Chapter 24

Selina

Lady Selina Shaftsbury studied her youngest sister from beneath her lashes. Katie was eating breakfast—or at least playing with her food—and repeatedly glancing at the huge longcase clock in the corner that ticked as loudly as a hammer pounding an anvil.

Indecision twisted her sister's beautiful face as she glanced at the clock and then looked out the window. The world was blanketed in blinding white snow, a delightful surprise that had been waiting for them when they'd awoken that morning.

Katie's lips twisted in an odd smile and then she turned her attention back to her breakfast and shoved her eggs to the other side of her plate.

Something was amiss with her youngest sister; she was not the same girl she'd been ten months ago.

Still, Selina was hardly the same, either, so perhaps the changes in Katie were not necessarily bad.

A large warm hand covered hers and Selina turned to the reason for her own transformation. Caius was smiling at her in a way that always made her feel like he could see her, even though she knew her husband scarcely saw more than dark shapes.

"Yes, my lord?" she asked him pertly, employing a tone and form of address that would surely remind him of last night, when she had purposely been naughty.

His wicked grin told her their minds were running as closely as two adjoining plots of land. "I have decided that I will go with you, Selina."

Her eyes widened in pleased surprise and she leaned closer—close enough that the others at the table—could not hear her words. "Thank you, Caius."

"You realize, of course, that you will have to make sure I don't end up arse over teakettle in a snow drift, hmm ?"

"I would never allow that to happen," she said, her exaggerated tone suggesting the exact opposite of her words.

He gave a bark of laughter that drew every eye at the table. "Minx. I have a few things I must go through with Wilson, first," he said, referring to the clever young man who served as part secretary, part companion, and part friend. "And then I will meet you in the great hall." He leaned toward her and, with the unerring ability he sometimes exhibited when it came to kissing, planted a peck on her cheek.

Selina gestured for the footman to accompany her husband as Caius got to his feet. "If you will all excuse me," he said to the table at large.

"Will you join us today, sir?" Doddy piped up.

Caius smiled in Doddy's general direction. "I wouldn't miss it." He turned to Selina. "I will see you soon, darling."

Once he'd gone, Selina's siblings all turned her way.

" Darling," Katie repeated, smirking.

Doddy made exaggerated kissing noises.

"Hush," Selina murmured. Her face, she knew, would be bright pink.

Phoebe grinned widely and Aurelia gave Selina such a lovely, affectionate smile that it made her eyes prickle.

She dropped her gaze to her plate before she began blubbering with happiness. Being around her siblings—and their new families—was utterly delightful. She had not realized how much she'd missed her siblings until seeing their dear faces again.

And then Selina remembered their mother, whom she had not visited in days, and grimaced.

First the countess had been laid low with a migraine and now, according to Katie, she had a cold.

Selina laid aside her napkin before looking up. "I will go and check on mother."

"I've already been to her chambers," Katie said. "She asked not to be disturbed."

Selina exchanged glances with Phoebe—who had always borne the brunt of her mother's myriad illnesses over the years—and her younger sister gave a slight shrug, her joyful expression of a moment earlier gone, a look of resignation taking its place.

"If she does not want to be disturbed, I would not go," Phoebe said.

Selina nodded, guilt following on the heels of relief, and promised herself that she would visit her mother tomorrow. The day after, at the latest.

"I want to talk about your court gown, Lina," Phoebe said. "I do wish I could be presented with the three of you."

Hy, who was sitting across from Selina, immediately threw down her napkin, shoved back her chair with a loud scritch, and stood. "I have to go and do…something."

"Hy! I wanted to hear about your gown, too!" Phoebe called after her.

"Katie can tell you all about it. She is the one who went through all the bother of picking materials and such," Hy threw over her shoulder.

"It is true," Katie said, looking amused. "Hy wanted no part of it and told me to choose everything. I can describe it all in detail if you like."

Hy strode from the room in the mannish way that had not changed even though she was now garbed in the highest kick of elegance as befitted her elevated station.

"I chose the gown she is wearing right now, too," Katie said.

Selina thought their youngest sister had chosen well. Hy's gown this morning was a dark green wool that made her unusual eyes, her one claim to beauty, glitter like precious stones. The severe cut of the dress flattered her tall, slender form.

The Duke of Chatham watched his wife leave with an intensity that made Selina blush yet again. Who would have ever believed her reserved, mysterious sister—who had never looked at a man as far as Selina could recall—would not only attract England's most sought-after bachelor, but bewitch him utterly in the process?

It was never easy to read Hy's cool, controlled features, but Selina thought her sister might be almost as bewitched as her husband.

When Selina turned away from the duke, she realized that Katie had, somehow, slipped around her and out of the room without her noticing

***

Katie leaned against the wall and stared broodingly at the wall panel that hid the door to the linen closet.

By the time she had been old enough to explore Wych House her family had, due to financial exigency, been forced to move into Queen's Bower. For years and years Katie had listened to her older sisters whisper about the secrets of their ancestral home, much of which had been falling down and far too dangerous to explore.

Phoebe's new husband had worked a miracle in less than a year. Even now, in the dead of winter skilled craftsmen brought in from as far away as Sweden worked to restore the rooms known as the Queen's Suite. It had been secretly built by Katie's Catholic ancestors for a monarch who never had never come. Not for Elizabeth, but for Mary, the ill-fated Queen of the Scots.

Katie felt a certain sympathy for the long dead monarch, who had been betrayed by not just one man, but by many in the course of her tumultuous life.

Men and betrayal, Katie firmly believed, went together like guns and bullets.

"My lady?"

She looked up from her thoughts to find Dora waiting.

"Are you going to release them?" the maid asked, when Katie only stared.

"What does Ackers say about my mother?"

The countess had refused to admit Katie when she'd called that morning. Yet another lie she'd told her siblings at the breakfast table.

"Her ladyship remains in bed." Dora cleared her throat. "Er, she believes she has caught the same cold Miss Martin suffers from."

Katie laughed and then felt a twinge of guilt for mocking her mother's imaginary cold. She quickly shoved her guilt aside. Her mother deserved to be mocked. And more.

Dora went on, "Miss Ackers says her ladyship will not be up today and she doubts she'll be up and about tomorrow, either."

Well, then.

Katie pushed off the wall. "Return to Miss Martin's room and continue your vigil."

Dora's eyes bulged. "Kat! You're not going to release them?"."

Katie smiled at her childhood friend's slip. She and Dora were only a year apart and had been as thick as thieves back when Katie's family had been every bit as poor as Dora's—if not poorer—and living in the small dower house called Queen's Bower. Now, Katie's sisters had all married wealthy men, nobody lived at Queen's Bower, and everything was different. Everything.

"There is enough food, water, and fuel for another night?" she asked Dora.

"Aye, my lady—for several. But…are you sure about this?"

Katie cast a glance at the window at the end of the corridor. The snow was still falling and there had to be close to eight inches already.

"I'm sure. Everyone will assume that Lord Shelton will have difficulty getting back to Wych House in this weather. As for Miss Martin, she is still too weak to leave her bed. That is the story if anyone asks," she said firmly.

"Yes, my lady."

Katie left the maid behind her and made her way to her own chambers. She was looking forward to gathering greenery this afternoon, regardless of the snow. Captain Walker, Lord Crewe's son, was an extremely handsome man had had been attentive to her on more than one occasion.

And then there was the added bonus that Katie's mother hated the illegitimate man.

Perhaps Katie and the captain might steal a few moments alone together this afternoon and find themselves under some mistletoe.

Smiling at the thought, Katie hurried to join her family, the couple in the priest hole forgotten.