by Amelia Grey
Bray looked from Bonnie’s disappointed features to Louisa’s angry expression. How could he explain to them what he was feeling? How could he tell them how much this simple act of unselfish kindness meant to him? He had no words for this child’s gift. He felt so undeserving.
“You don’t have to keep it if you don’t want it,” Bonnie said. “It’s all right. It’s not very good anyway.”
“No, no,” he said earnestly. “Of course I want it.” Bray dropped to one knee, held out his arms, and said, “Come here and let me give you a hug.”
The little girl flew into his embrace.
Bray closed his arms around her slight frame. He wanted to hug her tightly, but she was so small in his arms, he was afraid of hurting her if he squeezed too hard. Her spindly arms went around his neck and pulled him close. She was warm and smelled like soap and sweetness.
Is this what a sister feels like?
The same feelings of protectiveness that he’d felt when he saw Gwen in the courtyard stirred inside him now. At one time or another, he’d held a woman of just about every size, shape, and age, but he’d never held a child in his arms. That strong protective instinct swelled to overflowing again, and his resolve strengthened. Bonnie had been given to him to care for. This little girl had given him his first gift, and she had made it for him. No one was taking her from him.
“Thank you, Bonnie,” he said. “Thank you. It’s the most beautiful painting I’ve ever seen. I’ll always treasure it.”
From over Bonnie’s shoulder, he looked up at Louisa. For the fourth time since he’d known her, she had tears in her eyes. Tears that once again he had caused. He didn’t blame her for being angry with him. There was a lot he didn’t know about doing the right thing, about being part of a happy, loving family.
But there was one thing he did know.
“I am her guardian, Louisa.” He turned Bonnie loose and rose to his feet. “You don’t have to like it and you don’t have to like me, but I will be your sisters’ guardian. I will be responsible for them. You will not change that.”
Gwen’s words about love invaded his thoughts. Is that why Louisa had refused to marry him? Was she waiting for him to confess that he loved her? Maybe he did love her. He didn’t know.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Louisa, and tell you I love you. All I know is that I feel differently about you than any other woman. I think about you, I want you, I want to be with you, but I don’t know that it’s love.” He took a step closer to her. “I know I told you that you would have to ask me to marry you, but now this time I am asking you properly to marry me.”
Her eyes searched his face. He knew she had feelings for him, too, but did she like him enough to marry him?
“How can I marry you when my sisters make you flinch and swear when they laugh, or cry, or play? Bray, you don’t even know how to say thank you to a little girl.”
She was right—he didn’t—but he was capable of learning.
“I can’t subject them to you or you to them,” she continued. “I’m afraid all of you will end up hating me. You don’t have the patience to live with them day after day, and I refuse to live without them.”
“I have had the patience of Job concerning the girls and this household,” he ground out fiercely.
He couldn’t believe she’d refused him again. Didn’t she know what it cost him to ask her to marry him after he’d told her that it was she who would have to ask him the next time? He had never allowed himself to be that vulnerable to anyone. Didn’t his capitulation on that tell her anything about the way he felt about her?
“I’ll marry you,” Bonnie said. The small voice penetrated Bray’s thoughts.
He looked down at Bonnie, and his throat tightened again when he saw how sincere she was. His feelings for her overwhelmed him, and he smiled at her. “I would take you up on that, missy, if you were a little older.”
“I’m older,” Sybil said, appearing from around the doorway. “I’ll marry you.”
He smiled at Sybil, too. “You aren’t old enough to marry, either, young lady, but when you and Bonnie are, I’ll be around to help you pick the perfect gentleman to make you happy.”
“I want him to be just like you,” Bonnie said, smiling back at him with her missing teeth.
“Bray, I—”
“You’ve said enough, Louisa,” he said, knowing that trying to learn how to love her had been his greatest challenge and it looked like he had failed miserably at it. “You’ve said all I need to hear.”
Bray rolled the painting and stuck it in his pocket. He reached out both his hands and said, “Sybil, Bonnie, come walk with me to the door.”
They took hold of his hands, and the three of them walked out.
Chapter 27
Every why hath a wherefore.
—The Comedy of Errors, act 2, scene 2
As soon as Bray had left, Louisa sent Sybil and Bonnie up to Miss Kindred. She put on her bonnet, grabbed a shawl, and headed to the back garden.
Gray skies threatened rain and matched her mood. Louisa walked along the edge of the shrubbery, letting her hand gently skim along the scratchy leaves. What was she thinking? She knew Bray didn’t have designs on Gwen. She should never have accused him of such a thing, but at the time, she was angry about him for not telling her that the Prince wanted them to marry. She was shocked when she saw Bray walk in from the courtyard behind Gwen.
Did he really feel like Gwen was his sister? Even though it took him a few seconds, he did finally figure out how to properly thank Bonnie for her gift. But had Bonnie and Sybil really said they would marry him? Maybe her sisters could live peacefully with Bray and he with them. The thought of that made her love for him soar. Oh, how could she have been so wrong?
Louisa didn’t know what she could say or do to redeem herself. She had acted like a shrew to Bray and then let him walk out the door without apologizing.
She heard the back door open, and she saw Gwen standing on the top step. All of a sudden, Gwen flew down the steps and threw herself in Louisa’s arms and started crying.
“Gwen, please tell me what’s wrong! Did something happen at Mrs. Roland’s card party?”
No amount of talking and soothing was going to calm Gwen until she finished crying, so Louisa just held her and let her weep.
When the sniffling faded, Gwen raised her head and said, “Read this. It was waiting for me when I got home.”
Louisa took the note and opened it. Her gaze immediately dropped to the bottom of the letter, where she saw Mr. Standish’s signature. Her heart squeezed. She scanned the note and then said, “He’s leaving Town for the rest of the Season.”
“And he doesn’t love me, Louisa. I had thought he felt for me the same way I felt about him.” More tears ran down Gwen’s cheeks.
Louisa took the end of her shawl and wiped her sister’s damp cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Gwen. But here, read it again. Mr. Standish doesn’t actually say he doesn’t love you.”
“He didn’t have to. He told me so last night.”
“When?”
“I took a walk with him in the courtyard. I know you and Mrs. Colthrust told me not to, and even the duke told me I shouldn’t have walked with Mr. Standish, but I thought he was going to propose to me. That’s when he told me he didn’t love me.”
Now, Louisa knew why Bray was coming in from the courtyard with Gwen. Oh, how could she ever have accused him of pursuing her sister? Would he ever forgive her for declining his proposal of marriage?
“What am I going to do?” Gwen asked. “Mr. Standish doesn’t love me.”
“Well, the first thing you can do is understand that you can’t make someone love you. They either do or don’t. And it sounds like Mr. Standish just isn’t sure yet.”
Much like the duke wasn’t sure he loved her.
“Now, you can be miserable and cry every day while you wait for Mr. Standish to return so that you can continue to enjoy the gentlemen you are dancing with, and c
onversing with, and playing cards with, and enjoy the rest of the Season while you wait for him to come back. It’s your choice how you spend your time.”
“Do you think I’ll have another chance to win his love?”
“I don’t see why not. He admits that he’s too young to think of marriage but that if he were going to, it would be with you. That should lift your spirits and make you feel better.”
She sniffled again. “Yes—yes, it does.”
“Good. Now, why don’t you go send him a note thanking him for his lovely letter and that you’ll look forward to renewing your acquaintance with him when he returns?”
Gwen’s eyes brightened and a smile spread across her face. “Thank you, Louisa—you are the best sister in the world. I’ll do that right now.” She spun away.
“Gwen?”
Gwen stopped and turned back to her.
“I’m glad the duke was there for you to talk to last night.”
“So was I, Louisa. It was almost like having Nathan back.”
So Bray and Gwen really did feel like brother and sister.
Louisa shivered and her eyes closed as understanding flooded her. She wrapped her shawl tighter around her and wondered how she could have let Bray walk out the door without explaining her feelings of hurt and anger?
Bray hadn’t done everything right, but neither had she. He’d admitted he didn’t have the kind of childhood she’d had, that he’d never been around girls. Maybe he had been patient with the girls—for him. She once thought he could never learn to accept her sisters, but just maybe he already had. And she’d been too blind to see it, but Bonnie, Sybil, and Gwen hadn’t.
She had always thought she’d marry a gentle soul like her father, a man who didn’t argue, demand, or raise his voice no matter the situation. But she now knew she would never be happy with a man like that. She wanted there to be laughter and sparks of excitement between her and her husband. She wanted the passion she’d experienced when she was in Bray’s arms.
Louisa had to go to Bray and ask him to forgive her. She knew it wasn’t proper for a young lady to go to a gentleman’s house, but she had been improper with him before. She hoped she wasn’t too late and that he hadn’t already decided to completely wash his hands of her.
Hearing the back door open, she turned to see her uncle step out on the landing. Louisa’s mouth dropped open.
“There you are, Louisa.”
“Uncle, you’re back.”
“Yes. Mrs. Woolwythe said she thought you were in the garden. She’s seems a nice woman, but we’ll have to let her go now that I’m back with my staff. Well, don’t look so shocked. I can’t have two housekeepers.”
“I’m shocked that you’re back, Uncle. We never heard a word from you while you were away.”
Her uncle walked down the steps. “You knew I would return one day,” he said.
“Yes, of course. How is your wife? How was your journey?”
“My wife is blessed to be with child. We discovered she was not long after we arrived in Portugal, so we immediately started making plans to come back to England. We didn’t want there to be any chance that my son would be born abroad.”
“I’m very pleased for you, Uncle.”
“Have things been well here? Has Ramona behaved herself and done what a proper chaperone should?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I didn’t speak to her. Mrs. Woolwythe said she naps every afternoon before readying herself for the evening’s parties.”
“She has done an outstanding job, Uncle,” Louisa said, knowing she was fibbing a little on the word “outstanding.”
“Excellent. I’m glad the Season is almost over. Are there any offers of marriage on the table?”
She hesitated, and finally said, “No.”
“Well, of course, you and Gwen can remain here until the Season is finished, but I’ll have to send the younger girls back to Wayebury immediately.”
Louisa recoiled from that thought. “Why would you want to do that?”
“First, there’s no room for us here with all of you, and my wife can’t be subject to that many people in the house, anyway. She’s delicate, you understand. We’ve checked into an inn until I can send the other girls back to Wayebury. She wants to get settled back into her home as soon as possible. Of course, you and Gwen will be able to stay and finish your Season—and hopefully she will make a match. If she doesn’t, I should be able to find someone to offer for her.”
Over my dead body, Louisa thought, but remained silently seething.
“I’ll go to the Court of Chancery tomorrow and apply to have my guardianship of you and the girls reinstated.”
Louisa’s heart started pumping faster. “Can you do that after tossing us aside?”
“Of course, so long as the duke doesn’t fight it. And, I mean, why would he? You don’t think he wants to take care of half a dozen girls one day longer than he has to, do you?”
“Five, Uncle,” she ground out. “There are five of us, and being that we are your brother’s children, you should know that.”
“Don’t get huffy with me, young lady.” He rolled his shoulders and pulled on the tail of his coat. “The details of this really don’t concern you. Don’t give it another thought. I’ll take care of everything tomorrow. Now I should go. I won’t bother Ramona today. I’ll wait and speak to her tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Uncle,” she said, knowing exactly what she was going to do.
Louisa followed her uncle into the house. She found Mrs. Woolwythe and asked her to see that the footman had their carriage brought to the front of the house. She then went up to the schoolroom and asked Miss Kindred to help Bonnie, Sybil, and Lillian get their bonnets and coats for an outing and to meet her belowstairs. She found Gwen and told her the same.
She went into her bedroom, and from her wardrobe she grabbed her coin purse and put it inside her reticule. The girls and Saint met her at the front door.
“Where are we going?” Gwen asked.
“I don’t care where we’re going,” Sybil said. “I’m just glad we’re getting to go somewhere.”
Louisa smiled. “Girls, we are going to the duke’s house.”
“Yippee!” Sybil and Bonnie squealed.
“But no screaming,” Louisa said good-naturedly. “You must talk softly at all times. And Sybil, why don’t you get your button collection to look at or something to keep your hands busy, so you won’t be tempted to touch anything.”
“All right,” she said, and started running up the stairs.
“Can I take my doll?” Bonnie asked. “I don’t want to touch anything and get in trouble either.”
“Of course, but hurry.” Louisa looked at Gwen and Lillian. “If you want to take anything with you, now is the time to go get it.”
“If we can take Saint,” Lillian said, “I’ll get his leash.”
Louisa thought about that and then said, “Yes, let’s take him.” The duke needed to know exactly what he was in for.
A few minutes later, they were all standing outside the duke’s door, staring at the rather stern-looking Mr. Tidmore, who gave them the once-over as he said, “Have you brought the dog back?”
“No,” Bonnie said, loud enough for every neighbor on the street to hear, and Saint barked several times, too. “He’s ours.”
“Bonnie, remember what I said about talking softly,” Louisa said, and then looked back at the butler. “May we see the duke?”
“I’m afraid he’s not in, miss.”
Louisa moistened her lips and said, “May we wait inside for him?”
“I’m afraid I can’t allow that, miss. I have no idea what time he will be returning. It could be rather late, and he may not want visitors.”
“I won’t touch anything this time, if you let us stay,” Sybil said. “I learned my lesson about that.”
“I didn’t have a lesson to learn,” Bonnie said, “but I won’t touch anything, either.”
Mr. T
idmore stared blankly at the girls but said nothing.
“Girls,” Louisa said. “I’ll handle this. Mr. Tidmore, the duke is our guardian, and it’s most urgent I speak to him when he returns. We will either wait for him in the warmth of the drawing room or we will wait for him in the chill on the front steps.”
“Very well,” Mr. Tidmore said, sounding a bit annoyed. “Come in and sit in the drawing room and wait, and see that you don’t touch anything. I’ll send someone to see if we can locate the duke and tell him you are here.”
“Thank you,” Louisa said.
They settled themselves in the drawing room and waited and waited. Louisa was happy that the girls didn’t seem to mind sitting so quietly for so long. When it grew dark, Bonnie and Sybil became restless. A servant came in and lit a fire and the lamps. Mr. Tidmore came in and asked to speak to Louisa alone, so she joined him in the corridor.
“The dinner hour will be approaching soon, Miss Prim. Would you like for me to have our cook prepare something for you and your sisters, or will you be leaving to dine in your own home?”
Louisa’s stomach jumped nervously. Should they leave and return another time? She had no idea what Bray might say or do when he came in and saw them waiting for him. “We’ll be staying, Mr. Tidmore. Dinner would be lovely, if it’s not too much trouble for the cook.”
An hour later, Mr. Tidmore showed them into the dining room. Louisa and Gwen sat on one side of the table, and Lillian sat between Sybil and Bonnie on the other side. The first course was a bowl of chicken and vegetable soup. To begin with, the girls were quiet in the elaborately decorated room, but by the time the servant had picked up the bowls, they were chatting as if they were in their own home.
Suddenly from the front room, Louisa heard Saint barking. Her back stiffened.
The duke was home. Had she made a mistake coming to his house?
Moments later, she heard boots stomping down the corridor. She thought about jumping up, gathering the girls to her, and running from the house. But she sat there with her gaze fixed on the doorway.
If Bray didn’t want them there, he would have to throw them out.