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Elizabeth’s lips curved into a bittersweet smile as she watched them bicker. She’d heard the same argument a million times before, but she’d also spied Jane tiptoeing into Lucas’s room after dark to give him a goodnight kiss on the forehead.
Theirs might not be a typical family—it was just the four of them, after all, and they’d been orphans for years—but the Hotchkiss clan was special. Elizabeth had managed to keep the family together five years ago when her father had died, and she was damned if she’d let a shortage of funds tear them apart now.
Jane crossed her arms. “You should give Lizzie your money, Lucas. It isn’t right to hoard it away.”
He nodded solemnly and left the room, his little blond head bowed. Elizabeth glanced back up at Susan and Jane. They were also blond, with the bright blue eyes of their mother. And Elizabeth looked just like the rest of them—a little blond army, they were, with no money for food.
She sighed again and leveled a serious stare at her sisters. “I’m going to have to marry. There is nothing else for it.”
“Oh, no, Lizzie!” Jane shrieked, jumping out of her chair and practically clambering across the table to her sister’s lap. “Not that! Anything but that!”
Elizabeth looked at Susan with a confused expression, silently asking her if she knew why Jane was so upset. Susan just shook her head and shrugged.
“It’s not that bad,” Elizabeth said, stroking Jane’s hair. “If I marry, then I shall probably have a baby of my own, and then you get to be an auntie. Won’t that be nice?”
“But the only person who’s asked you is Squire Nevins, and he’s horrid! Just horrid.”
Elizabeth smiled unconvincingly. “I’m sure we can find someone besides Squire Nevins. Someone less…ah…horrid.”
“I won’t live with him,” Jane said with a muti
nous cross of her arms. “I won’t. I’d rather go to an orphanage. Or one of those horrid workhouses.”
Elizabeth didn’t blame her. Squire Nevins was old, fat, and mean. And he always stared at Elizabeth in a way that made her break out in a cold sweat. Truth be told, she didn’t much like the way he stared at Susan, either. Or Jane, for that matter.
No, she couldn’t marry Squire Nevins.
Lucas returned to the kitchen carrying a small metal box. He held it out to Elizabeth. “I’ve saved one pound, forty,” he said. “I was going to use it for—” He swallowed. “Never mind. I want you to have it. For the family.”
Elizabeth took the box silently and looked in. Lucas’s one pound, forty, was there, almost all in pennies and ha’pennies. “Lucas, honey,” she said gently. “This is your savings. It has taken you years to collect all of these coins.”
His lower lip quivered, but somehow he managed to expand his little chest until he stood like one of his toy soldiers. “I’m the man of the house now. I have to provide for you.”
Elizabeth nodded solemnly and moved his money into the box where she kept household funds. “Very well. We shall use this for food. Perhaps you can come shopping with me next week, and you may pick out something you like.”
“My kitchen garden should begin to produce vegetables soon,” Susan said helpfully. “Enough to feed us, and maybe a bit extra we could sell or barter in the village.”
Jane started to squirm on Elizabeth’s lap. “Please tell me you didn’t plant more turnips. I hate turnips.”
“We all hate turnips,” Susan replied. “But they’re so easy to grow.”
“Not so easy to eat,” Lucas grumbled.
Elizabeth exhaled and closed her eyes. How had they come to this? Theirs was an old, honorable family—little Lucas was even a baronet! And yet they were reduced to growing turnips—which they all detested—in a kitchen garden.
She was failing. She had thought she could raise her brother and sisters. When her father had died, it had been the most impossible time in her life, and all that had kept her going was the thought that she had to protect her siblings, keep them happy and warm. Together.
She’d fought off aunts and uncles and cousins, all of whom offered to take on one of the Hotchkiss children, usually little Lucas, who, with his title, could eventually hope to marry a girl with a nice large dowry. But Elizabeth had refused, even when her friends and neighbors had urged her to let him go.
She’d wanted to keep the family together, she had said. Was that so much to ask?
But she was failing. There was no money for music lessons or tutors, or any of the things Elizabeth had taken for granted when she’d been small. The Lord only knew how she was going to manage to send Lucas to Eton. And he had to go. Every Hotchkiss male for four hundred years had attended Eton. They hadn’t all managed to graduate, but they’d all gone.
She was going to have to marry. And her husband was going to have to have a lot of money. It was as simple as that.
“Abraham begat Isaac, and Isaac begat Jacob, and Jacob begat Judas…”
Elizabeth quietly cleared her throat and looked up with hopeful eyes. Was Lady Danbury asleep yet? She leaned forward and studied the older lady’s face. Hard to tell.
