackie after the previous governess had found a better situation. That, of course, was the Duchess of Wintercrest. Though the twins were still too young for formal education, Miss Smith had happily taken on the task of including them whenever possible.
“Aunt Abigail, will you read to us before we have to go to bed?” James asked in his sweet voice.
Lady Abigail saw that Elisabeth already had a book in hand for her to read to them.
“We only have but a moment. I would hate to make Miss Smith cross,” Lady Abigail said, taking the book from the little hand.
“Do come read it over here, so we may all hear it,” Lady Abigail’s mother called from her seat close to the fire.
Lady Abigail did as she was bid. With a child on either side, she walked over and sat before the fire.
Jackie, too, who was at first playing the piano, also stopped to come and listen. She happily took the spot next to her grandmother.
Sitting on the floor near the warm glow of the fire, Lady Abigail began to read. It was an enjoyable pastime that the family participated in each night.
The twins, and even Jackie, though she felt herself now too old to admit it, loved when Lady Abigail read to them.
She always did it with the most animated of voices and emotions that it quite nearly brought the stories right off the pages of the book.
By the end of the week, matters between the duke and duchess were all settled and the pair, along with Lady Abigail, were setting out on the long journey to town.
The duchess tried her best to hide her tears as she kissed her children goo
dbye. Though it might have been a very usual thing for a duchess to leave her children to see to social duties, it was not something Isabella did.
Of course, though the duchess knew that her children would be more than well cared for in the hands of her mother-in-law and Jackie, she was still torn by the thought of leaving them. The added emotions that came with her pregnancy didn’t seem to help the matter much.
“I received a letter from Fortuna yesterday,” Lady Abigail said once they were all seated in the carriage and away down the road.
Lady Abigail hoped that some exciting conversation might help distract her sister-in-law from her sorrowful feelings.
“How lovely,” the duchess said, doing her best to put on a brave face. “Did she have anything of interest to say?”
Isabella was happy for the distraction, just as much as Lady Abigail was for giving it.
“They have already arrived in London. With the weather being so warm, they went early this year.”
The duke and duchess both looked out their windows at this, almost to confirm that it was, in fact, unusually warm for the time of year.
“Aunt Amelia has invited us all over for dinner at our earliest convenience.”
“That was very kind of her,” Isabella responded. “I have been looking forward to meeting these relations that I have heard so much about over the years.”
“You will really like Fortuna, I think,” Lady Abigail continued, now falling into an ease of conversation. “She is very much like Lady Louisa.”
“How so?” the duchess asked, intrigued.
They spent the remainder of the day describing every last detail of the relatives Isabella was soon to meet. The duchess was always happy to meet the family of her husband, as she was very limited in her own.
Lady Louisa Frasier and her family had often taken Isabella under their wing as her only family, since her father, the Baron Leinster, had often been away attending to business before his passing. The Frasiers were the closest thing that Isabella had ever had to family dynamics.
