Page 71 of Lord Hartwell’s Refuge

“Yes. Ten children and a household to run would be rather overwhelming. If she ever had attempted to manage ten children. If she’d ever had ten actual children to care for—your brothers were at school by the time she married your father,” her friend pointed out.

They were prescient points, and not ones Tamsin wanted to consider. “And Father—” And there she stopped.

Her father had never been cruel either. He had never ordered her to take responsibility for her siblings. He had never sat her down and declared that the management of Sycamore Lodge belonged to her. He simply failed to notice when it did. Or…perhaps he had noticed and found the arrangement satisfactory.

That possibility was considerably less comfortable.

“Someone had to do things.” Tamsin said it so quietly she wasn’t even certain she had spoken the thought aloud. Matilda’s expression changed. “Are you going to tell me what you are thinking?”

“Hmm?” Matilda’s blue eyes widened and she blinked innocently at Tamsin. “Me? Darling, I was not thinking anything. Barely breathing!”

“I believe you were.” Tamsin fought the desire to smile. “I think you wanted to say something, too.”

Pressing a hand to her heart, Matilda continued to act of guilelessness. “But I did not say anything? I did not even breathe in an objectionable way.”

“You were thinking something.”

Her friend turned back to the water. “I have been known to think things with alarming regularity.”

Fully exasperated, yet still somehow amused, Tamsin leaned into her friend’s shoulder a touch. “Tilly. Tell me. Please.” She had not called her childhood friend that shortened version of her name in years. Matilda had never forbidden it, exactly, but everyone had stopped using it when she married—except for her late husband.

At last, Matilda’s expression softened. She leaned back against Tamsin as she relented. “I was only wondering who decided that the someone had to be you.”

Tamsin opened her mouth to explain, but nothing immediately presented itself. “That is not fair.” Whether she meant the question or the situation itself, she could not immediately decide. She did not need to.

“No,” Matilda said simply. “It is not.”

The easy concession robbed Tamsin of any desire to make her defense on that point. Instead she looked down at her lace gloves, adjusted the wrist unnecessarily, then sighed. “I wanted to go.”

They were close enough friends that Matilda followed the path her thoughts had taken. “To Sycamore Lodge?”

“Yes. More importantly, to Henry.”

Matilda nodded, fully accepting the explanation without question. That was one of the things Tamsin loved best about her. Her friend knew and understood so much.

“I think that is what Roman did not understand.” Tamsin tried to arrange the thought properly before speaking it. “Anne expected me to come because she did not know what else to do, and I am the one she is used to turning to when that occurs. Roman saw that immediately.”

“And now?”

“Now I see it too.” She hesitated. “But if Henry could have written to ask for me, I believe he would have done so. Roman still should have consulted me instead of making the decision for me. Henry is not…” She frowned. “He is not a household matter to be settled.”

“No.” Matilda patted her hands. “I know. He is your brother, and he needed you.”

“I like that he needed me.” There was the uncomfortable part. Tamsin looked down at her hands.

A soft scoff escaped the woman beside her. “Why do you say that like a penitent making terrible confession?”

“It feels like a confession, given the circumstances.”

“Really? Why?” Matilda bent at the waist, peering up past the edge of Tamsin’s bonnet to better see her face. “Are you never to be needed again by your siblings?”

“No,” she conceded. “But this feels different. Roman may be right. Perhaps I have spent so long being needed by all of them, I do not know how not to be.” Her nose wrinkled. That sounded convoluted.

Another pat on her gloved hands from Matilda. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

Tamsin gave her friend an irritated look. “Really, Matilda. You are terrible at reassurance.”

“I thought you came to me for honesty.”