Chapter 9
Heron House
“C ome along, Lady Margery, join the fray,” Grandmama called, clapping her bejeweled hands that bore the evidence of time and a life well lived, as she strode into the long drawing room, her emerald skirts sailing behind her like an exotic bird’s wings.
Lady Margery followed in a far simpler gown of light blue and looked as if she had joined a circus.
She had. Poor thing. She had absolutely no idea! And feeling a good deal of sympathy for her, and considering the fact that Margery was very possibly going to be her future sister-in-law, Portia bustled across the room and quite unceremoniously and enthusiastically took Lady Margery’s hands into hers. She pulled her close and said, “I shall make sure you survive the day.”
Lady Margery gave a strange peep of a sound and said, “Thank you. I greatly appreciate it. I confess I have never been greeted by so many people all at once who are in one family and seem so, well…”
“Happy,” her grandmother put in, twirling her hand, which caused her jeweled fingers to wink in the cheerful light.
Lady Margery nodded.
“It is rather astonishing,” Portia agreed, beaming at the young lady, who actually seemed to be bearing up rather well, considering. “We’re all so used to it. Sometimes we forget what we are like to strangers, but I’m so glad that you are here, and I’m so glad that we’re going to get to share the Season together, or at least that’s what Grandmama and my mother told me.”
A large horde of cousins of varying ages went about their daily activities. From singing, to reading, to reciting, to writing, to dancing about them, they paid Portia and Lady Margery little heed.
But Lady Margery kept being distracted, her brown eyes going from one animated person to the next.
“Oh, will you all stop it?” Portia called out. “The poor thing shall run mad and never return again.”
“I rather like it, actually,” Lady Margery blurted, holding Portia’s hands tightly.
Even if she did like it, it was a lot.
Cymbeline, one of Portia’s younger cousins, was skipping about practicing the steps to a quadrille. Just as she curtsied and then began the sprightly steps of a jig, Portia’s older cousins, Maximus and Octavian, charged into the room, tossing an orange back and forth between them.
“Stop that,” Grandmama called, tsking. “Never waste an orange, my dear. The orange sellers of my grandmother’s day would have murdered you on the spot!”
Both boys laughed as if they were thinking something else about what orange sellers might have done back in those days.
Those days were far wilder, it was true.
Still, Maximus kept the orange in his grasp and came forward, his dark hair a mass of curls about his face. Then he took Grandmama in his arms before he kissed her on the cheek. “Whatever you say, Grandmama.”
The dowager duchess patted his cheek. “Well said, my boy.”
Octavian followed. “My turn!” He then took Grandmama into a quick embrace, picked her up, and spun her around. “How we’ve missed you!”
The two of them were dressed from top to bottom in scarlet with gold lapels and sashes. They had both returned from Spain just that morning and their mother, Lady Hermia, and their father, the Earl of Drexel, not wishing to let them out of their sight, entered just behind them and quietly went to sit by the windows, looking on as if life could not get any better. Just to see their sons was a joy.
Maximus strode forward with his orange, began peeling it, and immediately handed a piece over to his mother.
“Darling Mama,” he said, “what shall we do today?”
His father beamed up at his son. Life had been fairly kind to the Earl of Drexel and his wife and their children. But the war? Well, the war was inescapable. And much to the ton’s astonishment, both sons had insisted on going to fight.
There was a younger boy up in the nursery.
In case something happened to Maximus, the title would continue. It was the only way that such a thing could happen. And Portia knew how much it hurt the Earl of Drexel and her aunt to let the boys go, but the twins had been insistent. They wanted to do their part, and they had been fighting hard in Spain for more than a year.
Lady Margery seemed quite overblown for a moment by the two young men, Cymbeline dancing about, and several other people who kept racing in and out.
“My family is exceptionally large,” Portia said.
Margery laughed. “It almost seems as big as the ton.”
Grandmama produced an elaborately painted fan and waved it in the air before she let out a boisterous laugh. “We shall overpopulate the ton, take them over, replace their dreariness, and make it the most stunning, wonderful, beautiful cultural place in the world.”
Margery blinked. “Could you? Would you mind terribly? As it is, it’s a dreadfully dull place, if I must say so.”
“Ah,” Grandmama said, smiling as she came to Lady Margery and linked their arms together. “You belong here. I’m so glad to hear it. Leander, my eldest son, the duke, of course, must have sensed that you needed all of us. Your brother is a dear, but clearly he knows nothing about young ladies.”
At that, Lady Margery pulled back slightly. “That’s not true. He’s tremendously kind to me, I’ll have you know. He’s done everything he can to make life better since Papa and Mama…” Her voice died off.
“Oh, my dear,” Grandmama soothed kindly, “people do forget that even dukes suffer, that the families of dukes suffer, and that sometimes being surrounded by gold and marble can be terribly hollow. Sometimes a little nook in the east of London where at least one is loved is better.”
Margery’s eyes actually filled with tears at that, and she blinked rapidly. “Forgive me,” she said, whipping out a handkerchief and dabbing at them.
“You must never ask for forgiveness for tears,” Portia returned. “We cry at the drop of a hat here. Terribly good for one’s physique, you know, and a must for the soul.”
“What?” Margery gasped. “You cry so easily?”
Grandmama squeezed her tight then, patting her hand. “Very odd with the English, my dear, I know, at least now, but we do, and you shall too if you need to. A first Season can be quite stressful for a young lady. Now, tell us your goals,” Grandmama encouraged as she pulled the young lady to the long mahogany table covered in confectionaries, picked up a pink macaron, and put it on a plate.
Grandmama thrust the ivory and gold plate at Lady Margery. “For you.”
Lady Margery beamed. “You really do serve the very best of pastries.”
Her grandmother gushed, “Thank you. We managed to get the French cook out of an exquisite chateau when France was falling apart. He is very happy working in our kitchens. I have to stop him from gold filigreeing everything though. A dessert is lovely. Gold, I don’t need.”
Margery let out a laugh. “Certainly not. Such a thing would be excessive, would it not? And we are English, not French.”
“Well, we do like the French,” pointed out Grandmama.
“It’s true,” Portia replied. “Although I do understand your comments, especially given the war.”
Maximus called, looking up from the paper his mother was surveying, “What about the war?”
“The French, my dear, we like the French,” Grandmama intoned.
“Oh, the French people are brilliant,” Maximus said.
“Fabulous fighters, nothing better,” added Octavian, leaning against the bookshelf behind his father.
“Exactly,” Maximus agreed heartily. “They’re terrifying. A French column would put shivers down your spine.”
Lady Margery swung her gaze back and forth, trying to eye everyone in the room, especially the brothers who were going on and on now about war.
“Fabulous fellows, delightfully pithy, officers also brilliant,” Octavian put in. “It’s such a pity that they are so determined to cause such a fuss.”
“A fuss?” echoed Lady Margery, frowning. “I wouldn’t exactly call it a fuss,” she said. “War is really very terrible.”
The dowager duchess leaned in and whispered rather loudly, and clearly for effect, “We must make light of it, my dear. A good joke makes terrible things bearable. Don’t you see?”
“Oh really?” Lady Margery said, her brows shooting up. “I’ve never really been allowed.”
“Allowed to joke?” put in Portia, gobsmacked.
“I hate to admit it, but my brother and I…” Lady Margery pushed her macaron about the plate. “Well, we don’t have very good senses of humor. You see, when we were small, our father didn’t laugh at much.”
“Your father was a very difficult brute of a man,” sighed the dowager duchess with a great deal of sympathy. “I had to dance with him a few times. Excellent on the floor, but his conversational style was rather like a hammer. I prefer something far more poetical.”
“I certainly wouldn’t have called Papa poetic,” Lady Margery replied as she lifted her pink macaron and bit into it. She closed her eyes as bliss covered her face.
Nestor charged in, a veritable storm of energy and excitement. “Oh, if the macarons do that to one, give me one, Grandmama.”
“Of course, my dear.” And his grandmother picked up a macaron and tossed it to him.
Nestor caught it in both hands, strode forward, and kissed his grandmama upon the cheek, causing her diamond earrings to dance in the early sun.
Lady Margery gaped at the shocking play between them, and her cheeks turned a bright pink.
“Hello, Lady Margery,” Nestor exclaimed, his eyes warm and merry as he turned to her. “So glad that you’re fitting in so beautifully.”
“Am I?” she asked, putting her half-eaten macaron down. “Fitting in? It all feels a bit odd.”
“It is terribly odd,” Nestor said before popping the macaron into his mouth. Then a look of pure ecstasy crossed his face, his own eyes closed, and he wiped the corners of his mouth with his thumb before continuing. “But the sooner you enjoy it, the sooner you will be happy.”
“Happy?” Margery asked.
That word happy . It seemed to astonish Margery.
A good deal seemed to astonish her.
“We do seem to keep saying things that surprise you, my dear,” the dowager said kindly. “Well, never you fear. We will take you out this evening. I shall look after you, as will Portia’s mother, Lady Juliet. And we shall ensure that only the best of fellows ask for your hand.”
Lady Margery frowned, eyeing her plate. “I don’t think the best of fellows will ask for my hand,” she said. “Perhaps the best of titles with the largest fortunes, but I’d rather think I can only expect someone who—”
Portia grabbed her by the shoulder and turned her about, causing a few flecks of macaron to dance across the room.
“Now, my dear, this you must understand,” Portia began in the same vein that the women of her family had instilled in her long ago, “if you are going to be with us Briarwoods, and you clearly are, tell us what you dream of because that is what we will make happen. It is what the Briarwoods do, you see. We say what we want, and then we get it. And if you tell the whole world that you expect a dreary fellow with a great title and a great fortune, that’s what you’ll get. So please, don’t say it.”
Margery blinked at her as if they had all lost their wits. But then she smiled slightly and ventured, as if she was daring to share the greatest of secrets, “I wouldn’t mind someone very handsome with a large family, a good disposition, a merry humor, possibly a title but not necessarily, with the ability to enjoy life.”
A booming laugh slipped past the dowager’s slightly wrinkled lips. Her laughs had only grown louder and fuller over the years. Her gaze swung to Portia, and she pursed her lips dramatically. “We don’t know anyone like that at all, do we, my dear?”
“No, I don’t know a single person like it,” teased Portia.
“Are you making fun of me?” Margery asked, tensing.
Nestor, serious now, turned to her and leveled a sincere gaze at her. “Never, and if one of them does, I shall come to your rescue and teach you how to give as good as you get.”
“That would be very kind of you,” Lady Margery whispered, “but I realize now that they’re only teasing me.” Lady Margery glanced about. “They must mean that this room is full of gentlemen that I’ve described, but none of you would ever—”
Lady Margery clapped her lips shut. A horrified look crossed her face then.
Nestor cocked his head to the side, studying her carefully. “You mustn’t speak ill about yourself, Lady Margery,” Nestor said. “Not a single one of us will ever allow that. Will we?”
And as one, the cousins, who were used to answering each other’s call, collectively returned, “No.”
Margery appeared both touched and alarmed by the volume.
“You really are going to have to get used to us, especially if…” Portia’s voice trailed off.
Margery put her plate down upon the table and took Portia’s hand. “Especially if you become my sister? How wonderful would that be?”
“I don’t know,” Portia replied tentatively. “You’d have to put up with us every day. For the rest of your life.”
Lady Margery swallowed. “I think I should very much like, if I’m honest, to be part of this family.”
Nestor winked at her. “Nothing better,” he said, then he clapped his strong hands together. “Now, we’re going to go find your brother. He’s gone off with my uncle, the duke. We can’t miss that kind of fun.” Nestor swung his gaze to Maximus and Octavian. “Can we, lads?”
Maximus and his brother let out cheers.
“Certainly not,” affirmed Octavian.
“Let’s go harass Ferrars,” quipped Maximus. “Can’t let new family members off easily.” He waggled his brows at Margery. “We have to show them right away what it’s going to be like so that they’re not surprised.”
“Are we to be family for certain then?” Margery teased, her voice truly playful for the first time since she’d arrived.
Portia smiled at her. “He still hasn’t actually asked me. I think he doesn’t think he has to. He does though.”
“He does seem to think that contracts will be signed soon,” Margery admitted.
“Contracts are fine, but they are not enough,” Portia replied gently. “Not for a Briarwood.”
“And what will you say?” Margery asked. “When he asks?”
She grinned. “Since you will be my sister, there’s really only one thing to say.”
And it was true. She’d be so glad that Lady Margery would join the protection of the Briarwoods. Such a kind young lady deserved to be surrounded by love.
Everyone did. If she had her way, everyone would.