Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

T he little hellions were at it again. Grace Elliot stood in the doorway to the study observing her three younger brothers, Ethan holding an ink pot, Bennet's jacket decorated with a large smudge over his little belly, while Avery, at twelve, wielded a quill with fierce concentration, drawing a curly mustache on one of the rather alarming peacocks on their stepmama's beloved French silk wallpaper.

"It's the third mustache this week," a deep, familiar voice whispered to Grace. She turned to smile at Martin Pevensey the beloved butler who had served the Elliot family since before she was born. He wore his usual inscrutable expression but couldn't quite hide the twinkle in his eye.

Grace tucked a strand of brown hair behind her ear and sighed. "I know I should put a stop to their mischief, but one can hardly blame them. The peacocks are vastly in need of improvement."

Grace still felt a sick twist in her stomach every time she entered the hallway that had delighted her as a child. The lovely mural of mythical creatures and pastoral settings her mother had commissioned in the entryway had been blotted out by swaths of wallpaper flaunting a flock of garish peacocks. Papa and his new ‘bride' had brought them back from their honeymoon on the continent. The trip had been cut short when revolution broke out in Paris and Italy, but it seemed the newlyweds had carried the insurrection home.

Grace's brothers were in revolt.

The trio of nursery-room pirates had been turning The Willows upside down since their new stepmother had arrived at the Elliot country seat. Not that Grace could blame the boys for acting up, all things considered. The garish peacocks that had covered the once-tasteful mural that their mother had painted were just one of the changes confronted. Lord Vernon Elliot had eloped less than a year after his first wife's death, the precipitous union sending shock waves all the way to London. And no one had been more stunned than his only daughter.

After three years of her mother's illness and a too-brief period of mourning, this sudden flurry of activity felt like being roughly shaken awake and finding oneself still trapped in a bad dream. All five of the Elliot children were reeling. The childless widow who had wed their father had come from a quiet household. She hadn't expected boys popping out at her from behind drapes to catch their sixty-year-old father kissing his new wife with the ardor of a green lad, his cheeks flushed, silvery hair tumbling across his brow, gold-rimmed spectacles askew.

"He's acting like a beau in his first season," nineteen-year-old Will had complained when he'd arrived from Oxford for the holiday. "Mama would never act so foolish."

No, Grace thought with a fresh pang of grief. Their mother would have told them of hearing the great emancipator, William Wilberforce, speak and how she'd helped gather petitions that had overturned the slave trade. She had even named her eldest son in honor of the great man and urged her children to fight for justice, too.

The new Lady Elliot had no interest in the world beyond her doorstep. Her one desire was to make Papa comfortable as she so often insisted.

"Comfortable?" Will grumbled uncharitably after one such declaration. "Then stop changing everything."

Grace had to agree. Helen spent her days remaking The Willows to her liking, flinging up wallpaper, painting the rooms and rearranging furniture. Meanwhile, the Elliot boys had mastered the art of hiding bric-a-brac and returning furniture to its rightful place in the middle of the night—with Will's help, Grace suspected. When questioned, the culprits regarded their father and stepmother with the innocence of newborn lambs.

Maybe we have a ghost.

Yes. They certainly did.

Perhaps it was just as well the new Lady Elliot had locked the east parlor up tighter than the Royal Treasury since she had decided to hold her luncheon in that sunny room.

"I must say, the mustache is rather dashing." Pevensey's comment shook her from her musings.

Despite his efforts at levity, Grace couldn't muster a smile. "I'll be so glad when this luncheon is over, Pevensey. It's hard, watching her get out my mother's finest things. Even using the silver tea set the Benevolent Society engraved specially for her."

"No one could ever take your mother's place, Lady Grace. Or your own. All the servants say so."

Her eyes burned at the tenderness in his words, and she wished he could gather her in his arms as he had when she was little and sprained her ankle. But she was a woman of five and twenty, and had been mistress of the house during her mother's illness. Everyone was looking to her to make things right. She heard the unmistakable sound of Helen's voice and the click of heels descending the stairs.

The boys looked up in horror, saw Grace, then dashed past her into the study with a pleading glance.

She looked from the freshly inked mustache to Pevensey. "The table," she hissed, gesturing to the demilune that sat a few feet from the freshly decorated peacock. Pevensey leapt into action, dragging the table beneath it, while Grace snatched a tall flower arrangement from a pillar in a niche and set the flowers where the spray of gladiolas and lilies obscured the mustachioed bird.

Funeral flowers, she thought.

With one last conspiratorial glance, Pevensey walked one way, while Grace raced, breathless into the study, flinging herself into a chair and scooping up a newspaper. She hid behind it, focusing on the caricature on the front page of the daily as if, by will alone, she could make her stepmother walk past the study.

The Elusive Viscount E—who will snap him up first?

She'd been following the series of caricatures depicting her childhood neighbor since Cruikshank began it, and the thought of the arrogant, aloof Lucien Harcourt being chased by crocodile brides was the most diverting yet.

However, at the moment, her own vexation was at hand. Helen blew into the room like a sprigged muslin hurricane. "Oh, Grace!"

With an inward groan, Grace peeked over the top of her newspaper.

Corkscrew curls of faded blonde framed her stepmother's once pretty face. Age had softened the jawline and pressed fine wrinkles here and there that rice powder and rouge could not conceal. Her eyes were the gray of an overcast sky. Plump hands clutched at the blue velvet ribbon on which a brass key hung against a bosom like the prow of a ship.

"I've been searching all over for you!"

"Well, you've found me." The newspaper rustled as Grace set it aside.

Helen paused, regarding the publication as if it were a rat. "How can you bear reading that dreadful thing? I can't see why you'd wish to pollute your mind with matters that are so unwomanly."

"It's something Mama and I liked to do together," Grace said. "Mama always said it was absurd for women not to know what was happening in the world around them when their husbands, brothers and sons would be the ones sent off to war."

Tears glistened in Helen's eyes as they so often did when someone extoled the first Lady Elliot's virtues. Which, Grace had to confess, was often.

"Tell me, what is troubling you so?" Grace asked more gently.

"Oh, Grace! Such a calamity I don't know what to do!" Lady Helen twisted the ribbon until she was in danger of strangling herself. "Nanny has run off to the barber to have her tooth pulled."

No wonder her brothers had been up to no good, Grace thought. Helen was fortunate it wasn't worse.

"I hope Nanny is able to get some relief," Grace said. She pictured the round face of Nanny Bea as it had been of late, the sunny smile that graced the Elliot nursery tight with pain.

"Yes, yes, but such an ill-fated time! I spent all yesterday getting everything arranged quite perfectly for my luncheon in the east parlor and now Nanny has left the boys to run wild and my guests are due to arrive in an hour!" Her lower lip trembled. "Wilberforce refuses to aid me in my time of need. He insists he has another engagement."

No doubt he does since you insist on calling him by his full name, Grace thought wryly. He'd told Helen a dozen times to call him Will. There had been increasing strain since Will had come to visit from Oxford, and Grace was beginning to think it would be a relief when her brother headed to London to spend the rest of his holiday with friends.

"I would ask the maids to mind your brothers," Helen rushed on, "but I had such charming new uniforms made for them. You must think I'm a silly goose, fluttering around here like a new bride but I never wish to give dear Vernon cause to regret wedding me."

The fact that this bride was well past her fifth decade, and had been a wife of thirty years before the whirlwind courtship had brought her to The Willows, made this fuss feel a trifle ridiculous. Still, there was a desperate eagerness in Helen's actions that sparked Grace's sympathy as much as they irritated her.

"These ladies are most helpful with maternal advice," Helen said, fiddling with the key at her breast. "Especially Mrs. Kemble."

Neither Grace, nor her mother had had any patience for that pinched, judgmental woman, but from the moment Helen had met the vicar's wife, Ianthe Kemble had appointed herself the second Lady Elliot's bosom friend. She was the last person anyone should listen to when it came to children. The woman loved nothing more than finding fault with any spark of spirit or humor.

"Mrs. Kemble says if I take a firm hand, the boys will accept me in time," Helen continued. "Why, Bennet is so young, I'll be the only mama he remembers."

Was it possible that Bennet, who shared mama's smile, would forget how wonderful, how fierce and intelligent and wise Barbara Elliot had been? How much Mama had loved him?

Not while Grace drew breath.

She looked past Helen just in time to see the drapes moving in a most unnatural way, the shiny toe of a boy's boot peeking beneath the fringed hem.

Was Ethan still holding the inkpot? Dear God, don't let him spill it.

Grace rose and walked toward the door, to draw Helen's gaze away from her brothers.

"I'll be happy to take the boys for the afternoon," Grace offered, linking her arm with Helen's and drawing her out into the hallway. "I promised them an outing to the lake, and this is a perfect opportunity." Grace heard a muffled exclamation from behind her and prayed the boys would curb their enthusiasm until she drew Helen out of earshot.

"Oh, would you, Grace?" Helen beamed. "You are an absolute angel!"

No. She'd managed the perfect escape. This way she would not be expected to spend the afternoon smiling while curious neighbors gushed over the peacock wallpaper. Hopefully, none would get close enough to see the birds' new facial hair. Grace parted from Helen and was on her way upstairs to change into her oldest gown when she all but crashed into Will. Lean and lanky, he looked every bit the young thoroughbred, dressed for riding.

"So, you're abandoning ship?" she teased.

"I won't cancel my plans for another of Helen's crises!" Will declared, a mulish set to his jaw. "She's turned the whole house topsy-turvy for the past week and if I hear one more mention of her nerves, I vow my head will explode. Mama was sick for three years, and she didn't fuss half so much."

No, Mama hadn't said a word about her pain where Will or the other boys or even their father could hear…but there had been nights while Grace slept on the cot beside her bed when even laudanum hadn't helped. They'd held each other and wept.

"I am sorry to leave you to Helen's machinations, Gracie," Will said, tapping his riding crop on his gloved hand, "but it's every man for himself. There is some niece of Lady So-and-So that Helen wants me to meet, and I know what that means. If she has her way, she'll marry the two of us off and pack the wee lads off to school so she and the pater can dally in every room in the house." He shuddered.

Was he right? Words Helen had spoken when Papa had first brought her to The Willows echoed in Grace's mind. I have always dreamed of being part of a large family.

Helen had seemed sincere at the time, but an imaginary family and a real one were very different things. Flesh and blood boys seldom wore halos. If only Helen had not pushed quite so hard, or taken the boys' resistance to change personally. If only…she had been a little more like Mama.

"At least I'll be off to London with my mates in a few weeks," Will said. "But you'll be stuck here."

Grace rubbed her temple, weary, the future stretching out before her looking rather bleak. It was easy enough for Will to go on his way—as he should! But for her, it was far less simple.

"Promise you'll never leave us like Mama did…"

Six-year-old Bennet's words haunted Grace.

She drew a deep breath and looked out the window where the sun glistened over green fields. She would make today the best that she could for the brothers she loved. Seek out fresh air and fun in a place filled with happy memories, and maybe for just a little while they could forget their ‘home' would never be the same.

There was no question the boys had been plotting mischief today, Grace thought as she watched her brothers firing mudpies at the forts they'd each built on the lake's shore out of branches and stones. She smiled from her cozy spot on a blanket beneath a tree, her heart swelling with love and a fierce protectiveness.

Bicorne hats folded out of the morning's newspaper perched jauntily on their heads. Small trowels and string trailed from overstuffed pockets. Favorite toy soldiers were mounted on the battlements, or manning an armada of boats constructed of twigs tied together with twine, the wee ships enclosed in a harbor made of stones.

The lads were wound tighter than clockwork, racing about at an almost frenetic pace. Avery had that hard edge to his smile that Grace had learned to be wary of. Ethan wore a secretive look and Bennet wouldn't quite meet her eyes.

Thank heavens she had carted them far away from their stepmother's guests, and temptation. Here they could shout and wrestle and squabble with no one to tell them to hush, or objectionable peacocks to deface, no chairs where their mother had once sat occupied by someone else.

Grace felt a surge of freedom as well. She adored the simple dress her mother had always insisted she wear for such family outings, one of the few gowns that hadn't been dyed black for mourning. It had grown looser since she'd lost weight over the years of worry and change. She sucked in a deep breath, reveling in the fact she could even leave off her corset. But her respite was nearing an end.

The boys were getting tired. Their voices had that thread of querulousness she'd come to recognize. She was thinking of packing up the basket and warning them they'd soon go home, when Bennet came over and snuggled against her. He was a grubby mess, smelling of sweat and lake water and boy.

"Have you had a lovely day, sprig?" Grace asked.

"Except when Avery and Ethan said The Victory would lose our battle."

She smiled. Lord Admiral Nelson had definitely taken a beating over the past year. Bennet had even painted the tin soldier's coat navy blue, and the admiral practically lived in the boy's pocket. "I'm sure Nelson put up a gallant fight. Just think of the Battle of Trafalgar."

But it seemed Bennet was no longer thinking of the admiral's noble deeds. His mouth was a soft frown, and she saw his throat convulse. Was he having some twinge of guilt over whatever mischief he'd planned with his brothers? Or had the two older boys hurt his feelings somehow?

She looped an arm around his little body, felt the delicate bones of his shoulders. "What is troubling you, sweeting?"

Bennet paused for a moment. "Grace, did Mama look like me?"

The words were a sudden, surreptitious blow, but Grace kept her voice even. "What, love?"

He looked up at her with sad, solemn eyes. "That's what Nanny said, but I don't remember."

"You have Mama's eyes, and her smile. Your hair is a bit darker, like Papa's. But your nose is all your own." She touched the tip of his nose with her finger. "You know how you like to hum songs when you have a problem to solve? Mama did that, too. Sometimes, she'd creep to the nursery and stand in the hallway, just so she could hear you."

"I miss—" Bennet began, his words cut off by a sudden splash and a cacophony of shouts from the lake shore. She saw sticks floating in the water, Ethan and Avery shoving each other, red faced, angry.

"Avery! You just made it worse!" Ethan accused. "We'll never reach it now!"

"It's not my fault! The wind caught it." Avery shoved Ethan back and grabbed another stick, hurling it into the water, the waves it made nudging what looked like a small pale smudge further out on the lake.

"Boys! Whatever are you squabbling about?"

Ethan pointed to the object that was drifting ever farther toward the lake's center. "Avery stole the rocks from the harbor," Ethan shouted, "and Admiral Nelson floated away."

Bennet scrambled from her lap, wailing.

Grace peered out across the shining water. The boat was already a good ways from shore. Worse, Bennet's beloved toy was on board. Any second it could capsize, the lead soldier plunging to the lake's bottom.

"He's sinking!" Tears streaked Bennet's cheeks. "Grace, help!"

God, how many times had she seen that look—her brothers pleading with her to make things right. Things she couldn't fix for them, no matter how desperately she wished she could. But with this, at least she had a chance.

She hastily unfastened her frock, stripped to her chemise, then dove in, the cold water driving breath from her body. The boys gathered, frantic, on the shore, waving their arms as she struck out, swimming, keeping her eye on the floundering boat.

"He's drowning!" Ethan yelled.

"Save him! Save him!" Bennet shrieked, frantic. The tiny craft wavered, disappeared.

Taking a deep breath, she dove beneath the surface, praying she was not too late.