“Gwyneth!” Aunt Phoebe called from the bottom of the attic stairs. “Are you coming?”
Gwyneth jumped, having forgotten, for the moment, which world she inhabited: her aunt’s voice boomed incongruously across the yardarm of the mysterious ship.
“Coming!” she answered, wondering where, and then remembered: she had promised to accompany Phoebe for various errands along Water Street. She left her page to dry, wiped her pen nib, and capped the ink, all while getting to her feet and dodging, out of habit, the sharply sloping roof.
She opened the door, peered down; her aunt had already bustled away, calling to the twins. Gwyneth, still feeling the tidal pull of her story, closed the door firmly and regretfully upon it, and went down to join Phoebe.
The young maid Ivy was with her, looking flurried, her arms full of Dulcie. “I can’t find them, ma’am.”
Phoebe put her fingers delicately to her eyes while her voice gathered power enough to be heard behind couches in the parlor, potted palms in the library, and whatever books the twins might have vanished into.
“Pandora! Crispin! I need you to watch Dulcie while we are gone! Those two. They melt into the air at any hint of responsibility. You’ll have to find them, Ivy.”
The girl’s eyes grew wide. “Yes, ma’am. But ma’am, the cook wants me to run to the butcher for a pork roast she forgot—”
How does one forget a pork roast? Gwyneth wondered, then thought, for some reason, of Judd. Cook, she remembered. Cook.
“Ivy, do you know anyone looking for a position as cook? Mr. Cauley at the inn is desperate.”
The maid gave a faint giggle and slid her hand over her mouth. “Sorry, miss. It’s just we’ve been wondering what he was going to do about Mrs. Quinn.”
“If you hear or think of anyone, will you tell me? And ask the cook.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Meanwhile,” Aunt Phoebe demanded fulminately of the chandelier, “what are we to do about the twins?”
Mr. Blair threw open the library door. “I cannot hear myself think,” he said testily, then bellowed like a bull, “Twins! I’ve heard less noise from an army taking over a government and dethroning a king.”
“I’m sorry, Toland,” Aunt Phoebe said a trifle crisply. “They’re apparently in hiding; we’re all going out and —”
“Yes. I heard.” He held out his arms. “Give Dulcie to me. I’ll find the twins. Stop grinning, you little bundle of trouble. I’ll put you in the cage with the parrot. Pandora!”
“Yes, Father?” she said, gliding with dignity down the stairs behind him. “What is everyone shouting about? I’ve only been in my room, trying to finish a sentence in my diary.”
“It must have been an excruciatingly long sentence,” Aunt Phoebe said acridly. “We’re going out. Watch the child.”
“Of course, Aunt Phoebe,” Pandora said mildly, receiving the bundle and setting her on her feet. “Come, child. We’ll go and teach the parrot some new words.”
Phoebe opened her mouth, closed it, watching their slow amble down the hall toward the parlor. She closed her eyes. “Toland.”
“Yes, Phoebe.”
“The parrot is stuffed.”
“Fortunately, don’t you think, knowing the twins?”
He disappeared back into the library. Aunt Phoebe gripped Gwyneth’s arm.
“I need air,” she said. “Now.”
On the street, her hold loosened a little; the brisk wind from the sea, the busy, glittering water behind the shops along the harbor, the smiles and greetings of townspeople growing more and more familiar to her, eased the severity of her expression, replaced it with one that made Gwyneth suddenly wary. Her aunt shifted closer to her, patted her arm a couple of times, mentioned idly that they must remember to go to the confectioner’s for tea cakes, since the Sproules would surely stop by that afternoon.
“Especially since they missed you yesterday,” she said.
Gwyneth, who was absently searching the harbor for the ship in her story, blinked at the suddenly meaningful note in her aunt’s voice.
“Yes,” she answered. “Pandora and I went for a walk.”
“Raven especially expressed his disappointment that you weren’t home. Couldn’t you have taken your walk earlier in the day?”
“I was working earlier.”
“Writing.”
“Yes.”
“You are a well-to-do merchant’s daughter being courted—very seriously, I must say—by the squire’s son and heir. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed.”
“I was trying not to,” Gwyneth sighed. “Aunt Phoebe, I know he’s nice enough, and very sweet to Dulcie. But—”
“Obviously longing for a family of his own,” Phoebe said briskly. “Outside of niceness and sweetness, what objections could you possibly have? His family is wealthy and eminently respectable; you could not find a better match in these parts, except at Aislinn House, and there is no one eligible for you there. Not that the family would even consider a merchant’s daughter. That the Sproules would is to their credit, and obviously only because of the strong feelings the young man has for you.”
“Aunt Phoebe, they are descended from farmers! Now, they’re farmers with a title.”
“Well, at any rate, you don’t have one,” Phoebe said a trifle nebulously, “and he does. Or will. Well. Besides that, I mean. Do you have objections to his suit?”
“Yes, I have objections,” Gwyneth said roundly; her aunt’s fingers, tightening again on her arm, checked her impulse to stride. “We don’t have a thing in common to talk about; he has no chin; he is better at charming you and Dulcie than me; I suspect that at heart he believes that marriage is the proper cure for a woman who writes. And he thinks a great deal too highly of himself. He loves himself far more than I could ever love him.”
Phoebe was silent. They passed the stationer’s shop. Gwyneth cast a wistful glance into the window, saw Mr. Trent placing the latest fashionable novel to advantage on the windowsill.
Will I? she wondered wistfully. Will my name? Will complete strangers read mine? What, she thought more coherently, is Aunt Phoebe thinking?
Her aunt told her abruptly. “Are you in love with someone else?”
Gwyneth froze half a step; her aunt’s fingers finally slid away. “No,” she answered fiercely. “Of course not. That has nothing whatsoever to do with my feelings about Raven Sproule. Must we talk about this? He might as easily fall in love with somebody else next week.”
“He might,” Phoebe agreed. “That’s why I think you should encourage him a little more. Be home when he comes to call. Talk to him. You gave most of your attention last time to Mr. Cauley and Mr. Dow. That was good of you to be solicitous of Mr. Cauley, who has been going through difficult times. But you don’t seem to notice his feelings toward you, and it isn’t fair of you to encourage him.”
Gwyneth stared at her aunt, felt the warmth, despite the wind, in her face. “What feelings?”
“Mr. Dow, of course, is another question.” She paused again, revealing to her fascinated niece what kind of question. “Wealthy, well-mannered, very sympathetic, very handsome. I don’t blame you if you have discovered feelings for him.”
“Mr. Dow,” Gwyneth echoed faintly.
“But we don’t really know anything at all about him. It’s wiser not to risk your future on the unknown, the charming stranger whose own heart might already be taken, and lose both him and the comfortable life you might have had with the more familiar.”
Gwyneth stepped wordlessly around a pile of crab traps a fisher was unloading at the end of a dock. “You don’t think Mr. Dow could love me?” she asked finally. Her aunt, she realized, had just handed her the plot of the previous latest fashionable novel. She might as well use it to cloud the issue, since Phoebe didn’t want to hear
