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“Also live here.” Dinah was starting to sense a pattern. It seemed anyone with any relation whatsoever to Henry now lived under one roof. Was that because Henry preferred it that way? All his family close enough he could keep a careful eye on them?
“And then...” Henry said.
“Good heavens, there’s more?” Dinah never would have guessed there were so many people living here.
“Only one. Uncle Jeffrey’s wartime friend.”
Now Henry was taking in people who weren’t even related?
“Mr. Wilson fell on hard times a few years back, and Uncle Jeffrey asked if he could come and stay a while, just until he got his affairs straightened out once more.”
“I take it his affairs are still in ruins?”
Henry shrugged. “Uncle Jeffrey is happier with another old, war-experienced man about.”
That was a lot of family under one roof. Dinah quickly ran through the list again in her mind; the better handle she had on this before she actually met the people Henry spoke of, the better. As she began to list them off in her head, she realized there was one important person Henry had not yet mentioned.
“And what of your mother?” Dinah asked.
The words had an instant effect. Henry’s shoulder’s tightened, the muscles along the side of his jaw growing more prominent. He sat perfectly still, one ankle resting atop a knee. His eyes, though, revealed the biggest change. It was as though a light had been extinguished inside them. The burning turmoil she’d witnessed there more than once was suddenly gone, leaving an empty void in its wake.
He turned away, placing his brandy on a small table nearby. The glass hit with a heavy clink.
“She is no longer with us.”
Oh. So, she’d died then?
And yet, there seemed to be more just hiding behind his words. But what he was not saying she could only guess at. What was clear, however, was that he still felt much pain in regard to his mother, whatever the nature of her passing had been. Dinah’s own mother had passed on many years ago. It created a hole in one’s heart—one that even time and the comfort of loved ones had struggled to fill.
Her heart went out to him. She understood that emptiness.
Dinah leaned back with a loud sigh. “Let me get this straight.” She spoke in an upbeat voice, wishing, for his sake, to dispel the gloom her question had brought. “There’s you, your brother, his wife, and three children.”
Henry glanced back her way. Though it was fleeting, she was certain she saw a hint of gratitude for her effort to change the subject. Still, he didn’t speak, only nodded at her words.
“Then your father’s two siblings, your aunt and uncle.”
Another nod.
“Your two cousins and then a friend of the family. That’s eleven people.”
“You make it an even dozen.”
“Gracious,” she muttered more to herself than anyone. Half of her didn’t wonder that he’d decided not to have an heir simply because it would be yet another individual in a house that was already bursting at the seams.
Henry leaned forward, the hollowed-out emptiness of before completely gone now. “They can be a bit overwhelming. So, as I said before, if you prefer to take a tray in your room...”
Her head snapped up. “Oh no, now that I’ve heard about your family, nothing would please me more than to meet them.”
“Are you certain?”
She met his gaze and lifted a brow. “I’m not afraid to meet your family, Henry.”
He looked at her for a minute, silent. Then, the corner of his mouth turned up. It was the first smile she’d ever seen on him. Though it was small, it filled her with quite a lot of happiness to know she’d put it there. That, and a burning desire to see it again many times over.
“What if I told you they have quite mixed feelings about our new situation?”
Who didn’t? But Dinah only smiled all the brighter. “You could invite royalty to Angleside Court for dinner, Henry, and I wouldn’t shirk.”
His own smile also grew. Not to the point where it was a grin or even very large at all. But it was there all the same. He stood and offered her his hand. “Well then, Dinah,” his tone lighter than before, “it’s into the fray we go.”
