“Your home?” Cecilia asked quietly. “Very well. Do write to him. Lucinda and I will dust, and then we will make beds.” She noted the triumphant look that Janet gave her younger sister. “Lady Janet, when you have posted your letter to your fiancé, your uncle specifically asked me to have you write to your family’s guests and tell them the Christmas dinner is canceled.”
“No party?” Janet shrieked, her voice reaching the upper registers.
You could use a week or two at Miss Dupree’s, Cecilia thought as she tried not to wince. “Not unless you think there is room for one hundred in the front parlor here, Lady Janet. Just give them the reason why, and offer your parents’ apologies,” she replied. “Your uncle has also gone to York, not only to see your parents and sister, but to procure workmen enough to put this place to rights again. Apparently there was considerable smoke damage, and the floor downstairs suffered.”
Lady Janet’s offended silence almost made the air hum. Cecilia touched Davy on the shoulder. “If you could help Lucinda and me, I’m certain we could ask the footman to fetch your uncle’s briefs from the manor, and you could continue alphabetizing them.”
“I can do that.” Davy looked at his older sister, who had devoted all her attention to the still life over the sideboard. He glared at her rigid back, shrugged, and gestured to his other sister. “C’mon, Lucinda. I’ll wager that I can dust the bookroom before you’re halfway through the first bedchamber!”
So it went. Lord Trevor returned after dinner, when the fragrance of roasted meat and gravy had settled in the rooms like a benevolent spirit. They had finished eating before he began. Her voice firm, Cecilia told them to wait in the sitting room and allow him to eat in peace before they pounced on him. She held her breath, but Lady Janet only gave her a withering look before flouncing into the sitting room.
When the children were seated, Cecilia excused herself and went to the breakfast room, where Lord Trevor, leaning his hand on his chin, was finishing the last of the rice pudding. He looked up and smiled when she sat down.
“Was it the mutiny on the Bounty, Captain Bligh?” he teased.
“Very nearly,” she replied. “Lady Janet wrote what I must imagine was an impassioned letter, begging for release, then condescended to write letters of apology to the guests. We tossed bread and water into the room. At least she did not have to gnaw her leg out of a trap to escape.”
Lord Trevor laughed. “God help you, Miss Ambrose! Whenever I am tempted to marry and breed, I only have to think of Janet, and temptation recedes. Was Lucinda biddable?”
“Very much so, although she remains ill-used because her sister barely acknowledges her. Davy alphabetized your 1808 cases, and I started him on 1809.”
“You are excellent,” he said. He drained his teacup and stood up. “Let me brave the sitting room now, and listen to my ill-used, much-abused relatives.”
She held out a hand to stop him. “Lord Trevor, how is your brother?”
Lord Trevor frowned. “He is better, but really can’t leave before Christmas, no matter how I pleaded and groveled!” He leaned toward her. “He wants you to continue whatever it is you’re doing, and not abandon his children to my ramshackle care.”
She opened her eyes wider at that artless declaration. “Surely neither he nor Lady Falstoke have any qualms about you.”
“They have many,” he assured her. He bowed slightly, and indicated that she precede him through the door. “Miss Ambrose, whether you realize it or not, we are an odd pair. You were found on the steps of an archive—still quite romantical, to my way of thinking—and I am the black sheep.”
He nudged her forward with a laugh. “When the little darlings in the sitting room have spilled out all their umbrage and ill-usage and flounced off to bed, I will fill you in on my dark career.” He took her by the arm in the hall. “But you have already agreed to help me, and I know you would never go back on your word and abandon this household, however sorely you are tried, eh?”
If she had thought to bring along her sketchbook, Cecilia would have had three studies in contrast in the sitting room: Janet looked like a storm was about to break over her head. Lucinda picked at a loose thread in her dress and seemed to swell with questions. Davy, on the other hand, smiled at his uncle.
When Trevor entered the room and sat himself by the fire, they all began at once, Janet springing up to proclaim her ill-usage; Lucinda worried about her parents and whether Christmas would come with them so far removed; and Davy eager to tell his uncle that 1808 was safely filed. Lord Trevor held up his hand. “One moment, my dears,” he said, and there was enough edge in his voice to encourage Janet to resume her seat. He looked at his eldest niece. “I am certain that your first concern is for your older sister and her family in York. All are much improved. I knew you wanted to know that.” He turned to his nephew, and held out his hand to him. Davy did not hesitate to sit on his lap. Trevor ruffled his hair and kissed his cheek. “That is from your mother! She misses you.”