Jean burst into tears.
Elizabeth and Maggie exchanged alarmed glances. Jean was not the crying kind. As she patted her
sister's quivering shoulders and murmured soothing phrases, Elizabeth groped for some scheme of action to
divert Jean's mind from her troubles, but nothing presented itself.
In truth, Elizabeth was rather shaken by the strength of Jean's disappointment. She tried to
remember her own feelings when, twelve years before, she had prepared to make her debut in society. Her
stepmother, Jean and Maggie's mother, was alive then, and their father as well. 1808--the height, or depth,
of the war. The ballrooms had been full of uniforms. A dashing and rather exciting time. Jollier, Elizabeth
thought ruefully, than the present, in spite of alarums and excursions.
Her mind strayed to her husband, as it often did when he was gone, and she wondered what Tom
had been doing in 1808. Probably sitting in winter quarters in Portugal, scratching his fleabites and
rehearsing for regimental theatricals, when he was not on outpost duty. Tom seldom reminisced about his
military service, and when he did his recollections were apt to focus on fleas and fandangoes.
Oh Tom, come soon, she pleaded silently. I need you. Jean needs you.
As if in response to her prayer, the door opened. Elizabeth's pulse quickened. She gave Jean a
squeeze and sat up. It was not Tom--only Nurse bringing the babies for their aunts to inspect and approve.
Still, the diversion was welcome.
Maggie jumped to her feet and ran to capture the Honourable Richard Conway, who had escaped
Nurse's grasp and was waddling, petticoats already adroop, in the direction of the briskly burning fire.
Nurse set Lord Brecon on his unsteady pins and straightened his skirts with a cluck. "There now, wasn't
Master Dickon all clean and tidy for his mama, and now look at him." Maggie had rescued the baby from
the coal scuttle. "I beg your pardon, Lady Clanross. He's too quick for me, that one."
Elizabeth smiled and held out her arms to Brecon who staggered solemnly over to her. "Mama,"
he said experimentally.
She gave him a hug. "That's right, darling. Just keep practising and you'll have it down pat any day
now."
Beside her Jean gave a watery giggle. Brecon had caused some consternation over Christmas by
calling all female persons above a certain age mama. At the time Elizabeth had been less amused than her
sisters, but she was glad now that the baby had diverted his aunt from her self-absorbed gloom. "Will you
go to Auntie Jean, then, Ba?"
Lord Brecon gave an assenting bounce and was duly handed over. Dickon, on Maggie's knee,
crowed with delight as she began to tickle his round person, and the atmosphere lightened
appreciably.
Elizabeth's sons, like her sister, were twins, though the boys did not look much alike. It was some
consolation to her that she had produced not one but two heirs to the earldom at the first try. Among them,
her father's wives had borne eight daughters and no sons, which was why Tom was Lord Clanross.
In another sense the boys were a fortunate gift. As with Maggie's Una, the birth had been attended
by complications. When she woke at last from a high fever, a week after she had begun labour, the
physician had informed Elizabeth that she would bear no other children. In the weeks--nay, months--of
melancholic reflection that followed, Elizabeth had clung to the fact that at least she had given Tom an
heir.
She could not help feeling that she had failed him, even so. Tom had been orphaned young and
had lost his own twin sister to the same illness that had killed his mother. While he cared not a whit about
securing the succession, Elizabeth thought he needed a large family and she had wanted to give him many
children, daughters as well as sons.
Elizabeth's barrenness was grief to her, but it was a grief she kept to herself. Tom had never
spoken of it. Indeed she sometimes wondered whether he had been told. However, his affection for the
boys was unqualified. And, she thought, half sad, half amused, if she had not given him daughters, at least
she had given him a raft of sisters.
Besides Jean and Maggie, who were great favourites with him, there were Anne in London and
Kitty in Scotland, Elizabeth's full sisters. And, in the Dower House down the gentle hill upon which the
palace of Brecon sat in icy neoclassical splendour, where they were attended in great comfort by the
redoubtable governess, Miss Bluestone, resided the three other Conway daughters. Fanny, Georgy, and
Caro, Jean and Maggie's full sisters, were still in the schoolroom. Quite a population of Conway females.
And they will all have to be presented,
Elizabeth thought.
Perhaps Tom and I should emigrate to Upper
Canada before the evil day arrives.
She watched her sons and her sisters romping on the Turkey carpet and wished Tom would come.
Parliament would be dissolved at once, he had said in his letter. The Whigs were hopeful that Prinny would
bring them in at last. Tom was less sanguine and less enthralled by the current Whig leadership. The
questions he considered most urgent--the want of work, the price of bread, Catholic Emancipation to
placate turbulent Ireland, redistribution of Parliamentary seats--were not likely to receive much attention
even from the Whigs, if, as rumour had it, Prinny intended to divorce Queen Caroline.
On what grounds? Elizabeth wondered. Infidelity? But Prinny was famous--or notorious--for a
series of plump mistresses, not to mention his morganatic wife, Mrs. Fitzherbert. Surely he would nor be so
brass- faced as to sue for divorce on the grounds of his wife's amatory adventures. What then?
And if he
does bring a bill of divorcement, will the queen countersue for divorce on the grounds of bigamy?
A divorce was bound to be a political matter. The parties would take sides, not on the truth or
falsehood of the evidence, but on the basis of the advantages to be gained from taking one position or the
other. Precisely the sort of false dilemma to produce rioting in the streets, as if there were not already
enough civil disorder.
Elizabeth sighed.
"Do look, Lizzie, Brecon can dance!" Jean was laughing heartily as the heir, looking pleased with
himself, wobbled up and down a few times on his still uncertain legs. They gave way. He sat down hard and
began to wail. Jean picked him up. Dickon, closely attended by his Aunt Margaret, was exploring the
wainscoting. He had acquired a fine coating of dust.
I must speak to the maid,
Elizabeth thought
absently as she rose to take her sobbing child from Jean.
"Good God, what's this, a donnybrook?"
"Clanross!" Jean and Maggie.
"My lord." The nurse.
"Oh, Tom, thank God you are come." Elizabeth ran to her husband. He enveloped her and the
heir in a large, rather wet hug--he wore riding gear--and smiled at Maggie and Dickon.
"That's a fine greeting. What's the matter, my lady?" She blinked, momentarily confused. Now
Tom was home nothing was the matter. "Prinny cannot possibly divorce the queen. He has no
grounds."
The earl's eyebrows shot up to his hairline and he grinned down at her. "And what has that to do
with me and thee?"
Elizabeth flushed and laughed. "Nothing. Not a thing. Did you ride? You're wet with
snow."
"And mud," Clanross agreed amiably, bending to kiss her cheek. "I'm growing too old for winter
manoeuvres."
"But the carriage..."
"I left it in Grantham and hired a nag. It was faster than the carriage. Otherwise I should have had
to put up for the night in Chacton." He had taken Brecon from her and was nibbling the fingers the baby
poked in his mouth. "Very tasty, Ba."
"Papa!" Dickon beamed expectantly from Maggie's arms so Clanross took him, too, and they
made a circuit of the withdrawing room, his lordship with a giggling infant on each arm. It was all very silly
and happy, and Elizabeth, perversely, felt a strong urge to break into tears.
My turn.
After dinner she and Clanross retired to their suite. Elizabeth had had an antechamber made into a
cosy sitting room when she had finally agreed to live at Brecon--it was a splendid house but far from
homely--and some of their pleasantest times had been spent there, remote from family and guests and
servants with a warm fire crackling on the hearth.
"Shall you have to go back to town soon?" Elizabeth snuggled close and began playing idly with his
watchfob.
"I left Barney Greene at the house. He can send for me if I'm needed. I've a week at least,
Elizabeth." He pulled her closer still. "A reprieve, but I fear the next months will require my absence from
Brecon more often than I like."
They spoke idly of absent friends. After a time Elizabeth murmured, "Did you send Johnny Dyott
to your friend in Hampshire?"
"Yes. He rode down on Sunday."
"Sunday!"
"Perhaps he is beginning to kick over the traces at last. He won't take holy orders, will he?"
"I don't think so. He has come that far. His father will be distressed, but really, Johnny would
chafe at the confinement of a parish." Elizabeth hesitated. "Have you considered that he might do well in
politicks? He is a personable young man."
"And a Tory by temperament, if not conviction."
"Does that matter?"
Tom said slowly, "The thing is, he has ideals, and I'd be loathe to disillusion him so young."
"He's twenty-five. Not a youth."
"Except in his own mind."
That was true. In many ways Johnny Dyott was an estimable young man, but there was in his
make-up a core of indecisiveness and deference that made him seem much younger than he was. She
wondered why it should be so--an overbearing father?
Tom sighed. "Richard will keep him occupied."
"I daresay." Elizabeth was not well acquainted with Colonel Falk, though he was Dickon's
godfather. She had met few of Tom's military friends. Sometimes she felt as if Tom were deliberately
excluding her from that part of his life, for he kept up the friendships. He didn't intrude his old companions
on her company. She hoped he did not imagine she was reluctant to welcome them. Almost she asked him,
but it would be easier to change the subject.
He did it for her. "I've found a librarian."
She straightened. "At last!" The Brecon library was in dire need of professional scrutiny.
Tiresome Latin sermons by seventeenth century divines jostled family papers and rare incunabula, and no
one knew what was where. "Who is he?"
"Owen Davies."
"Davies..." She pictured an ancient Welsh gnome.
"The rector's youngest."
"Good God, not the boy with spots!" Dimly she recalled a callow undergraduate sitting beside the
rector's prim wife in the Earl's Brecon church.
"He has been down from Oxford two years now and wants work. His scholarship is
excellent."
"But what?" She heard the reservation in his voice.
He gave her shoulders a left-handed squeeze and his voice lightened with amusement. "But he
tells me he's a poet. I hope his muse will allow him a few hours a day to catalogue the books."
"Lord, a poet. The woods are full of them. It is all Byron's fault." Elizabeth's mind turned to more
urgent matters. "What am I to do with the twins?"
"The boys? I thought they looked exceptionally frisky."
"I meant my sisters. Jean was in tears this afternoon."
He frowned. "Good God, why?"
"She's determined to make her come-out, king or no king. It's an
idée fixe
. And
you know how she creates when she's thwarted."
Tom laughed. "I daresay she's laying diabolical plots."
"It is no laughing matter, Tom. She's capable of embroiling herself in a real scandal--and relishing
the melodrama. If only Maggie were a stronger character. Jean listens to Maggie."
Tom gave her shoulders another squeeze and rose to mend the fire. "Don't fret yourself, my dear.
If worse comes to worst you can ship Jean off to Scotland."
"She would probably foment a rebellion."
He laid the poker back in its place and turned, smiling. "That would enliven Lady Kinnaird's
drawing room."
At that Elizabeth had to smile, too. Her other married sister, Kitty, was a dull woman. Dull and
peevish. "Better Kitty's drawing room than mine."
"And how did Maggie greet the dreadful tidings?"
Elizabeth laughed. "Maggie is so much more temperate than Jean. She accepts things as they are."
In spite of herself, a note of censure crept into her voice. Elizabeth herself was not of a placid disposition,
and she sometimes thought Maggie a slow-top.
Tom leaned on the mantel. "That's not always a bad quality, you know."
Elizabeth flushed. It was a little uncomfortable when he read her mind. "No, but she is so
sluggish."
"I shouldn't say Maggie was sluggish. Merely she has the capacity to be happy. That's a gift Jean
doesn't share, poor child. If Maggie were to fall in love, she would live happily ever after. Jean would aim
for Romeo and Juliet."
"Then let us hope her reach exceeds her grasp."
A slow smile lit his grey eyes. "Speaking of reaching and grasping, Lady Clanross, should we not
adjourn to the nuptial couch? I didn't ride that cross-gaited tooth-rattler all the way from Grantham to chat
about your sisters."
"Uxorious man." Elizabeth found she was smiling, too.
* * * *
"Hist! You can't be asleep, Maggie!"
"Mnnn." Maggie blinked her eyes open.
"What are we going to do?"
"Do?"
"I won't wait a whole year to make my come-out."
"Mm, no." The dying embers of the fire came into brief focus. Maggie snuggled closer to her
sister.
"We'll have to do something."
Maggie thought. "Probably."
"What, daff-head?"
"I d'know," Maggie said sleepily, "but don't worry so."
"Why not?" Jean wriggled.
"Because you'll think of something, sister." She shut her eyes and drifted. "You always do."