Lise glanced at her father, who used to be rather strict about manners at his table.Although he had refused to allow the youngest Bowens to eat off his best porcelain, he seemed unbothered about soup on the cloth or his granddaughter spraying bread crumbs each time she spoke.
Just then, Lise’s youngest yelled with exuberance of a happy two-year-old.Wincing, she exchanged a glance with Jonathan who held Peter on his lap.Her husband shrugged, then winced when his son reached around to tweak the viscount’s nose.Lise bit her lip to keep from laughing.
For the briefest of moments, they’d tried to seat Peter on a chair.He’d immediately wriggled and toppled off, causing much hullabaloo.Then they tried to let his grandmother hold him on her lap, but he began to wail, reaching his arms out toward his father.
Now, Peter was grabbing at his father’s hand each time Jonathan tried to direct his spoon into the soup, laughing heartily at thwarting him.Lise feared her husband would starve before he enjoyed a drop.
“I think you had best concede defeat,” she advised, “at least until Nanny gets him to bed.”
Jonathan nodded, set his spoon down, and pushed the bowl out of Peter’s reach before handing him a slice of bread.
“Here you go, little monkey.”Then he took a piece for himself.
Alike as three peas in a pod, Lise thought.All three of her men, although the baby, as she still thought of Peter, had her blue eyes, as did Charlotte.
Lise sighed, taking stock of her blessings.For a while, she hadn’t believed this day would come.That her new family would ever be seated in her old house.But her parents had moved back the first time Bonaparte had been defeated a year earlier.In their letters, they hadn’t worried overly much when the little tyrant escaped captivity and commanded France again for a hundred days.
Yet this was the first time that Lise and Jonathan had returned to the Continent.She hoped it was the first of many long visits.
Charlotte suddenly starting laughing, as usual for no reason Lise could detect.Her own mother gasped.
“You did the same at her age,” she said.“Your brother used to tease you and ask what silly thoughts were in your head.”
“Mama!”Lise protested, even as Jonathan smiled.
“My wife still does that,” he said.“I never know what thoughts are in that pretty head of hers.”He looked smug until Peter turned and tried to feed his father some of his bread, mashing it into the viscount’s face.
“Where is Nanny?”Jonathan asked, understandably less charmed by his son, as he wiped at his own mouth and cheek with a napkin.“Don’t feed Papa,” he told his son.
“She’ll be in presently,” Lise promised.“I told her she could eat her supper early.”
Just then, Henry’s sleeve went into his soup.As he tried to wipe it on the bowl’s edge, he tipped it, sending a wave of creamy pottage over the rim.This caused Charlotte to laugh even louder, and Peter to squeal simply to chime in.
Lise cringed.Surely this had gone too far.But her father merely reached out to put his napkin over the puddle.
“Such spirited children,” he said from the head of the table.Then he looked at Lise’s mother.“We are fortunate to have five grandchildren, are we not?”
“Yes, Peter August.And Henrik’s children are just as spirited,” she told Lise.“As you’ll find out tomorrow.”
Lise and Jonathan hadn’t seen Henrik’s children for two years.She was ready to wriggle with impatience, like her son, at the promise of seeing her brother again.For nearly seven years, her parents had remained in Britain, less than an hour away by carriage.And when Henrik had met a lovely lady while he was in Spain, he’d married her there but brought her to London to live until the end of the war.Having her family around her was the only blessing of such a long and terrible conflict.
Henrik fought at Waterloo, and Lise hadn’t realized how large the scale of battle until her brother had written to her.At that moment, she and Jonathan were already planning their visit to Holstein.The papers were filled with tales of how the KGL had defended the crucial farmhouse at La Haye Sainte, holding their position against repeated French assaults, purposefully delaying them.Jonathan had marveled at the mastery of the strategy.
Henrik had given all the credit for the grand battle plan to the Duke of Wellington, and had unceasingly praised the other forces, be they British, Dutch, Belgian or Prussian, that he’d fought with.Fortunately, his shoulder injury had never impeded his duty, only bothering him more on rainy days.
“My personal barometer,” he’d said to Lise when he was in London last, “is more accurate than a glance out the window.”
“Why aren’t Henrik and his lovely Isabella here yet?”Jonathan asked.
Lise glanced over at him, wearing a smear of butter he didn’t realize upon his cheek and crumbs on his neck cloth, and she felt her heart squeeze with love.And contentment.Eight years of marriage to this adorable viscount hadn’t dimmed either emotion.Nor had three children and countless adventures across Britain.
Moreover, he could still make her heart — and her insides — flutter with a single touch.
“Believe it or not, he and his family still visit with Captain Albrecht,” her father said, “whenever they are up this far north.
Lise startled at the name, sharing a look with Jonathan, her rock, as solid as the giant’s berries.He nodded, knowing where her thoughts had gone, and winked reassuringly.She wished she was seated beside him, instead of across from him.He would certainly take her hand and hold it.
Lifting her chin, she indicated to her husband she was fine.After all, this wasn’t Friedrich they were talking about.This was his brother, who’d became closer to Henrik, the longer they served.And then the captain, already a war hero, had his leg blown off at Waterloo.Yet he was still considered luckier than his brother.
