Page 46

The sleighs jolted into motion, runners squeaking on the ice.

“Did we leave a child behind?” Lady Knowe laughed. “We started having trouble keeping track of them as soon as there were more than six. I hope your daughter doesn’t sleep through the entire sleigh ride.”

Their sleigh was following a path pounded smooth that ran along the side of the Thames, passing the pleasure gardens of palatial houses.

“It’s probably best that she does,” Ophelia said. “I don’t care to think about her reaction if she wakes up in the arms of a stranger and I’m not there.”

“Will she scream?” Betsy asked with interest. “’Cause my sister Joan screams all the time.”

“Very likely,” Ophelia said, liking her open face. “I suspect you screamed a great deal when you were that age as well.”

“A reasonable amount,” Lady Knowe said. “Leonidas, if you fall out of the sleigh, you’ll have to eat dinner in bed for a week.”

“But look!” Leonidas cried, pointing out the back.

Ophelia leaned forward. A boy had caught a rope behind their sleigh and was flying on the ice behind them, his skates throwing up plumes of shaved ice.

“I want to try!” Leonidas cried.

“That’s dangerous,” she said.

“But so much fun! Don’t you see?” He looked at her, his little-boy face screwed up with earnestness.

“Yes, I do,” Ophelia said. “We don’t want him to be hurt, though, do we?”

Lady Knowe had already tapped the sleigh driver on the shoulder and he was slowing to a halt. Ophelia stood up and looked over the back of the sleigh.

“His coat isn’t very nice,” Betsy said. “Do you have any money?”

Ophelia thrust her hand down into the pockets that hung under her skirts and fished out a guinea. “Here you are.”

“Boy!” Betsy called, leaning over the back of the coach, her ringlets blowing around her head as her hood fell back. “We think you should be in the circus. Come closer.”

He obeyed, which likely had something to do with the fact that young though she was, Betsy already looked and sounded like a duchess.

“Here,” she said, dropping the coin into his hands.

“Thanks!” he called up, touching his cap.

“Nicely done,” Lady Knowe said to Betsy. “I applaud you for not throwing it at the boy.”

“He wouldn’t have liked that,” Betsy said, sitting back in her seat.

When the sleigh set into motion again, Betsy leaned forward. “We have questions,” she said.

Ophelia blinked at her. “What?”

“Questions,” Alexander explained. “Like when Aunt Knowe interviewed the upstairs maid. So we can help Father make a very large decision.”

Lady Knowe coughed and looked at the children, eyes brimming with laughter. “The questions are for Lady Woolhastings, my dears. Not for Lady Astley.”

“She’s not married, so we can ask her too,” Betsy said. She folded her arms across her chest, and the two boys followed.

“But I’m not—”

“Please let them practice on you,” Lady Knowe interrupted. “I have a strong feeling that Lady Woolhastings will not entertain any questions, and they talked all the way to London about which questions were the most important.”

Ophelia looked back at the three determined faces opposite her and realized exactly what Lady Knowe wasn’t saying. These three had never had a mother. The boys in the first carriage—except for Parth, about whose parenting she knew nothing—had had Marie, and from what the duke said, she had been a loving mother.