Carrie laughed. “Please draw breath, dearest! There is plenty of time. I will be here for a few weeks yet. And Bella, you must remember you are to spend most of your days in the schoolroom and not wandering the house or the library at will.”
“Nicholas invited me to use the library.” Bella cast a look of appeal in his direction. “As long as I ask first.”
“How kind,” Carrie said, a little crisply, he thought. She seemed determined to dislike him.
A maid brought lemonade and biscuits while the girls chatted. As they required little from him, Nicholas sat back with a glass of wine to observe them. Although they both had Max’s red hair, Carrie’s was darker, and Bella’s eyes were green. They were different in other ways, too. It wasn’t merely their features and Bella being smaller; it was also their characters. Bella was an irrepressible imp who would take hold of life with both hands, while Carrie seemed far too serious for a young woman about to embark on her first Season. It would have been hard for her being the oldest, trying to ease the grief of the two younger ones. It seemed she’d become a little mother to them, which was admirable. But she should be light-hearted and happy at twenty.
Perhaps he was selfish to leave Carrie’s debut entirely in Gwen’s hands. He asked a lot of his sister. There would be times when Gwen would wish to seek his advice.
***
While Bella chatted to Nicholas, Carrie observed him. Lean and dark, he was as she remembered him, a little older and more mature. Behind his polite demeanor, there was a haunted look in his fine gray eyes. He had suffered heartbreak with the loss of his father and brother, she remembered with compassion. When she’d first met him, his good looks had captivated her. So handsome in his captain’s uniform. But then the reason for his visit became clear, and she unfairly blamed him, fearing her happy days at Leeming Hall were about to end. At fourteen, she’d been beneath his notice. Now that she was almost twenty-one, surely he would respect her opinion and discuss Bella and Jeremy with her as an adult. He must agree it would be best for Bella to live with her once Carrie was married.
“You should have seen him, Carrie.” Bella giggled as she described the antics of Nicholas’s whippet chasing a ball into the pond. “When Chester jumped into the waterlilies, he thought it was solid ground. He got such a shock when he sank into the water!”
“Cold this time of year,” Nicholas said, amused. His voice, deep and warm, sent tingles through her. He was entirely too attractive. With a sip of tart lemonade, she reminded herself how important it was to remain alert and coolly observant until she was sure of his character. The one thing that made her easy in her mind was how much her father liked and trusted him. But men weren’t always good judges of character, for Papa had been taken in by the Irish peddler who sold him a clock that never worked.
Nicholas had been most unreasonable about the harp!
Why had her father chosen him? Papa could have asked Aunt Penelope, although Carrie understood why he hadn’t. She almost shivered at the prospect of living with her aunt, whose rheumatism made her rather sharp-tongued and demanding.
If only he were married, his wife would have made this so much easier. But as there was no one else to take them. She must accept her father’s wishes.
Carrie looked up to find his eyes on her from where he sat opposite, his long legs stretched out over the carpet. His feet in the leather shoes were much larger than her father’s. It shouldn’t have caught her attention, and yet somehow did, because they reminded her of his masculinity and the authority he would hold over their lives.
She turned away and smiled at her sister. “How is Scotty? Does she like it here?”
“She does,” Bella replied. “Scotty loves Leeming Hall, but this house is much newer, the floors don’t creak, and the draft doesn’t seep through the cracks around the window frames.” Bella cast another apologetic glance at Nicholas, whose lips twitched as if he fought a smile. “Scotty would come back with us to Leeming in a heartbeat.” Bella heaved an enormous sigh. “But she says that when I make my debut, she will go to live with her sister in Kent.”
Carrie smiled reassuringly at her sister because Bella’s eyes had grown anxious. “Everything will be all right after she leaves. And we must let her go, dearest, and wish her well when the time comes.”
With a quick glance at Nicholas, she found a thoughtful expression in his eyes which she suspected missed little. She nervously toyed with a curl, dislodging it from its pins. It was a dreadful nervous habit. She really must stop. He watched her with faint amusement. Unreasonably annoyed with him, Carrie flushed and tucked the lock behind her ear. She wanted to persuade him to change his mind about the harp, which was important to Bella. But she wasn’t confident of success. There was a hint of steel behind his affable manner, which might come from ordering a company of men during the war. The way ahead seemed daunting. Her shoulders drooped.
“You will be fatigued after your journey.” He stood. “I’ll leave you
