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But the three days at Welshire Park would be easy compared to the one after they returned to Winnover and she’d have to help Rose and George pack for the last time before they all drove to Brockworth and she and Will returned alone. Emmie took a breath. That was for later. Thinking about it now wouldn’t help anything, her nerves least of all.
“Mr. Pershing, we’re in view,” Roger called from the driver’s seat above them.
Immediately the children clambered onto the seats to look out the windows. “Good glory, it’s spanking huge!” George declared. “It makes Winnover look like a dollhouse.”
A very lovely and warm and comfortable dollhouse, but yes, Emmie could see the comparison. Her grandfather’s land accounted for over half the shire, after all. It was only fitting that his house should match the grandeur of his properties.
“There are people everywhere,” Rose said, holding on to her pink bonnet with one hand as she leaned out the window. “Are we related to all of them?”
“Most of them, yes. Are you ready? Because I think you’re going to do smashingly.”
“I’m ready,” Rose said. “And we can have all the cake and sweets we want?”
“Just don’t cast up your accounts on anyone’s finery if you eat too much, Flora,” George added.
“I won’t. I’m not a baby, Malcolm.”
As the coach stopped and a pair of red-and-yellow-liveried footmen pulled open the door, Emmie exchanged a glance with Will. This was it. The next few hours would decide their fates, and they’d wagered it all on two orphans who’d spent the last weeks robbing them blind.
“His Grace is in the garden,” one of the footmen said. “You’re the last to arrive.”
“We’ll go say hello, then, shall we?” She walked through the foyer with the children, waving to a cousin sitting in the morning room with three other people she vaguely recognized. While she had been her parents’ only child, her mother had six brothers and sisters, and some of them had had at least that many offspring themselves. They had rightly been referred to as “Welshire’s Horde” in the past.
The main hallway went on for ages, and while she tried to ignore the family portraits that lined every bit of wall not covered by a window, the children were clearly fascinated. “That one looks like you,” Rose noted, pointing at a painting of a pretty girl in pearls.
“That’s my mother,” she whispered, offering her hands to the youngsters. “Lady Anne. Don’t get distracted now. You’ll need all your wits about you.”
“I have all my wits,” the little girl returned.
In the garden the staff had set up several large canopies, with drinks and delicacies offered beneath them, and scatterings of chairs all about the large grounds. As she’d expected, they—or the children, rather—received more than a few curious looks as they headed for the largest of the canopies and the cluster of people beneath it.
Will took Rose’s free hand, smiling over the girl’s head at Emmie. “I wouldn’t wager against us,” he murmured. “We are splendid.”
“Oh yes, we are,” Rose agreed.
“There you are,” a gravelly voice came from the shaded depths beneath the canopy. “I’d begun to wonder if you meant to ignore my birthday entirely.”
With a deep breath, Emmie released the children and walked forward as the crowd parted. The shifting skirts and breeches revealed an iron-straight man with iron-colored hair sitting on what might as well have been an iron throne rather than a plush red-velvet chair. “Your Grace,” she said, curtsying before she bent down to kiss one gaunt cheek. “Grandfather.”
He glanced up at her, then beyond her again. “Emmeline. William. And these are my great-grandchildren, are they? They don’t look sickly.”
“They’re much recovered this year, I’m relieved to say,” she responded. “Malcolm, Flora, come meet your great-grandfather.”
Will had to nudge them from behind. First Rose and then George stepped forward like they were walking on broken glass. “I’m Malcolm,” George said, and bowed deeply at the waist.
“I’m Flora Pershing,” Rose put in, curtsying so deeply she nearly sat on the ground. “Hello, Your Grace.”
“We know who you are, don’t we?” the duke said to the growing crowd at large. “Been waiting for you since yesterday.”
“Our coach broke a wheel,” Will said. “We sent a note.”
“Yes, yes. All full of politeness, everyone is. Go on, then. Mingle with the other vultures. We’re serving luncheon inside. It’s too bloody hot to do it out here.”
A moment later Emmie’s mother and father approached. “Well, hello, Malcolm and Flora,” Lady Anne said, tapping Rose on one cheek with a forefinger. “You are darlings, aren’t you?” She kissed Emmie on her cheek. “I’d begun to think they were lepers,” she whispered. “They look perfectly normal, though.”
The things that came to Emmie’s mind in reply to her mother’s comment would have been judged much more harshly than slang. “Flora, Malcolm, these are my parents. Your grandmama and grandpapa.”
“Sir Fitzwilliam and Lady Anne,” Rose muttered, and flung her arms around her faux grandmother’s waist. “It’s very nice to meet you, Grandmama.”