Kind
Like house animals
Like children
Make us laugh, and think we are funny
Interested in the plight of the poor and unfortunate
Must support us in our charities and other ventures
Passable looking
Allow us to be ourselves
Be able to support a family
Must love us in return
Taking out a pen, she dipped it in the standish and wrote,Be a friendat the bottom. Since Eleanor’s wedding, it had struck Alice forcibly that as she would not have her sisters with her all the time, whoever she married must be a friend as well as a husband. Thus far, Lord Normanby seemed intelligent and kind. She would know more by the end of their walk today.
She went back to her bedchamber, washed, and dressed, then went down to the breakfast room.
Elizabeth yawned. “Posy is not happy. She tried to hide under my bed, but George found her and took her out.”
Alice smiled as she pictured the Dane attempting to crawl under her niece’s low bed. “I am surprised she did not come to my chamber.”
“The door to the nursery was closed,” Gideon said.
The footmen were most likely tired of hunting for Posy when it was raining.
Mary and Theo took their seats. The two of them had their heads together. Alice wondered if Mary would feel left behind after Theo wed. The three years between them had not kept them from being fast friends, but it would stop them from coming out together. A footman set a pot of tea on the table in front of her, and she poured a cup.
“What would you like this morning, my lady?”
“Shirred eggs, toast, and whatever fruit we have.” She would have to find something to do until her walk this afternoon.
“The table looks empty,” Gideon said.
Matt looked at him with slightly raised brows. “It won’t when everyone visits.”
“We will have to put another leaf in the table when the rest of the family is here,” Grace added.
Looking at it from Gideon’s point of view, Alice had to agree. When she married, there would be one more person gone. That is how it felt when her older sisters had wed. But then he and Elizabeth were able to join them. “In no time at all Edward and Gaia will be sitting at the table.”
“They’re just babies.” He stuck a fork in the eggs he’d been brought.
“So were you,” Mary said.
His little face scrunched up. “I suppose you’re right. I just never think about them growing up.”
Matt covered his mouth with a serviette, and his shoulders shook.
Grace regarded her eldest son. “It is the way of things that children grow.”
“And if things proceed as usual,” Theo said, “you will have new cousins next year.”
Well, that brough it full circle back to Alice. She was ready to be a wife and mother and have a house of her own. If only she could find a husband. Normanby had to be the one. He had already displayed most of the necessary traits. She did not want to be left behind.
