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“But Fulvia needs a house,” Ella said.
“Fulvia!” Her uncle snorted. “She can’t live in a fashionable area like this! I heard the other day that she might actually take a part on the stage. A St. Trevelyon on the common stage!”
“Yes, I heard the same,” Ella said. “We shall be there for opening night of King Lear. I gather she has a small part, but I’m certain that with time your daughter will become a lead.”
The viscount shuddered. “I should have blown my head off when I had the chance.”
“If and only if Ella wishes, we will lend the house to your daughter for her use,” Fiennes said. “But if so, she may not do more than welcome you to a meal now and then. It is not your house, and it never will be again. In short, you cannot pledge it on a toss of the dice.”
The viscount humphed. “Mighty strange to be a visitor to one’s own house.”
“Your allowance is sufficient to live in your club or take lodgings,” Fiennes remarked. “That is, if you don’t make me angry. I’m certain that Fulvia’s husband will inform me if you threaten her or anyone in the household.”
“Why would I?” The viscount tossed his head and scooped up his hat from the floor. “You summoned me here for a ritual shaming, but if you’ve had your fun, I’ll go my way.”
“Good afternoon, Uncle,” Ella said.
She turned and threw herself into her husband’s arms. “You know how fairy tales always end?”
Fiennes shook his head. “Not really. The frog kisses the princess? Something like that.”
“No,” she said, gurgling with laughter. “They live happily ever after.”
“Oh.” He captured her mouth, kissing her until her lips were swollen and her eyes— “This house is empty,” he observed.
“We couldn’t!”
As it turned out … a wall is just a vertical bed.
* * *
TOWNHOUSE BELONGING TO LORD AND LADY PEREGRINE
THE FOLLOWING YEAR
March 16, 1816
Lady Peregrine was in the nursery (again), hanging over the crib (again), staring at her daughter Charlotte, who was precisely two months old today.
Having just been changed and fed, Charlotte was lying on her back chewing on one of her big toes. “I couldn’t do that,” Ella told her daughter, leaning over the railing so she could tickle her round tummy. “I do think you are the cleverest baby in the whole world, aren’t you?”
Charlotte smiled around the foot and made an agreeable sound.
“Don’t you agree with me, Nanny Banks?” Ella asked.
Naturally enough, a nanny has to be a politician. Nanny Banks had been trained by the very best, and she understood her place; she had almost been selected to serve in the royal nursery, after all, and had confidentially been informed that the only reason she wasn’t selected was due to her red hair.
The queen was afraid of red hair. Since Lady Peregrine and Charlotte both had an abundance of red curls, she was welcome in this nursery.
“I dare say, my lady,” Nanny said, which is how she greeted all of the young mother’s more foolish comments. It wasn’t customary, having a mother who couldn’t keep herself out of the nursery, but Nanny couldn’t say Lady Peregrine was doing any harm.
Her ladyship insisted on keeping the window next to the crib wide open, but thankfully, the air was balmy this morning. The babe had recently learned how to babble, which her mother and father thought was marvelous—for sad to say, the duke was as foolish as his wife.
But that was the way of the world, to Nanny Banks’s mind. She kept snapping out sheets and hanging them to air before the fire, planning the conversation she would have with the housekeeper, Mrs. Dace, later in the day.
These sheets hadn’t been properly folded: She saw a crease, a distinct crease. She pretended not to notice when Lord Peregrine ducked into the nursery, kissed his wife on the back of the neck, took her hand, and drew her away. The two were something else, but secretly, she liked the way his lordship looked at his wife.
On the windowsill, a curious sparrow hopped closer to the crib.
