“That is what we do not know. We are yet to hear from the men searching the towns in Herefordshire. We hope we will find some answers there,” Holder related.
“May we meet them?” Lady Anne requested.
Edith pulled a cord for a bell and waited until Mrs Fenster entered the drawing room.“Will you have someone inform the nursemaids to bring the children down? If Mary is asleep, tell them to let her be.”
The housekeeper bobbed a curtsy and sent a maid to deliver the message.
“While we wait, how does Jamey enjoy the company of girls?” Lady Elaine enquired. Both she and Anne had decided to leave their boys at home today.
“He seems to relish the role of big brother and protector.” Edith smiled.
The wait was not for many minutes before Jamey marched into the drawing room ahead of a nurse who was holding Jane’s hand on one side and Elizabeth’s on the other. A second nurse arrived carrying Mary.
Jane and Elizabeth got shy with so many people they did not know in the room.
“Edith, they are such pretty little girls!” Lady Anne exclaimed.“I assume they did not come to you with those pretty dresses. They match each girl’s colouring very well.”
Holder could not but laugh.“Edith has been having much fun buying clothing for girls. It is very different from buying for Jamey.” He ruffled his son’s hair.
“It was me who first noticed Janey, Lizzy, and Mary,” Jamey said proudly.
Once Jane and Elizabeth saw that they had nothing to fear from the new people, they both relaxed. So much so that Elizabeth toddled over to Lady Anne and lifted her arms.“Up!” she demanded.
Anne Darcy, who wanted another child more than anything else, did not need to be asked twice. It took a minute for the little imp to worm her way into Anne’s heart.
The more comfortable she became, the more Elizabeth babbled as she touched the nice lady’s face. She could not but like her because the lady’s hair and eye colour were just like Janey’s.
Darcy saw the moment his Anne lost her heart to the little mite sitting on her lap.
Jane sat next to Lady Elaine, looking up at her with her big, deep blue eyes.
Looking at little Jane, Lady Elaine decided with her colouring, the little girl could be mistaken for a Fitzwilliam. That thought reignited her desire for her own daughter.
Mary was in Edith’s arms. She was obviously comfortable there because it did not take long for Mary’s eyes to droop and close as she fell asleep. As Edith looked at her youngest—in her mind, they were hers—she felt a great contentment. They would be hers one day and not too far off.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
When the Carringtons departed London on Monday morning, the sixteenth day of April, the convoy had almost double the amount of coaches in it versus when they had travelled to Town from Staffordshire.
Two conveyances were to accommodate the additional girls, nursemaids, and wet nurse, but while their men would continue on to Snowhaven and Pemberley, Ladies Elaine and Anne, along with their three sons—two Fitzwilliams and one Darcy—were accompanying the Carringtons to their estate.
Edith looked at Jane. She had been nervous to enter the carriage as she remembered the previous time someone she trusted had taken her in a conveyance. It had ended with being left in Hyde Park and a scary, cool night outside with her two sisters. The fact that Jamey was to ride with them had settled Jane greatly until she had realised that Mary was not with them. That had set Lizzy—as the mite preferred to be called—off as well. To calm them, Edith had led them to the carriage with the nursemaids, governess, wet nurse, little Peter, and Mary within. She had explained that Mary needed to be with Mrs Indigo and her son so that when Mary needed to eat, she would be able to do so.
Remembering that when they had been with Mamma, it had just been Lizzy, Mary, and herself and no others, helped Jane calm. At the first few rest stops, Edith walked Jane back to the same carriage so she could satisfy herself that Mary was still with them.
All Edith could do was pray that when, not if, the three became her daughters, they would soon forget the horrendous actions of their birth mother—that was all the woman was in Edith’s mind—given their young ages. She was grateful Mary would never know what had happened and that as soon as Jane forgotthe past and accepted they would never be abandoned again; Lizzy would take her lead from her older sister.
~~~~~~~/~~~~~~~
Gardiner and his Maddie were enjoying their time on their wedding trip so much that they added two or three days. So, rather than arrive back in London the second Friday of April, they would arrive on the following Wednesday, the eighteenth day of April.
They arrived at 23 Gracechurch Street in the early afternoon, which they could not know was the same time a convoy of coaches was close to Holder Heights.
An unexplained impulse drove Gardiner to go into his office before showing Maddie the house. There he saw an express from Phillips’s law office, but not from his former brother-in-law.
Reading the missive almost made Gardiner want to cast up his accounts.“I will kill her; I do not care that she is my flesh and blood!” he spat out.
“Edward, what is it? You are frightening me,” Maddie said tremulously.
