Page 18 of Nice Earls Do

A footman stepped into the room, his face impassive. “Captain Fleming has arrived, my lord.”

So soon? He’d expected to have hours yet. Struggling to maintain his own exterior calm, he nodded. “Thank you.” The footman, taking his words for dismissal, bowed and turned to go. Kit stopped him with another question. “Have you seen Mrs. Goode this morning?”

He’d left her sound asleep. But he wanted to be able to judge the sort of gossip flying among the staff.

More important, he did not want to have to meet the children alone.

“No, my lord. I don’t believe she’s risen yet.” The footman’s expression betrayed nothing.

Kit’s second nod was crisper, unambiguous. The footman bowed again and was gone. He slid his arms into the coat he’d worn the night before, considering his comfort at present more important than a few wrinkles, though Winston would surely disagree. On the washstand, he spied his spectacles; the valet had a gift for rescuing them from whatever corner of the house in which Kit had laid them aside. As he tucked them into his breast pocket, his fingertips brushed the note Manwaring had handed him. No time to read it now. Kit drew a steadying breath and made his way downstairs.

Two children of about four or five years of age and dressed in traveling clothes awaited him in the entry hall. The boy was looking up at the painted ceiling, a cloying scene of cavorting cherubs against a blue sky the likes of which England had never seen. But the girl’s eyes were focused on his descent. She was the elder, Kit thought, though they were nearly the same height. She had the boy’s hand in a firm, almost painful grip. He knew that pose. Someone had told her to keep watch over her brother.

He found himself wondering if she’d ever once dared to release that hand over the course of their voyage.

At what Kit suspected was a firm tug from his sister, the boy redirected his attention to him. There was something of Edmund in the lad’s face, though not enough to make the recognition painful. He had loved his brother, even though Edmund had surely had occasion to doubt it.

Their somber appearances aside, however, he could not help but wonder whether either or both of the children might have inherited their father’s exuberance and mischievousness—the very qualities Kit had tried for years to stamp out of Edmund, thinking it was for the best.

Kit only hoped he had learned enough in the ensuing years to keep from making the same mistakes again.

“Good morning,” he said. “I am your uncle.”

Neither child spoke, only regarded him with wide eyes.

Captain Fleming, who had been standing off to the side examining a bronze sculpture of a salmon in the claws of some bird of prey, approached and bowed. “Good morning, Lord Stalbridge.” He was a barrel-chested man with sunburnt skin and hair like straw, and he spoke with a soft Scottish burr. “We had fine roads for our journey and made excellent time.”

“I am glad to hear it. It was kind of you to bring the children all this way.”

“Think nothing of it. They’ve been no trouble. Hardly said a word since we left Palermo.”

“Is it any wonder, sir?” Beth spoke unexpectedly behind him, and more sharply than was her wont.

Still, her presence was a balm. He might have managed perfectly well without her, but he would always prefer to have her by his side. “I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered.

“They are no doubt terrified, and still grieving besides,” she said to the captain, but her fingertip trailed over Kit’s arm as she brushed past him and dropped down to her knees to be eye level with the little girl. “Buon giorno, caro. Come ti chiami?”

“Isabella,” the girl replied softly, laying her free hand on her chest. Beth asked another question, which elicited a longer answer. Beth nodded as she listened.

Kit wasn’t surprised, exactly, to discover that she spoke Italian. It was the sort of accomplishment her parents would have cultivated. Speaking nothing of the language himself, he could not judge her fluency. The girl spoke more rapidly, to be sure, the words like music on her lips. But they seemed to understand one another well enough.

“I’ve spent my fair share of time in the Mediterranean,” said Captain Fleming, “but I never picked up the lingo. It’s grand that Lady Stalbridge can understand them.”

Kit didn’t bother to correct him over the matter of names. As soon as possible, he intended it to be the truth. He was watching as the two conversed, thinking about what Beth had said last night—about what he needed, and what she wanted. They could have it all, if they let go of the past, let go of old assumptions, and reached for something new—together.

She must have asked Isabella for her brother’s name next, for the boy piped up, “Luca!”

“After your father, do you suppose?” Beth said, darting a glance toward Kit.

Bending, he reached out a hand to Luke Killigrew’s grandson. The boy considered the offer before laying his palm across his uncle’s, not in a handshake but in a childlike gesture of trust. Kit gripped harder and did not let go.

Soon thereafter, Captain Fleming took his leave, explaining that the children’s trunks had already been unloaded. “Your servant said he’d see they were taken to the nursery.”

The nursery. Once the door closed behind the captain, Kit let a sigh escape his lips. Isabella posed some question and, her cadence more halting, Beth answered. “She wonders if she might see her room,” Beth explained to him.

“I haven’t even spoken with Mrs. Rushworth about where the children will sleep.” He spoke low, suspecting the children must know at least a few words of English, unless Edmund had simply cast off everything that connected him to family and home.

Beth appeared to give the matter some thought. “I believe we should take them upstairs and show them what will be theirs. Children have marvelous imaginations, and if their trunks are already there, that will be something familiar. They can at least change out of their traveling clothes.”