“Why do you not both come with me?” Harriet proposed. “We can shuffle off to my room and play hustle cap, for you are both ever so much more entertaining than the babies in the nursery.”
Knowing that both of them had lost more pennies than they wanted to count playing the tossing game with Harri, Anne and the governess shared a smile, one the governess quickly subdued.
“Unnecessary,” Anne told the other adult. “I will take Harri up and stay with her for a while.” Might give my confounded nerves time to settle. “Have you eaten?” Doubtful, for the servants were often expected to wait until those they served had been seen to. “Take thirty minutes for yourself and rejoin us when you’re ready.”
At their continued discourse, the youngster between them rose up and down on her toes.
“You’re too kind,” said Miss Primrose—a name Anne always thought almost too fitting, for the young woman was as staid and buttoned up as they came and had a propensity to blush violently rose red at everything.
“Too selfish, I confess,” Anne confided. “In truth, I shall savor the distraction.”
Bobbing up and down like a bouncing ball, Harriet huffed her impatience. “Adults. Too boring by half.”
“When we’re not entertaining you, you mean?”
The women parted on a shared laugh, Miss Primrose heading downstairs for a bit of sustenance, and Anne trailing after an exuberant Harriet who already raced her way up the staircase.
Just as Anne reached the third tread, the doorknocker sounded. Anne hurried after her sister, hoping to be out of sight before the footman admitted the latecomer.
That reluctant to meet your potential, soon-to-be betrothed? For shame.
It matters not. I am saying Nay!
Harri, it seemed, had other ideas, swinging round to descend the staircase in an instant.
“I will get it!” she trilled loudly, announcing to anyone and everyone within the house.
“Harri, no,” Anne admonished in a hushed whisper, but too late.
As she stood there, only six steps up, her sister sped past the footman and swept past their butler, who reached the landing coming from downstairs—slightly out of breath, a napkin in his hand and blotting his mouth.
At least someone had enjoyed Sir Galahad’s sacrifice.
Harri swung the door wide, blocking Anne’s view.
“Who are you?” Harri demanded through the open doorway, making no move to allow their visitor entrance.
“Lord Redford, at your service,” a strong voice intoned.
A familiar voice that sent Anne’s stomach scurrying to her toes. “Come for the Twelfth Night Ball, if I am not mistaken, though a few calendar days early by my count, but here I am, dates notwithstanding. Do you require my written invitation?”
Harriet just cocked her head. Wilson, their butler—used to the outrageous frolics of the youngest Larchmont—seemed amusedly inclined to let her handle things.
“What happened to your arm?” Harriet wanted to know, now gazing upward. “Where’s the rest of it?”
“Harriet!” Anne gasped, her feet flying faster than her common sense, landing her next to her sister, staring at the tall, well-dressed, smoothly shaven gentleman, top-hatted and looking rather shocked at her appearance.
He wasn’t the only one. Her coarse-speaking gamekeeper spruced up beyond well, if her galloping heart and the battling midges were anything to judge by.
“Mary!” he exclaimed, a combination of pleasure and perplexion lighting his expression.
“Lord Redford.” Wilson stepped into the breach. “’Tis beyond good to see you again, and after so long. I am sorely glad to see you returned.” How was it their butler knew her betrothed?
Betrothed? I thought you determined to say Nay.
“Come in, my lord,” Wilson continued. “May I have your coat and hat? Your gloves? Er, apologies. Glove?”
“Think nothing of it, Wilson. ’Tis war. We all must adapt and accommodate for change.” He may have spoken to the butler, but his attention remained firmly on Anne. His eyes asking a host of questions she had herself: