“I am very glad he did,” Stephanie said. “I love your mother. She is so full of fun and energy. And the children all seem to look out for one another. I cannot wait to see Mama’s portrait your father has painted.”
“And one more member of our family will be coming this week,” Winifred said. “Did you know Bertrand Lamarr—we never think of him as Viscount Watley—is Mama’s stepbrother? My grandmother married his father eleven years ago, and we all love him—and Estelle, his twin sister. Is he not the most amiable gentleman you have ever known? Not to mentionhandsome. I danced the opening set of a ball at Archer House with him this spring, and I could see I was the envy of every other woman present. I hope he finds the perfect bride one day so he can live happily ever after. Estelle wants it too, now that she is married herself. Mama always says the poor man has become the victim of the worst possible oppressors, well-meaning female relatives.”
She turned her head to look at Stephanie, expecting to share laughter with her again. But her friend was grimacing. “Iwishhewas not coming,” she said. “But I beg your pardon. He is your relative, and you are eager to see him again.”
“Has he made himself…objectionable to you when he has been here before?” Winifred asked. But it was hard to imagine.
“No,” Stephanie said. “He has only ever been all that is amiable. It is just that I really do not want to see him again. The first time he came here with Owen, I was seventeen and I was absolutely smitten. Not in a good way, I must add. I was mortally afraid that if I smiled at him or made conversation with him, he would think I wasflirting. I thought he was perfection and I was just the opposite. Everyone kept telling me when I was a child that my baby fat was adorable but it would go away when I grew older. I waited and waited, but it never happened. It still has not, for that matter. And I had this great shiny moon face and still looked like a child of twelve. I went to extraordinary lengths to hide from him, and when that was impossible, I blushed from my toes to the crown of my head and could never think of anything to say. It was downright humiliating.”
They had come to a halt on the bridge over the river. The sun was sparkling on the water as it flowed beneath.
“Oh, dear,” Winifred said. “But that was all some time ago. It is altogether possible he has forgotten—if he even noticed. And you are very far from being unattractive. You have a lovely, well-proportioned figure, even if it is a bit fuller than some would consider the feminine ideal. Sometimes I lament my very shapeless figure, but all the lamentations in the world will not change it. I know also that I am not pretty. I decided long ago that I am as I am and that actually I am quite happy about it. I would hate to be someone else.”
Stephanie laughed. “I used to think it was so unfair that Pippais flawlessly beautiful,” she said. “But I would not want tobeher. I want to be me. I doubt Viscount Watley has forgotten, though—unfortunately. I met him again when I was nineteen and Mama persuaded me to go to London for a come-out Season. It was disastrous. He was at the very first ball I attended, and he was so pleased to meet us again and introduce us to Lady Estelle Lamarr, his sister. She was his female counterpart—beautiful and poised and charming. Andslender. But you know her, of course. I went all to pieces, Winifred. I tripped and stammered and blushed—and fled from London as soon as I could. Pippa and Lucas were in town, but Pippa was increasing at the time and longed to be back home. When Lucas took her there well before the Season ended, I went with them. I had never in my life been happier for an excuse.”
“Oh, poor Stephanie,” Winifred said.
“That was six years ago,” Stephanie said. “I have grown up since then and am very happy with my life even though I am still single in my middle twenties. But enough about me. I am glad for your sake and your mother’s that Viscount Watley is coming here tomorrow. I am glad too that you and your family are staying for the fete. It is my favorite event here, though it no longer happens every year, as it used to when I was a child. All we need now is for this perfect weather to last. It surely will not be unkind enough to rain upon us on that one special day, will it?”
“It would not dare,” Winifred said as they walked on. “I do look forward to meeting your eldest brother this afternoon.”
“Oh, me too,” Stephanie said. “I adore Ben.”
Chapter Fifteen
Nicholas allowed himself a few days in which to bask in the pleasure of being among his family again. Perhaps now, more than ever, when his life was about to change irrevocably, he valued what he had and realized just how much he had always taken it for granted. It was wonderful indeed to be a Ware of Ravenswood, to belong, to have a mother and siblings and their growing families and a larger family of grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. And a neighborhood of friends and friendly acquaintances.
Winifred’s stark story of her own origins had struck home. For he understood that having a loving family now did not make up for what had been missed during her first nine years of life.
A few of his siblings had their own lives far away and quite separate from life here, of course, as he did. He had never been sorry that he was the son intended for a military career. Even at his darkest moments—and there had been more than a few of them during the war years—he had never doubted that he was living the life he wanted to live.
But this week his family was to be all together. It was time to be cherished. And there was the summer fete to look forward to, to help with, to enjoy—but to face with a certain misgiving too, for it would mark the time after which his life would never be the same again. For no later than that day he was going to have to formalize the connection with Grace. And then he was going to make the best of it. He was, after all, a man of honor. But in the meanwhile, he gave himself permission to relax and enjoy each moment.
Ben and Jennifer were the first to arrive, with Miss Delmont, Ben’s elderly aunt, his mother’s sister, who lived with them, and their children, Joy, now ten—was it possible?—four-year-old Robert, and two-year-old Belinda. Ben was the brother to whom Nicholas owed the fact that he still had two legs instead of one. They hugged each other warmly after Devlin and Gwyneth had had their turn. In the meantime, Jennifer’s wheeled chair had been taken down from a second carriage and Ben lifted her into it while Devlin helped Miss Delmont to alight. The three children came scrambling after her, Joy already talking, the little one bouncing with excitement, as Nicholas remembered her elder sister doing as soon as she learned to stand. And somehow Gareth and Bethan and Awen had escaped from the nursery to greet their cousins, bringing Alice and Samuel Cunningham with them. All was glorious noise and confusion and laughter.
And pure joy to Nicholas.
There were several arrivals the following day. His Grandmama and Grandpapa Greenfield were first in the late morning. They had come with Uncle George and Aunt Kitty, who had finally made the decision to live permanently with them since they were finding it increasingly difficult to live alone, even with the help of servants. Mama was delighted at the prospect of having her brother only tenmiles away, especially as Uncle George happened to be married to one of her closest and oldest friends. These new arrivals had a quieter reception than Ben, with children excluded out of deference to the weariness the grandparents were bound to be feeling. Mama hugged her parents before Gwyneth and Devlin led them to their rooms, where they could rest for a while before luncheon.
Mama and Aunt Kitty meanwhile hugged and chattered to each other and even squealed a time or two, altogether like a couple of girls, while Matthew and Uncle George grinned at each other and shook hands.
Nicholas smiled happily at them all and set an arm loosely about Stephanie’s shoulders. She was reveling in all this as much as he was.
She was nowhere to be seen, however, an hour or so later when Bertrand Lamarr, Viscount Watley, arrived. He had been Owen’s friend since their university days. Although he lived a quiet life on his country estate for most of the year, alone since the marriage of his twin sister to the Earl of Brandon a year or so ago, he and Owen had kept up their friendship. He had come here now almost directly from his sister’s home in Northamptonshire, where he had gone to see her new baby. He shook Gwyneth and Devlin firmly by the hand and turned to Owen and Nicholas just as Mrs. Cunningham came hurrying from the house and almost hurled herself into his arms. She was, of course, Watley’s stepsister.
“Bertrand,” she cried. “Looking as handsome as ever. And just returned from Northamptonshire. How is Estelle? I take it all is well despite the baby’s early arrival. She is over the moon with delight over her first child, I expect. And Justin too. I want to hear all about them. The baby is David? What a lovely name.”
He laughed as he hugged her back. “Will you allow me a few moments to catch my breath, Camille?” he said. “I will say, though,without any bias at all, that my nephew must be the handsomest baby ever born. You are looking very fine, I must say. Glowing, in fact. And here come Joel and Winnie. The country air must be agreeing with you all.”
And then, in the late afternoon, Pippa arrived with Lucas, Duke of Wilby, her husband, and their three children, twins Emily and Christopher, now seven, and Pamela, four. Yesterday’s merriment replayed itself, though Pamela hid behind her father, an arm wrapped about his leg, and refused to show her face.
“She is shy,” Pippa said unnecessarily. “Just give her time.”
They had brought a nurse with them to help with the care of the children, a real blessing as there were many children here.
Pippa was the next sibling in age to Nicholas and had always been exquisitely lovely, with her blond hair and delicately complexioned face. It looked as if Pamela would closely resemble her, though Pippa had always been an outgoing girl. She had had to be, with three older brothers. She wassohappy to be home for a short while, she told them. And justlookat Joy, all skinny and long limbed. And at Robert, who had been born only days after his cousin Pamela. And oh, yes, at Belinda, who at barely two years old still had not shed the adorable chubbiness of babyhood. She swept her niece up into her arms and kissed one plump cheek. Lucas meanwhile was hugging Jennifer, who had come outside to meet them, using her crutches instead of her wheeled chair. She was Lucas’s sister. She had surprised the fashionable world when she, the granddaughter and sister of a duke, permanently lame as the result of a crippling childhood illness, married Ben, illegitimate son of the Earl of Stratton, and went to live with him in a modest manor on a smallish estate close to the sea thirty miles away. But the two appeared to have been happy ever since.
Nicholas hugged his sister and the twins and shook Lucas by the hand before the two children went dashing off with an assortment of Wares and Cunninghams and Ellises in the direction of the hill and the temple. They all seemed to find plenty to shriek about even before they rounded the corner of the west wing.
