14. Kings, Knights and Other Siblings

14

Kings, Knights and Other Siblings

December 1812

Warrick Estate, English Countryside

“Bertram! Climb down ere you fall and break your back.” The Lord and Lord Warrick knew that way lay misery.

Warrick watched his fourteen-year-old half-brother (one of a matched pair) scale an old ladder straight up the wall to the highest painting that had hung in the same spot since as long as he could remember.

’Twas a marvel it hadn’t been sold off yet—probably because no one wanted to climb up and retrieve the monstrosity. “I mean it. Bertram?—”

“Told you to call me King !”

A racket overhead showed another ladder and another brother (the other half of the set) balancing precariously on a stool propped on a chair placed on top of a table—God save them all—as the boy fought with the chandelier. “Beaufort, you too,” Warrick practically growled, feeling as inept as ever, unable to launch from his seated prison and retrieve the obstinate boys himself. “Get down from there!”

“I’m not Beaufort any longer.” The glum, amber-green eyes he’d grown used to seeing the last few hours spared a moment to gleam down at him. The boys very well might tumble to their demise, but at least they were smiling. For now. “I’m Knight . Did you forget—again?”

A hard exhale—because neither boy listened a lick, Bertram draping a thick evergreen swag over the neglected painting and Beaufort straining the chair-stool-table muddle, grasping for the chain so he could tie on a pathetically large conglomeration of mistletoe. Both things the boys had gone out hunting for earlier.

“I want to be Queen.” Sophia hauled on his shirt sleeve, tugging his attention from the overhead tomfoolery to his second-youngest sibling. The frowning one who had whined of being famished thrice in the last quarter hour. “Can I be Queen? Queens have chefs and servants aplenty. I wager they do not wilt from hunger and maltreatment.”

Maltreatment? He grunted, shoved his knees together. At least the girls were getting a decent education.

Little Julia had reverted to sucking on her thumb, tears rimming her eyes. She was the only quiet one of the bunch. The baby of the family had tucked herself beneath a blanket on the chaise several feet from where he sat in his trusty invalid’s conveyance splat in the middle of the room, attempting to gain some semblance of control and failing spectacularly.

How did his mother deal with this day in and day out? Oh wait, she didn’t. The twins—Beaufort and Bertram, currently known as King and Knight (or was it Knight and King?)—spent the majority of their time off at school, when they weren’t home for holiday, that was.

The girls? Six-year-old Julia and nine-year-old Sophia? They usually had their governess, one his mother had foolishly generously given her own extended winter holiday (too kind by half, his soft-hearted mama), and a number of servants running around who could assist—but why she’d left the bulk of them at her home three hours away in Thropmoor, he hadn’t thought to ask. And with the already stretched staff at Warrick Manor dwindling every month?

Well, things were as bleak as they looked. As bleak as they felt. The tightness in his clenched jaw should have chipped a tooth or two.

“Can I?” Sophia prompted with another yank. First to his sleeve, then another on the hem of his trouse, sharp enough she dislodged one foot off the wooden beam affixed to his chair. He glanced down, almost surprised his seams had held thus far.

As Warrick bent to lift his lower leg, bringing his foot back onto the slat, one of the twins corrected, “ May I, poppet.”

Bringing to mind another Can I-May I conversation that prompted a smile—and then a wince, as he recalled how Ed’s house party culminated in mistletoe and Warrick’s own impudent actions making a spectacle of both himself and the beguiling governess. Twelve long months and he still knew naught.

Was Miss Prim still residing at the Larchmont home? Had she, perhaps, contrary to what he hoped and assumed, been ousted from her position by the complaintive Lady Ballenger? Or did she persevere, mayhap, in teaching the young Harri manners becoming a daughter of her station?

Dare he selfishly hope the opposite? That she had been ejected?

Might Miss Prim have need of a new post?

He could not help but ponder as he watched the sullen, hungry child yanking hard enough on his trousers ’twas a wonderment they hadn’t slipped free of his hindquarters and fallen to the floor. As he listened to the two boys on the cusp of manhood arguing over where to place the ugliest, most uneven wreath he had ever beheld, once each had completed their current, singular efforts.

The other child, the wee one, still on the chaise alone. Eyelids fluttering, tears still leaking. Reddened cheeks hollowed as she practically made a meal of her thumb.

Alone. Apart. His growing kinship and affection for little Julia caught him unawares. Made more than his clenched jaw ache.

Turmoiled his heart. Pertroubled his entire chest.

Damn, but he needed a governess. And not just for his sisters.

“Warry? Can I? Be Queen?”

Warry? Might as well be Worry .

W-O-R-R-Y. What he was trying with valiant effort not to do.

With their mother off for part of the holiday, the boys had declared they would bring Christmas to the “bleak” manner, to surprise her upon her return.

Warrick? He had been agazed with the duty tasked to him upon obeying his mother’s summons, the one couched so very sweetly in a deceptively congenial letter, coaxing (and compelling) him back home, to his misbegotten estate. Telling him how his siblings wanted to get to know him, had so many wondrous things to share—both things he doubted. And how she needed to discuss some financial matters with him—one thing he did not.

Just twanging. How he anticipated that conversation.

Did the cottage in Thropmoor need thatched? Had the boys’ tuition increased? Whatever it was, he should be there for her. He’d been an abysmal son of late.

Guilt. Guilt is what brought him back home so quickly after his brief visit in October. After collapsing in Ed’s arms that night, he couldn’t face the stripped-down walls and neglected, empty air of the cold, unwelcoming manor. The unpalatable idea of staying had chilled his already frozen soul and had him departing directly after Ed announced his intention of forgoing his planned trip to London and returning posthaste to his wife.

But now? With Mama gone naught but a day, leaving that very morning after breaking her fast, he was ready to carve his hair out by the roots and crack open a bottle with his teeth.

The boys had already scaled the balustrade. Slid down to more whoops and blasted hollers than a man of his, ahem, mature years was used to hearing at home—or anywhere else. After they plucked the grounds and returned, arms laden and dragging a limping, overflowing cart behind them, they disappeared again.

Only to haul in old ladders—found where? The attic? The stable?—that would take them up to the ceilings of every room on the first floor. Had practically dangled off the faded curtains doing what they claimed Mama did every year back home.

Where the girls and Mama lived year-round now; where the boys had grown up and came every holiday away from school: the modest two-story cottage Sir William Feldon had offered Warrick’s mother, along with his fervent avowals of love, after Warrick’s father had died.

“Warry?” A hard pull on his sleeve brought his attention back to the little ones and the surrounding disorder. “Answer me!”

He’d invited the use of Richard. The boys still called him Warrick. Little Julia? Nothing at all. This fractious sprite? Warry, worry.

“Why not?” He forced his jaw to loosen and grinned. “ Queen you shall be until Mama returns. Boys, down . Heed me this time. The last thing any of us need is you cracking your heads open.” Suspecting they were only going to disregard his wishes yet again, he turned his chair around and found Julia watching everything. He offered the youngest a soft smile. “And what would you like to be called?”

Julia just stared at him, those big, dark blue eyes, swimming in tears. Looking at her now reminded him of what he saw in the mirror on the rare occasions he chanced to look anymore. Not the tears, so much as the color they’d both gotten from Mama…and what brimmed from them: so much sorrow and melancholy churned together.

A good, rousing cry sounded just the thing. For both of them. She didn’t know him. She thought his mother—nay, she thought their— her —mother had abandoned them just like her father, who had died unexpectedly a few weeks ago after his horse tangled with a carriage.

And he—Warrick? Gone the past decade or more, he had never taken time to form bonds with the girls. The boys? At fourteen, they at least knew him, from before he’d joined the dragoons.

The soft, rhythmic thumb-sucking seemed to soothe the child, and he hadn’t the heart to chastise her. Sweet, solemn Julia, with the prettiest light hair, still baby fine. Sophia, darker like him, the heavy black hair and brows not doing the girl any favors at the moment.

And the twins? Somewhere in between, varying shades of chestnut hair, depending upon whether they were studying or skipping out on classes to spend the day sunning around a fishing lake. He knew their competitive spirit already had one planning for Cambridge, the other for Oxford. Thankfully, their father had provided for them, so at least Warrick need not worry that direction.

“Seems we have a king and a queen,” he told Julia, still seeking a response, “a knight?—”

“ Ewww! ” squealed Bertram. Finally giving up on making the spruce-and-holly-berry bough even on both sides, he started to descend the rickety ladder. “King and Queen? She’s our sister! Blegh .”

Instead of rolling his eyes, Warrick used the controls to spin and roll his chair until he faced Bertram. Just when he got into place, the boy jumped the remaining four feet to the ground, bypassing one of the missing slats.

The hard landing made Warrick wince, but his brother popped up as though it were naught. “You are all from different countries,” he told the lad; if they were going to pretend, might as well do it up big. “There is no need to balk at Sophia being Queen . Now, Julia, what would?—”

“I’m still hungry.” The soft whine came from near his knee, the urchin newly dubbed Queen plopped on the floor, barefoot, heedless of the winter temperatures only because he’d had the fire maintained in this one room during daylight hours.

“I have no sympathy for you,” he told Sophia. “You chose to pluck at your food and not take a single bite. That is on you. Not me.”

“But it would have been on you,” Beaufort trilled overhead, pulling Warrick’s concentration back to the atrocious hunk of white berries and thick, sage-colored leaves his brother still wrestled with, “had she eaten more than a bite. She cannot stomach fish and who knows what else. Cascades all over the place if she’s forced to eat it.”

He glanced down at Sophia and then over at Julia.

Julia. Silent, crying Julia. Who only nodded. Aye , the child seemed to say, sister vomits .

Twanging again.

What was he supposed to feed them? And why in blazes had Cook served that? Had his mother not informed his cook before she left? Was Mother trying to force some sort of test upon him?

“I told you to get down,” he ordered Beaufort in an impressively mild tone. “At least until Jims returns and can assist.” One of three remaining male servants—the one who worked where ever needed—while one of the others concentrated inside the manor and the other focused more on the grounds and remaining two horses. This last one had accompanied Warrick’s mother and her maid on her jaunt to visit her oldest and dearest friend (since he no longer had an official coachman in his employ). Two servants in town. Three men and two females here at an estate that should have been staffed by fifty—at a minimum. A ragged sigh dragged through his chest.

“In a minute,” Beaufort said, “and my feet are sound, never you worry,” which sounded way too much like wallow . “We shall be finished in a trice! King—catch!”

A pair of scissors sailed overhead. Bertram ducked and they clattered against the wall.

Warrick’s heart skipped several beats. How very awry that could have just gone. He squeezed his eyes shut for two long breaths. If they weren’t going to be the death of him, they would be the death of each other. A stern reprimand—if not outright discipline—was in order the moment he had the boys alone.

If he unleashed his frustration and fury at that dangerous act in front of the girls, he feared Julia might trip over her blanket in her haste to run and hide. Silently, where he couldn’t find her, while she starved. Also silently.

Why again had his mother not brought the girls’ governess?

Ah, but he knew an excellent governess. One who even taught Latin.

Do not ponder going there. Not in your mind—or in your carriage.

A huffed whinge brought Warrick’s thoughts full circle, away from last Christmas and back to this one.

To the persistent, not-quite-petulant sibling near his knee with a fascination with dismantling his attire. “Halt that, now,” he told her, twisting his arm to free his sleeve from her grip. “I am considering. Give me a moment.”

Now—tasked with seeing all the mischief-makers safe (failing on that one), contented (failing with Julia) and fed (failed—Sophia) and determined to do better, he speared Sophia with his most serious look, brows flattened, jaw grim. “Will you bring me the calendar?” She didn’t budge. Didn’t blink. Amazing, nothing ruffled this one. “It’s in the study. Either on the desk or in the top drawer.”

She got to her feet, wiggled those tiny, bare toes but didn’t move an inch beyond. “Will you feed me?”

“Are you going to bring me the calendar?”

“Why do you want it?”

To count the hours until Mama returns to manage your brothers, comfort your silent sister, and feed your little contrary arse.

“Sophia.” Did he try for a fatherly tone? Or a commanding, elder-brother one? At a loss, he exhaled and strove for serene (though had doubts as to his success). “Would you, please, retrieve the calendar from the study? And bring it here?”

Her amber eyes narrowed at him. “Are you going to feed me?”

By Jove, the defiant imp had taken after him.

He remembered just such conversations with his father when he was younger than she, always willing to assist with any task— if he could gain something for himself.

He laughed.

Laughed hard enough he had to grip his chair lest he slide out and topple groundward.

Laughed with abandon and surprised not only himself but everyone else, as all four pairs of eyes in the room swiftly turned to him. Julia only wiped a couple tears from beneath one and rubbed her nose. Sophia glared at him, but he saw the start of a smile.

Knight and King looking so startled by the unfamiliar sound, it prompted another laugh.

Aye, it would take some effort, but befriending these four would be worth it.

Thank you, Mama.