Page 78 of The Lady Makes Her Mark

Harry thought for a moment. “Frühstück?”

It was, Alistair thought, the most absurdly joyful, joyfully absurd word he had ever heard. The six of them were still laughing merrily over everything and nothing when Freddie and Georgie appeared in the doorway and asked, in wide-eyed unison, “What did we miss?”

The Countess of Stalbridge sat cross-legged on the bed while having her hair done. That she was in the nursery, that the mattress lay on the floor beneath a tent made of the former dining room draperies, and that her stylist was a girl of not quite seven, only made the moment more perfect.

Ferncliffe’s nursery décor had been a hurried attempt on Oliver’s part to make the empty attic a welcoming and magical place for the Earl of Stalbridge’s niece and nephew, who had arrived on their guardian’s doorstep far sooner than expected.

Oliver’s unique gifts in such matters were attested to by the fact that the children had absolutely refused to permit a single change to his makeshift design. They loved to fall asleep beneath a “starry sky” of dark blue silk poked with holes, and to entertain their adult family members—Oliver, who was no relation to the children at all, had been bestowed with the honorary title of cousin on the very day of their arrival—in a cozy space that was wholly without pretension, and wholly their own.

While Luca, who was five, pretended to read aloud from yesterday’s newspaper, Isabella arranged Tabetha’s hair to highlight the distinctive silver streak that ran through its dark length. “Uncle Kit,” she exclaimed when the earl entered the nursery and peered beneath the tent. “Come see how beautiful Aunt Beth looks!”

Kit grazed warm eyes over his wife. Her hair, normally pinned in a sleek coil, now hung over one shoulder in a messy braid. He smiled. “Beautiful indeed. Always.” Then he stood so he was only visible to them from the knees down, held open the flap of the tent, and announced, “Cousin Oliver is here, and he’s positively weighed down with Christmas presents. I wonder who will help him?”

Two noisy squeals and less than half a minute later, he was alone beneath the tent with his arms around Tabetha. “How disappointing,” she teased, as Kit nudged her braid aside to nuzzle beneath her ear. “Now I’ll never hear the end of that article Luca was reading to me.”

“So this is where my newspaper’s disappeared to. Had he got to the review of the art exhibition yet?”

She giggled girlishly when he found a particularly ticklish spot. “You do realize he can’t actually read?”

“Mm.” Kit brushed a kiss across her cheek as he reached for the newspaper. “Lucky for us both, I can. If I remembered my spectacles.” He patted his coat pocket, found them, and put them on. “Ah, here we are. It was this bit in particular I thought might interest you: ‘Placing second in the watercolor category, a whimsical composition entitled Ladies Reading, With Swords’—hmm, I’d like to see that—‘signed only with the initial C.’ You don’t suppose that’s your mysterious Miss C., do you?”

Tabetha considered the possibility. “Miss Nelson did mention that she’d told them something about entering a painting in an exhibition. Oh, if it is Constantia’s work, I hope the good news has made its way to her.”

“It really doesn’t seem right for you to look so beautiful, even when you’re worried,” he told her, brushing a few stray silvery strands away from her blue eyes.

She lifted one shoulder in mock despair. “I’m afraid it can’t be helped. I’m beautiful always, remember?” He laughed then, and so did she, though she truly was concerned for Constantia. “She’s always been such a private person. Do you suppose it would be meddling overmuch in her affairs if I were to write another letter to—?”

“Letter,” Kit echoed. “Good heavens. Your beauty has me so distracted, I almost forgot. Oliver asked me to give this to you.” Once more, he reached into his breast pocket. “He said it was delivered to the house in Town last week, and he thought rather than forwarding it on, he would bring it to Ferncliffe himself when he came.”

There was something vaguely familiar about the precise, masculine handwriting. With trembling fingers—she’d not entirely got over the shock of last month’s threatening letters, despite the fact that all had turned out well—she broke the seal and unfolded the paper. “It’s from Lord Ryland.”

“Oh?” Kit leaned back against the mattress and tugged Beth down beside him. “What’s he say?”

“Miss Cooper is safe! She’s been in his care all this time, just as I hoped, and—oh, my! Oh, I certainly didn’t expect that! He says they’re to be married in a month.”

“Well, well. Another Miss becomes a Missus. I suppose we ought to send a nuptial gift.”

“Mm, yes,” she agreed absently, suddenly conscious of the fact that her husband’s arms were around her and they were alone. The letter fluttered to the mattress as she turned in his embrace. “I think I really must do something different with the magazine, don’t you?”

He made a sound that might have been agreement but was more likely a response to her plucking off his spectacles and tossing them aside. “Tomorrow will surely be soon enough to decide, my dear.”