“What about dinner?” Rosalind asks. “I know I smell it.”
“That is Aunt Portia. Uncle William burned the biscuits, so she told him and Papa to take us and decorate the house.”
“I see.” Rosalind looks up and down the hall. “It is very decorated.”
“Wait until you see downstairs.”
That’s when Amelia spots Nicolas. “Uncle Nico!” she crows. “You need a garland.”
She charges at him, giggling, and wends her garland around his legs. Edmund joins in, and Nicolas pretends to try—unsuccessfully, of course—to escape. I whisk little Grace from her crib and rush her over to help the older children.
“Dare I hope this means you two can tend to the children for a while?” Rosalind says.
“Mais oui,” Nicolas says. “I will help with their decorating, which appears to be woefully deficient in garlands.”
“No more garlands,” Bronwyn says.
“All the garlands,” I stage-whisper to the children. “We must makeallthe garlands.”
Rosalind tries to say something, but the whoops of the children drown her out. She shakes her head, and I rest comfortable in the knowledge that the wordsYou are both so good with children—you ought to have somewill never leave her lips. Nicolas and I would not say that we will never have children, but for now, we will delight in those had by our loved ones. Children can always use aunts and uncles.
“More garlands!” I trill as Bronwyn and Rosalind escape down the stairs. “Who wants to make more garlands?”
It is late Christmas Eve.The children are nestled all snug in their beds, and visions of sugar plums—mulled wine and rum punch—dance inourheads. We’re in the parlor, sitting around the fire, relaxing most indecorously. August is in a chair with Rosalind on his lap. William lounges on the sofa with Bronwyn’s head onhislap. Portia sits in her own chair, her boots off, feet curled under her. Nicolas and I are on the floor by the fire, with me nestled against him and his arm draped over my waist.
We have told the story of our London adventure.
“Well, that is disappointing,” Rosalind says. “The truth about Dick Turpin, I mean.” She glances at Bronwyn. “I suppose you already knew it.”
“I knowRookwoodand the ballads, and when something seems too good to be true, I pull on my boring historian hat and dig out the truth, which is far less romantic, but still an interesting study in our love for rogues.”
“Highwaymen are thieves and brutes,” Portia says. “This Colin fellow may have expected better, but I am not surprised. We must get past this idea that there is something romantic in criminality.”
I clear my throat and draw her gaze to Nicolas.
Portia waves a hand. “Nicolas does not count. He and his crew believed themselves to be privateers, and they were, in all the ways that count. Whatever he did after that was done for others.”
“Not to change the subject,” August says, “but do you think you can truly find this young man’s family to repay them?”
“I hope so,” I say. “We cannot leave immediately. It is not the time to be tramping through another century. We will spend the winter pursuing our careers—Nicolas with his medical studies and I finishing my novel—and then we will see what the stitch will allow. The biggest problem may be convincing Colin’s family that the money comes from him and that he was involved in a legitimate trade.”
“I have some ideas for that,” Portia says.
“Excellent. Then you will join us.”
Her eyes widen. “What? No. I have much to do. Far too much.”
I open my mouth to argue, but a look from Rosalind stops me. That looks says that I am to stop pushing Portia to cross through the stitch. She will if and when she wants to, and if she never wants to, then that is her choice.
I just feel as if...
I shake it off. I cannot presume to know what is best for Portia. She will indeed cross when she is ready, and I only hope she finds something there to reignite the spark that was lost and give us back our Portia, her light blazing as it once did.
“Tell us your ideas,” I say to my sister as I reach for my cup of punch.
13
Everyone has gone to sleep, and Nicolas and I are still by the fire, mostly because this will be our bed chamber for the night. Thorne Manor may be the Thornes’ current home, but it was built as a small country house, and it cannot easily accommodate quite so many people.