The children all gathered close, inspecting our patient.
Fiona wriggled from my arms, forever worried she’d miss something her older siblings were privy to.
Jasper appeared with a piece of ice wrapped in a cloth and placed it gently on top of that mound of shiny hair.
Miss Cooper’s eyes fluttered open. I took a step backward, stunned by the beauty of those eyes, brown and shiny as polished stone. They widened with alarm as she took in her surroundings. Here we were, staring at her like she was part of the circus. “Children, step away. Give Miss Cooper some room to breathe.”
“Oh, dear,” Miss Cooper said. “What’s happened? Where am I?”
Chapter 3
Quinn
* * *
Five sets of eyes peered at me. Was I in heaven? Dead at the mercy of a horse and sleigh on my very first day in Colorado? With five child angels surrounding me? Yet, no. The pain in my head and midsection told me I was still very much on earth. There was no pain in heaven.
Nevertheless, these children indeed looked like angels. The two smallest possessed adorable cherubic faces with brown ringlets and eyes the color of the ocean on a summer day. There were two boys, identical twins, I quickly gathered. Their faces seemed carved from the finest birch tree, pale and smooth. They had dark hair like their sisters, but their eyes seemed almost black in the dim light. I might have had trouble telling them apart, except that one had a scar above his left eye. Ridges from a comb in their damp hair and glowing skin told me they’d just come from a bath. The oldest child, a girl, was the only one with fair hair and light green eyes. She was slighter than the others, daintily built, as if a slight breeze could knock her over. She held a book to her chest and gazed at me with a somber, inquisitive expression. A reader. This was my favorite kind of child. Well, they were all my favorites, really, other than the spoilt or mean ones. However, the world was to blame for those. Most children were born sweet.
A man appeared in my sight line. A particularly handsome man with high cheekbones and a mouth that naturally curved upward so that he appeared to be smiling even though his eyes were serious. Faint laugh lines around his eyes were evidence of a life lived.
And those eyes of his. They were a spectacular shade of dark green and seemed to exude intelligence and curiosity. At the moment they were fixed on me, holding my gaze. He was obviously the father of these children. Other than their brown eyes, the twins were the spitting image of him. I could imagine him as a boy, which made me like him immensely before he even opened his mouth. The twinkle in his eyes contributed some too, I suppose, other than they seemed to be laughing at me. If eyes could laugh. They can’t. They’re only meant for seeing or producing tears.
“Miss Cooper, we do beg your pardon for this most inauspicious meeting.” A deep, resonate voice and, God help me, an English accent. “It seems you’ve had an accident. The Higgins brothers brought you to the closest home. Ours. We’re the Barnes family. I’m Alexander Barnes. We’ve corresponded, as I’m sure you remember.”
Silently, I groaned and fought an outward wince. This man was Lord Alexander Barnes. How unfortunate he was handsome. I mustn’t let my romantic mind get the better of me. I’d been prone to that kind of behavior before. Daydreaming of a love that existed only as a figment of my imagination. Charles, whom I’d been in love with since I was a little girl, loved my friend Betsy, not me. I’d never told a soul of my longings. For which I was grateful. At least the humiliation was only in my mind, not out for the world to see. I shoved that thought aside and focused on the scene in front of me now.
“Do you remember? Or has the bump on your head given you amnesia, like in a story I read?” the oldest girl asked.
I managed a smile, even though my head throbbed. “Yes, not to worry. I remember everything, other than the moment after I flew from the sleigh.” I closed my eyes as images from those last terrifying moments flooded my consciousness. Harley shouting to me to hold on and I’d thought, hold on to what exactly? and then the cries of the horses. “Are the horses all right? And Harley?”
“All fine,” Lord Barnes said. “You seem to have taken the brunt of it.”
I sat up and winced from the pounding in my head. Black dots danced before my eyes. “I’m sorry to cause trouble at our first meeting.”
The second-to-smallest girl stepped forward with a distinctly disappointed look on her round face. “You’re not a princess, are you?”
“Cymbeline, hush, child.” I looked in the direction of the voice to see a plump, middle-aged woman with silver hair and a thin mouth.
Cymbeline. The name suited her.
“Yes, Nanny Foster,” Cymbeline said.
The smallest one drew close enough that I caught the scent of soap on her skin. “I’m Fiona. I’m the baby.” She picked up a lock of my hair. “Pretty, like Josephine’s.”
“Josephine?” I asked.
Fiona pointed to the oldest daughter. “My sister. She has hair like yours.”
Josephine curtsied. “Hello, Miss Cooper. I’m pleased to meet you. I can’t wait for school.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Josephine,” I said.
“Fiona,” Nanny Foster said. “Step away.” I could see right away that Nanny Foster had a most unpleasant disposition. Why did women who hated children become nannies and teachers? “We don’t touch other people.”
“It’s all right,” I said.
“No,” Nanny Foster said. “Obey me, Fiona, or you’ll be sent to bed without a cookie.”