I was a bit mystified as to why he was telling me this, but I nodded encouragingly. “Oh, excellent. I have always thought it a darling house.”
“I am glad to hear you say it,” he said mildly. “It is yours now.”
I blinked at him. “I did not hear you correctly, I am afraid.”
“It is yours, Julia. I know I gave you a present with your brothers and sisters, but this is something else. Just for you.”
I stammered a little in my confusion. “B-but, Father, surely there are others in the family who need a house.”
“It is not a house,” he corrected. “It is a home. Of your own, for so long as you shall live. I cannot give it to you outright. It is entailed with the estate, and when I am gone, it will belong to your brother, Bellmont. But I have arranged with the solicitor that it shall be yours to live in for the duration of your life, so long as you wish it. You may go and come back, as you like, but it will always be here for you to return to.”
I shook my head. I could not quite take it in. “But why me, Father? Portia is a widow as well,” I reminded him.
“Portia has a home, and Portia has Jane.” He put out a hand and touched my shoulder. “I will not always be here, child. I do not know what the future holds for you, but I would have you cared for. You are my favourite.”
I put a hand over his. “You have ten children, and five of them are under your roof right now. How many times have you said that today?”
“Five,” he admitted ruefully. He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. “But I only meant it once.”
He left me then and I was glad of it. I did not want him to see me weep.
* * *
Boxing Day was, in a word, noisy. The tradesmen called for their boxes and were quite civilly invited in for mince pies. We had a tremendous luncheon of the Christmas remains with far too much drink. By the afternoon, the children were rampant with sugar and excitement and the adults were sore-headed as bears. Father organised the children into a game of pirates, which entailed plundering the lumber room costume boxes and much shrieking and running about the Abbey. Raids were conducted and booty secured, and at one point I was even taken prisoner by my niece Perdita, and tied to my chair with a petticoat. She ran off as soon as she had secured me, waving a wooden sword and screaming threats in an alarming Irish accent. Portia had a great laugh at my expense. She had only been tied with a cravat and worked her way free very quickly. I quirked a brow at her loftily.
“You may well laugh, but I have just been captured by Grace O’Malley, the greatest pirate queen ever to sail the Seven Seas,” I told her.
Portia snickered as I tried unsuccessfully to free myself. Eventually she was prevailed upon to untie my bonds. At that moment our niece returned and fixed me with a stern look.
“You were not supposed to free yourself. I must give you to Tarquin. He has ransomed you,” she told me.
“Thank you, but I think not. I would rather be your prisoner than your brother’s. He put spiders in my bed the last time I slept at the farmhouse.”
Perdita’s expression turned mulish. “But youmust,Auntie Julia. He has paid the ransom,” she insisted. “See?” She dug into her pocket and extracted a handful of plunder. There, on her grubby palm, lay a necklace of perfect grey pearls I had never thought to see again.
Portia and I gasped and lunged for them at the same time. Startled, Perdita shrieked and threw them into the air. Portia caught them neatly, while I took our niece by the shoulders.
“Perdita, dearest, where precisely did you get this necklace?”
She looked inclined to pout, but if Benedick’s children were high-spirited, they were also well brought up.
“Tarquin gave it to me.” Her expression darkened. “He would not agree to the bracelets as well, but I thought you were worth them.”
“Indeed. And where is Tarquin now?”
“Mounting an attack on the kitchens. He means to take the larder. He wants cake.”
I released her and patted her on the head. “Thank you, dearest. Play with Auntie Portia now. She will be your prisoner. I must have a word with your brother.”
Portia shot me an evil look, and the last I saw, Perdita was lashing her ankles to a chair while Puggy danced around, snarling.
Tarquin was easy enough to find. I ran him to ground in the kitchens precisely where his sister said he would be. He must have been successful, for he was busily stuffing his pockets with ginger nuts and Cook was nowhere to be seen.
“Tarquin, my boy, may I have a word?” I asked him. He blinked at me, owlish in a pair of very smart spectacles. He was the cleverest of Benedick’s children, and I suspected he would be the handsomest.
“You’re my prisoner now,” he informed me. “Did Perdita tell you? I paid an enormous ransom for you,” he said, wrapping a striped scarf about my head. “I will release you and make you one of my crew if you promise to fight for me.”
“Very tempting offer, I am sure,” I said, removing the scarf. “But I wanted to ask you about that ransom. Where did you find the necklace?”