Chapter 6 - William #2
The way she’d been speaking lately, it sounded like she planned on making the most of her Season and didn't plan on living at home with her family for very long.
William suspected she had some sort of scheme up her sleeve.
She was always the most deliberative, and he should have known that she wouldn't enter such a monumental time of her life without extensive thought on the matter.
He wanted to ask what she meant, but before he could, the carriage bumped to a stop in front of the townhouse. There was no time left for any question he might have devised.
"Oh, it's simply beautiful," Lily gushed, leaning forward to look through the window.
"I don't see any difference." Beatrice frowned. "It looks the same as it ever has."
Claire rolled her eyes. "Because the exterior is the same as it ever was."
"On the contrary," William said, opening the carriage door and taking the steps that the footman had just let down. "The exterior was one of the most expensive parts. Leave it to you ladies not to recognize good tuckpointing when you see it."
"Tuckpointing?" Margaret said. "Isn't that that lovely sewing technique that I had on one of my gowns?"
"That's pin tucking, dear," Lily said.
William helped his sisters down from the carriage one by one.
They stood in a line from eldest to youngest, respectively, and he wondered if they did it out of habit.
Claire frowned up at the elegant building as if she were loathe to return—as if when she opened the front door, it would be to find their brother Richard bellowing at her.
Or perhaps those were his own thoughts coloring his emotions.
Lily took everything in with those soft, kind eyes of hers. Beatrice studied the gas lamp that the Greek stone statue held aloft above her head.
"It actually burns now," she said, turning toward Margaret with a grin. "There's a fire in it."
"It was always meant to work," Claire said. "There was no money for a repair until now."
She said it as if William should be ashamed of himself, as if the money for the repair were a bad thing.
Perhaps he and his sister needed to have a private conversation.
He’d chalked up her attitude to the interminable stay in the hotel and the announcement that her three sisters would have a Season alongside her.
Technically, Claire had been presented years ago, but it was only a technicality, nothing more.
"Well, it's lovely," Lily said a bit defensively.
"Shall we go in?" He didn't wait for their answer, simply charged up the stone steps with Margaret puffing in his wake.
She nearly ran into him on the landing.
He smiled down at her. "In a hurry, are we?"
"I have been trapped with them in that hotel these past eight weeks," Margaret hissed, nodding down at her sisters.
Claire and Lily still looked up at the house—Claire with an inspecting, narrowed eye, and Lily with wide eyes of wonder and enchantment.
Beatrice was just lifting her skirts to take the steps after them.
"I was forced to share a room with Beatrice, for she and Claire cannot be alone together for more than a quarter hour without trying to tear each other's hair out.
She may be lovely, but she snores like a draft horse with a cold.
I cannot wait to have my own room again.
I don't care what it looks like. Give me a cot in the corner and I'll be fine as long as there's silence. "
William chuckled. “Very well, though I suspect Abeer has done better than a cot in the corner."
"Quick, they're coming," Margaret hissed. "Let me in so I may gain some distance."
"Absolutely not. We must all stay together."
"And why is that?" She blinked up at him.
“Because it's my house and I make the rules.” He said it lightly, jokingly, but a thundercloud still crossed her expression.
William frowned and wondered if his brother had used such a line. Of course he had. What was he thinking? Richard had used such a line on William himself when he was still alive.
"I'm only joking," William added. "Don't tell the others, but I've spent a small fortune redecorating this house.
The entire time I told myself that the project would be worth it as long as you ladies were pleased with the result.
How am I supposed to see your reactions if you all skitter off into the corners like rats? "
"You're always comparing us to rodents," she teased, though the lightness had come back in her eyes once more. "Why is that?"
"Perhaps it's because I spent so much time on ships, and ships have an abundance of rodents.”
“They also have an abundance of blue sky and puffy clouds, but you're never comparing us to those."
"Clouds are silent. If you'd like me to compare you all to weather, that's easily enough done, however."
"Is that so?" The other ladies were coming up the stairs behind them, but Margaret pressed, "And what weather would I be, pray tell?"
"What is this fanciful conversation?" Lily teased.
"Our brother is comparing us to the weather," Margaret supplied.
"Go on then," Lily said. "What kind of weather are we?"
He considered for a moment. "Lily, you would be a day full of sunshine and a perfect cool breeze."
Lily laughed.
"That's only because you haven't seen her before breakfast," Beatrice teased good-naturedly. "There's nothing of a cool breeze before she's had tea, I can assure you."
"What about me?" Margaret said.
"You would be a playful wind, snapping the sails one moment, lulling us into a stupor the next, and always changing direction."
"Fair enough. What of Beatrice?"
"Beatrice is like the winds just after the sunset. Every night the wind picks up. It’s very useful on most occasions, but sometimes it can be a little much."
Beatrice pinched her lips together. "Really.”
“And I suppose I would be the thunderstorm." Claire sailed past him through the open door, not waiting for his reply.
On the contrary, William thought.
Lately, Claire was like those freezing winter storms where sleet came in and slapped at your face until you were nearly blind with the cold and had trouble remembering which direction was north, wondering whether or not the storm would ever end at all.
"This is lovely," Lily said as soon as they crossed the threshold.
His sisters were right—he had been here more often than they were.
In fact, the artisans had delivered the statue of Artemis that dominated the entryway only last week.
The lady stood across from a massive gilt mirror that sent her reflection back at her.
William scuffed his leather boot against the marble tiles of the entryway, an intricate parquet inlaid with thin rods of brass.
The butler and several of the servants waited just inside the door, along with the housekeeper. They assisted his sisters with their wraps, gloves, and bonnets.
"Thank you for assembling," he said. "We are going to explore the house at our leisure."
They nodded and departed. His sisters were already wandering into the great hall, their eyes wide. William was gratified to see that even Claire looked a little impressed despite herself.
Before the renovation, the hallway had been much smaller, with a low ceiling to conserve heat. William had redesigned it so that the hall was now two stories tall, with a huge crystal chandelier and two full-length windows at the back of the house that let light in.
"It looks like a different house," Beatrice exclaimed, touching her fingertips to the rich wood paneling on the walls.
"It nearly is." William's eyes narrowed down onto a section of marble tile where the craftsmen had struggled to merge the threshold of one room with the other. But they’d figured it out in the end, for it looked flawless and flat.
To the right, a grand staircase curved gracefully toward the second story. Claire and Lily had already disappeared through the large archway to the left into the massive front parlor.
William had known he was going to miss the large, gracious vistas from his house in India.
The cloistered rooms of an albeit-large London townhouse would only add to his claustrophobia, so wherever possible, he’d endeavored to add light and space to the house.
If he was to be tied to London for the next few years, marrying off his sisters, he wanted to feel at least somewhat at home.
He followed his sisters into the mammoth front parlor. Here, William had removed the wall between two smaller rooms to create one palatial one, with a fireplace at either end. It had turned out better than he could have imagined.
Abeer had found two marble fireplaces that had been stripped from some grand French chateau during the revolution.
The large mantles were decorated with an assortment of painted plates from the far reaches of the Orient, as well as a gold-leafed clock that even now proclaimed they were late for dinner.
Still, William would not hurry his sisters; their admiration was all he’d been looking forward to these past months.
"Look at the rugs," Lily gushed. "They’re simply lovely."
They had better be for what they cost, William thought.
Two identical custom rugs anchored the separate seating configurations. In front of each marble fireplace, two tufted leather sofas faced each other, accompanied by two sets of upholstered chairs.
Each grouping could seat no fewer than ten people, though William vehemently hoped that there would never be that many people in the room at once. Still, as he did have eight sisters and hypothetically they might all marry, his own family could someday be large enough to take up most of this room.
He blinked at the realization.
"Where on earth did you get a tapestry that large?" Beatrice nodded at the far wall where a grand wall-hanging covered nearly the entire expanse.
It was a scene of Charlemagne and his court, and Abeer told him it had come from the castle Palace of Versailles itself.
"I’ll ask," he said.