Lottie smiled in return. She pulled Freddie away from the window before the servants or Cousin Alex noticed his wayward antics. What would this stern version of Cousin Alex think of such behavior?
She urged Freddie to sit on the floor and play with his toys. Of course, he would have none of it until Lottie sank onto the rug with him.
Freddie immediately climbed into her lap and reached for the onyx beads around her neck. Lottie dodged his (still sticky) hands and handed him a clever mechanical soldier, which Freddie set to dismantling. She pressed a kiss to his rumpled curls before leaning back on her hands, fingers sinking into the lush pile. Thank goodness, Grandmère preferred the softness of Savonerrie carpets over the short nub of an Aubusson rug.
Grandmère and Margaret were at the opposite end of the room before the roaring fire, embroidering small stitches while verbally unstitching one another.
Lottie’s grandmother and her sister were often at loggerheads.They are far too similar to get along, Papa had often said.Both too stubborn and firm in their opinions.
“Dr. Whitaker is rather late in his arrival.” Margaret stabbed her needle through the crimson silk, her blond ringlets bobbing with the motion.
Lottie empathized with her sister’s frustration over the unsettled and precarious nature of their current situation. So much now hinged on Cousin Alex’s choices. Margaret’s grief over her daughter’s death had morphed into a grim determination to see Freddie well-settled.
“Was the doctor to have arrived sooner?” Grandmère’s question, though mild, came out rimmed with Gallic disdain.
“Yes. In his last letter to Frank, Dr. Whitaker indicated he would be here in the morning. And yet, here we are, well after luncheon.” Margaret stabbed her thread more forcefully. Unfortunately, embroidery, as a means of venting anxiety, was woefully inadequate. “If the doctor had any courtesy at all for the distress of this situation, he would have arrived at daybreak, seen to this nonsense the Committee on Privilege have concocted, and taken himself off before supper.”
Grandmère arched a single eyebrow at Margaret’s tone.
The effect was rather dramatically scathing.
Judgmental eyebrows, Gabriel, with his artist’s eye, had been wont to say.
He was not incorrect.
Grandmère’s brows were dark, elegant slashes in her pale skin. They slanted downward even in repose, giving her grandmother’s calmest words a sharp bite.
“That was not what was agreed upon,” Grandmère tutted, that censorious eyebrow hiking higher, her Parisian-accented English swallowing her words. “The doctor is to staytrois jours—just three days. He will dine. He will speak with us and see the estate. Then he will decide.”
Margaret was not one to be intimidated—not by Grandmère’s formidable eyebrows or Cousin Alex’s potentially earthquaking presence.
She, Freddie, and Frank had been living at Frome Abbey since last summer, when the Committee on Privilege had named Frank as temporary guardian of the marquisate, pending a decision.
The Duke of Ferndown was also in residence. His Grace had come down from London specifically to oversee Dr. Whitaker’s visit and encourage the doctor to agree to the attainder. The duke was not the paterfamilias for the Whitaker family, but as an old friend of Lottie’s father and relation-by-marriage, he had taken on the role. It was a duke-ish thing, Lottie supposed.
“It is distressing that circumstances have devolved to this,” Margaret said. “This is not the outcome Papa would have wished.”
Lottie tucked Freddie closer, remembering Papa lying so still in his bed that final night.
Preserve my legacy,he had begged all of them—Lottie, Margaret, Grandmère, Frank, and Ferndown.See that my lands and people are secured. Promise me.
They had promised.
And it was a promise Lottie intended to keep.
Except her family now felt she had betrayed them.
“Why d-did you open your mouth, Lottie?!” Margaret sobbed afterward. “That d-doctor is likely not our cousin. He was merely ingratiating himself with a p-pair of women far above his station.”
“Perhaps,” Lottie replied, defending herself against the sting of Margaret’s words. “But it would be dishonest to hide his existence if he does turn out to be a cousin.”
“What about the honor owed to your family? To Papa’s memory? Ferndown says that Papa wished Freddie to inherit—”
“But I did not know that, Margaret! By mentioning a potential heir, I thought to save the marquisate from oblivion. Besides, Parliament would likely have uncovered Dr. Whitaker’s existence regardless. Can you not see?”
“A Scottish doctor was not what Papa meant when he asked us to secure his legacy! He wanted Freddie to inherit. My Freddie! He specifically said as much to Ferndown.”
“But you just said the doctor is likely not our cousin, so the entire matter will be moot—”
