Poppy and Pansy (Chemsworth Hall #6)

Prologue

Elspeth Granger, Viscountess Mulholland, had overseen the genial disposition of five of her daughters in the time-honored tradition of marriage.

Or if not overseen, precisely, then directed her eldest son to manage it and then gone back to her own pursuits with every confidence of success.

The lady’s carefree approach had worked swimmingly and she was in receipt of five genial sons-in-law.

It had been very convenient to have Henry in Oxford, forever on the lookout for likely gentlemen for her girls.

These days, though, Henry had already been relocated to Chemsworth for some time.

The viscount had for years agreed to his son living in Oxford as he’d been under the impression that Henry was closely following anticipated breakthroughs in farming techniques.

It began to seem as if Oxford was falling down on the job, as those breakthroughs never came.

As all fathers will do eventually, the viscount had enough and said, “Oxford can write me a letter if the blasted place ever gets around to discovering anything useful to me.” Henry had been ordered home.

This, naturally, brought Henry’s wife home too.

Maribelle Granger, daughter of the reviled Mrs. Ravencraft, had not begun her marriage with much friendliness from her mother-in-law, but a truce had settled between them.

Henry had begun the peace process by demanding the viscountess no longer refer to his wife as “the bride.” A young grandson who adored both of them pressed them forward in it.

Teddy was forever wishing that they both come together to see some accomplishment he was proud of.

It also helped that Teddy’s other grandmama, Mrs. Ravencraft, saw the young man at Holby House and not Chemsworth.

The viscountess and Maribelle were further bonded by their total agreement that Teddy ought not be sent off to school. Miss Millthorpe had no wish to retire just yet and that lady taught the boy, as she had taught his father before he attended Oxford.

There was peace in the house, but as the years went on, there was the smallest bit of unease hanging in the air. Or hanging in the air somewhere above stairs, specifically.

The unease was for Poppy and Pansy.

The twins, Elspeth’s youngest daughters, were very attached to one another and, though nobody said it aloud, they all thought this could not bode well.

How were the twins to wed and live apart?

Were they to be satisfied with exchanging letters?

Would one wed and the other live as a spinster in her sister’s house?

Would any husband put up with it? What was to be the future for two young ladies who had spent all their lives side by side, happily encouraging one another and propping up one another when disaster struck?

They planned and schemed together, they were ill in bed together, they were Queens of The Inviolate Kingdom together and still occasionally rang the cowbell from that location to alert the house to visitors. They had never in their lives spent a day apart.

As the viscountess was not of a temperament to allow herself to fret for long over these ideas, she did the only sensible thing to be done.

She relocated the problem into the hands of the rest of her children.

Henry might be at home and not able to accomplish much, but her daughters and their husbands could certainly manage it between them.

She had fired off letters to all of them and then went back to her own pursuits with every confidence of success.

.