"Do not torment your sister, Delphine." Aunt Gertrude was waving her handkerchief. "All of you and I as well, are out of mourning for your father. The time has long since past for your brother George too. More than a year and a half. God rest his soul."
Bee considered her tea cup. Their grief for their brother George had been wilder, deeper than for that of their father. George had been a scholar at Eton and Cambridge, a wit, a caring older brother. He hadn’t had to join the army, but had marched off suddenly four years ago with his best friend William, Alastair’s older brother. When George had died at Toulouse, they’d been shocked and deeply grieved. On the contrary, their father’s death left them cold. Never able to cope with the loss of their mother and her steadying influence, he'd let gin take him to ever lower depths until he'd gambled all away and cast the three girls upon the charity of his sister-in-law, their Aunt Gertrude.
"We’ll forget our recent troubles," the lady said and rose to summon a servant with a yank at the tapestry pull. “We’ll have a Christmas enchantment.”
"I'm afraid, Aunt, that I would not be cheerful company," Bee said, with a sharp glance at Del to prompt her to support her.
But Del shook her head.
Simms appeared like a genie in the doorway to the kitchens. Tall, black-haired with sharp silver eyes and a deep cleft in his handsome chin, the young man was a new recruit to the household staff. A rarity to be so young—thirty perhaps?—and yet familiar with the intricacies of running a household. He was dry, droll and dapper. What more could one wish in a butler?
"My lady?" he asked his mistress.
"Writing implements, Simms. Pen. Ink."
"Ma'am?"
"Invitations."
He thought a moment. "How many?"
"One ball. Eight days."
"I see." He tried, handsome befuddled creature that he was, to understand that, then said, "Pens?"
"Yes, quickly." He turned on his heel.
"Wait. No need. Simply remember, Simms, will you?"
The man stopped short. "Certainly, ma'am. Enumerate for me."
"House party. Eight days. A ball Christmas night. Twenty here in the house. Not counting we four. His lordship may come home and he’ll bring with him one or two fellow officers. Sixty...." She counted on her fingers, over and over. "Sixty-six for the total guest list. Tell Cook. And Mrs Patton. Remember all that, can you, Simms?"
He lifted one long dark brow as if in insult. "Yes, my lady."
"Good. And the Prince Regent, too," the lady announced. "You'll tell your friend, Prinny's head butler, won't you, Simms?"
The man had made it known to his new employer that he was on a first-name basis with every servant in the Regent's household. "As you wish, ma'am."
"Marvelous." She clasped her hands together. “Prinny’s butler.”
"Prinny's butler?" Bee's younger sister Marjorie waltzed into the room. “For what?”
“A party,” said Bee.
“Here,” said Del with twinkling eyes.
Marjorie frowned at her, then at Simms. “Wales’s butler will come here to a party?”
"No, no. You're late, my girl," scolded Aunt Gertrude with a wide smile on her rouged lips.
"I do apologize." She flounced into the room dressed in her favorite afternoon at-home gown of pink and white cottonand sank into the nearest chair.
"You look lovely," said their aunt. "Every hair in place. Your sisters should emulate you."
"Thank you, Aunt." She patted her honey blonde tresses in recognition of her aunt's praise, then pushed her spectacles up her nose.
"I do however wish you didn't wear those glasses, dear girl. They hide you."
