Later that afternoon, Madeline was ensconced in her office at Treleaver Park, steadily working through the most recent accounts from the home farm, when Milsom, their butler, appeared in the open doorway carrying his silver salver.
“A letter from Lady Sybil, miss.”
With a smile, Madeline waved him in. Milsom was one of the few who persisted in calling her “miss,” rather than “ma’am.” Presumably because he’d known her since birth, her advanced age of twenty-eight didn’t yet qualify her for the appellation normally accorded older spinsters in charge of a house. Her brothers had wagered with each other on how old she would be before Milsom changed his tune. She privately agreed with the youngest, Benjamin: Never—Milsom would die rather than be absolutely correct in the deference he accorded her.
He offered his salver and she picked up Sybil’s letter. Her brows rose as she realized it contained a card; breaking the seal, she unfolded the sheet and read the neatly inscribed lines, first on the sheet, then on the enclosed card.
Lowering the invitation, she hesitated, then asked, “Have my brothers returned yet?”
“I noticed them riding around to the stable, miss. I daresay they’ll be in the kitchen by now.”
“I daresay.” Her lips softened into a smile she shared with Milsom. “They’re no doubt fortifying themselves as we speak. Ask them to attend me here, please—they can bring their biscuits and scones if they wish.”
“Indeed, miss. Immediately.” Milsom bowed and withdrew.
Madeline read the card again, then laid it aside and returned to her figures.
She was shutting the ledger when a commotion in the corridor warned that her brothers were approaching.
Harry led the way into the office, his brightly burnished brown hair windblown, his rogue’s smile lighting his face. At fifteen, he was on the cusp of adulthood, poised between the carefree delights of boyhood and the responsibilities that awaited him as Viscount Gascoigne.
Edmond followed at his heels. A bare year younger, he was Harry’s shadow in all things. A trifle quieter, more serious perhaps, but the Gascoigne temperament—indomitable will and courageous if sometimes reckless heart—showed in his stride, his confidence as, alongside Harry, he grinned at Madeline and obeyed her waved command to settle in the chairs facing her big desk.
The last into the room was Benjamin, Ben, the youngest of the family and a favorite of all. Madeline held Ben especially close to her heart—not because she loved him any better than the other two but because he’d been a babe of mere weeks when Abigail, their mother, Madeline’s stepmother, had died, taken from them all by childbed fever.
With a tight grin for Madeline—his mouth was full of buttered scone—Ben, ten years old and with much of his growing yet to come, hiked himself onto a straight backed chair and wriggled back, feet swinging.
Smiling—trying not to appear too obviously fond and doting—Madeline waited while they finished the last of their snack; she knew better than to try to compete with food for the attention of growing boys.
Her gaze rested on them, on the three faces alight with undimmed happiness, with the simple joy of living, and as she always did, she felt an overwhelming sense of rightness. Of conviction, of vindication. Of satisfaction that she’d done what she’d needed to do and had succeeded.
This—they—were her life’s work. She’d been barely nineteen when Abigail had died, leaving Ben to her care, with Harry a lost little boy of five and Edmond a confused four-year-old. Harry and Edmond had at least had each other, and their father. For virtually all of his life, Ben had known only her as a parent.
She and her father had been close; she’d been the older son he’d never had. Knowing he was ill, with Harry, his heir, so very young, her father had trained her to be the intermediary, a de facto regent—he’d taught her all she’d needed to know to run the estate, and left her to pass that knowledge on to Harry.
Struck down only months after Abigail’s death, her father hadn’t, as many people described it, lingered; he’d fought and clung desperately to life for nearly two years—long enough for Madeline to attain the age of twenty-one, and the legal status, backed by his will and their family solicitor, to become the boys’ coguardian.
It was no coincidence that her father had died a week after her twenty-first birthday.
Their solicitor, old Mr. Worthington, indeed a worthy man, was the boys’ other guardian. He’d honored his late client’s wishes to the letter and dutifully been nothing more than a cipher, approving any request or instruction Madeline made. She had nothing but fondness for Worthington. Then again, he’d been dealing with the Gascoigne temperament for long enough to acknowledge that the only person capable of dealing with her three brothers was another Gascoigne, namely herself.
She understood her brothers and they understood her. The bond linking them ran much deeper than mere affection, carried in blood and bone. They would all be, like her and their father, tall, strong and vital. Confident, too, masters of their lives, with a streak of open honesty that, on occasion, set others back on their heels.
She’d devoted the last ten years of her life to ensuring they were as they were, that nothing would dim their potential, that they would have every opportunity to be the men they might be, the best men they could be.
What she saw before her pleased and reassured. She’d never consciously questioned the decision she’d taken long ago, foisted upon her by fate perhaps, yet she’d never doubted that being the boys’ guardian was the right path for her. And if sometimes, in the quiet of the night when she was alone in her room, she wondered what might otherwise have been, the question was irrelevant, the thought behind it fleeting.
She’d made a decision, and she’d been right. The proof sat before her, licking crumbs from their fingers.
“The Crowhurst bull.” Her words brought all three boys instantly alert; her expression impassive, she watched them quell the impulse to glance at each other. Instead, they fixed their gazes, limpidly inquiring, on her.
“I spoke with his lordship yesterday,” she continued, “and smoothed things over. However, he said to inform you that he wasn’t amused.”
She made the last words sound ominous. Harry opened his mouth, but she held up a hand, staying his comments. “Be that as it may, you’ll have an opportunity to make your apologies in person. Or at least Harry will.”
“I will?” Harry looked taken aback.
She held up Sybil’s white card. “This is an invitation to dine at Crowhurst Castle this evening. For Aunt Muriel, me”—she looked at Harry—“and you.”