Just a few.
It wasinevitable that the world came calling. Not just the Packhams, but neighbors from the girls’ old house. Grey’s friends, who wanted to check in on them. The Kings and the Archangels, who harried them out of the house when the weather was good enough, with Bark’s exercise as an excuse. Mrs. Keyse, who kept threatening to petition Chancery Court to be made guardian of the girls. And Anastasia Dunn, who had evidently decided it was time to get back to work on their project.
“What do you mean your husband didn’t know?” her friend demanded over tea and tea cakes.
Georgie shrugged. “There wasn’t time. I promised him he would find out when he got home.” She swallowed. “It was supposed to be an encouragement to not stay away too long.”
Anastasia knew her too well to do something vaguely patronizing like patting her hand. “Well, I need some new scents. I believe I have Papa talked into the real perfumery. I even found some single ladies to help cultivate some of the gardens. But I need my nose.”
Georgie scowled. “I’m not certain how fond I am of that designation.”
“But you are,” her friend objected with a bright grin, which just made her look like an elf with her bright red hair and green eyes. “You are the secret weapon that will make us a success. No one has a more delicate nose than you for mixing scents.”
Maybe one person, Georgie thought wistfully, but he was no longer available.
“Please,” Stasia begged. “We’re so close.”
And so, along with her other duties, Georgie began to mix scents for Stasia’s perfumery. Which meant she got even less sleep. What with everything else going on, she had not a spare minute for herself, which at least kept the blue devils constrained. A bit.
Until the day she was once again walking out of the library, her arms full with fabric samples and pattern books this time, when the knocker sounded on the door. She didn’t even hesitate. She knew that the staff was helping the girls decorate their bedroom. So before she could think of it, she yanked the door open.
At least this time she didn’t drop her burden on the floor.
“I really must stop answering the door,” she said to the three soldiers who stood on her stoop. In uniform. “Go away.”
It was all she could do to keep the panic from her voice. Who was it this time? Which member of her family?
“I think you’ll want to see us,” Michael said.
“Oh, I don’t think I will.”
She grabbed the door handle, ready to tell him how unfunny their appearance was when, without a word, Michael and Rafe stepped apart.
And there on the front stoop was, in her best attempt at a description, a motley collection of splints, slings, and scars.
For the longest time, all she could do was stare. Her brain simply wouldn’t compile this ragged bundle of disaster into something—or someone—familiar.
And then the something smiled. “I hope you haven’t told the bees.”
For the longest moment the five of them stood there like a frozen tableau, the other four smiling at her, and her trying to make sense of the untidy pile of humanity leaning on a cane on her stoop. Finally, she opened her mouth.
“You bastard!” she all but shrieked. “Where have you been?! Do you realize we threw you a funeral only two flower arrangements shy of Nelson’s?”
Michael, the clodpole, nodded at the apparition with a grin. “Definitely happy to see you.”
She glared, as if her heart weren’t slamming against her ribs and her chest unbearably tight at the sight of Grey’s injuries. “Shut up. Get in here.”
He was grinning, too. How could that collection of disasters be smiling? “If you let me into my house, I’ll be happy to tell you.”
Still, she stood there, frozen. Desperate to hold him tight, terrified she would break something fragile. Even more desperate to hit him. Just ball up her fist and wallop him right in the chest, across which his left arm was strapped. For causing her such pain by dying. By not dying but making her think he had. And his face. Oh, his beautiful face, now transected by a scar from his forehead to his chin. And burns. His eyebrows were gone.
Stepping back to let them all in, she glared at her brother and cousins. “Did you know about this? Did you enjoy destroying my world?”
All three threw up hands of protest. “We had no idea,” Michael protested. “Not until this morning when we got a message to meet a boat.”
She didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t even manage to form words. So she turned around without a word and marched up the stairs and into the yellow parlor, where it seemed all their little dramas now took place, assuming the Archangels would get Grey up the stairs behind her. It wasn’t until she had made it inside and turned around that she realized the cousins were all but holding Grey upright, and he was looking around the room with pure delight.
“I knew I could trust you,” he said. “Did the girls help you?”
