Page 107 of Duke of Moonstone
“As has mine.” Tristan shook his hand. “Your house looks remarkably alive, Whitestone. I barely recognized it.”
“That is entirely Frances’s doing.”
“Naturally.” Lavinia kissed her sister’s cheek and drew back to look at her. Something passed between them, and Lavinia’s mouth curved. “You are glowing.”
“It is the candles,” Frances said.
“It is not the candles.”
Frances squeezed her sister’s hand and turned the conversation to coats and shawls and the question of drinks before dinner.
Alexander guided the party toward the drawing room. The fire was lit. The decanters stood ready. Margaret settled into hers, and Eleanor immediately claimed the seat beside her, taking her mother’s hand with the affection of a daughter making up for lost time.
Frances appeared at Alexander’s elbow. “I have a question.”
“You always have a question.”
“Henry. He has not arrived.”
Alexander reached into his coat and produced a letter that had been delivered that afternoon. “His regrets. Urgent business in Scotland. He departed yesterday.”
Frances took the letter. Read it. Her brows drew together. “Scotland. What business could possibly be urgent enough to?—”
“He does not say.”
“That is unlike him.”
“It is very unlike him.”
Eleanor had drifted closer. “Henry is not coming?”
“Apparently, Scotland requires his immediate presence,” Frances said.
“How mysterious.” Eleanor’s eyes brightened with the particular interest of a woman who found mysteries irresistible. “What sort of business?”
“The sort he declined to specify,” Alexander said.
“That makes it more mysterious, not less.”
“Everything is mysterious to you, Ellie.”
“Only the things worth knowing about.” She took Malcolm’s arm. “We shall have to investigate.”
“We shall do no such thing,” Malcolm said with the resignation of a man who knew he would be investigating by Tuesday.
Dinner was announced. They moved to the dining room. Alexander took his place at the head of the table, Frances at the foot. Between them, both families merged and mingled, talking over each other in the way families did when they had stopped being polite and started being real.
Emily sat beside Sophia, her posture straight, her face animated in a way that still caught Alexander off guard after all these months. She was talking enthusiastically about her lessons. About her arithmetic. About the pony.
“His name is Jupiter,” Emily told Sophia, “and he is exactly the right size, and Alexander says I may ride him every morning if I finish my lessons first.”
“Every morning?”
“Every single one.”
“Is he very fast?”
“He is the fastest pony in England.” Emily’s chin lifted with the absolute conviction of an eight-year-old who had tested this claim against no evidence whatsoever.
