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“I’ll keep an eye out, find out what he has been up to. He bears watching, my lord, and I do wish you would be more careful!”
“Thanks, Reynolds. But I think I’m harder kill than that.”
“No one is hard to kill, my lord. People die every day.”
Chapter 26
The next day, after luncheon, Cecey returned to the nursery and schoolroom where she had been busy all morning setting it to rights for Helen Rawlins’s children, Libby and Ron. Everything had been cleaned and dusted, and she was almost ready to share this treasure of her childhood with them. Her anguish over finding Annie had subsided overnight, and she felt a peculiar lightness of spirit, as if something that had weighed her down all her life had departed. She anticipated their excitement with an equal measure of joy.
She had found a tiny tea set, complete with teapot, to place on the little table, several cloth dolls in far better shape than her poor Annie to invite to the tea party in Libby’s honor, and a painted canvas map of a small township and landscape upon which to assemble the set of wooden houses, trees, farm animals, and soldiers that she rather fancied Ron would enjoy. The canvas took up a considerable part of the floor.
Light came through the now clean windows and a soft summer breeze wafted into the room bringing the scent of flowers and fresh cut hay. It was perfect.
Closing the door softly, she went down to the kitchen to get another basket of food for the family and set off for a second visit. She found Helen kneading dough for bread and the children helping. Which largely consisted of them getting flour everywhere.
Helen wiped the back of a floury hand against her forehead and said sharply to Ron, “That is enough. We have a guest—fetch the teapot down.”
Ron, much abashed, obeyed this order and set the teapot carefully on the table.
“Thank you. I brought you some more of Mrs. Garrick’s cooking. A cottage pie and a plum cake.”
“You’re spoiling us, my lady!” protested Helen.
“Well,” Cecey leaned in and said softly, “I also have a treat for the children if you’ll permit it.”
Helen blinked. “What kind of treat?”
“Come up to the house, and I’ll share it with all of you.”
Helen bit her lip, glancing at Ron and Libby who had both frozen at the word treat.
“We’ll be good, Mama. I promise,” said Ron.
“Yes, Mama! Please?” begged Libby, grabbing her apron and tugging at it.
Helen nodded. “Very well. Go and wash your hands.” She wiped her own hands on her apron and then removed it. Then she laid a cloth over the dough in the bowl and fetched her bonnet and cloak. They left the cottage, skirting the slowly shrinking pools of muddy water, and headed back toward the house.
When she led them in through the main entrance, Ron stared around wide-eyed at the expanse of tiled floor, the grand staircase, and the pair of crossed swords above the fireplace. He looked around at Cecey. “Are they real?”
“Yes, I believe so. They were used in a duel between my great-grandfather and another man whose name I forget,” she said with a smile.
“Is that the surprise?” Ron asked.
“No. Come this way,” she said, leading them up the stairs, as James the footman, who had opened the door for them, smothered a grin. Cecey winked at him. She liked James.
Ron strode up the stairs beside Cecey, and Helen came behind, holding Libby’s hand.
They reached the third floor, and Cecey led them to a door in the west wing and stopped.
“Can you guess what is in here?” she asked.
Libby sucked her fingers anxiously and shook her head.
“Our surprise?” asked Ron, wanting certainty.
She smiled and nodded. She pushed the door open and let them see.
Ron gasped as the full glory of the soldiers and farm animals hit him, and Libby’s eyes lit up as she spied the tea party, and she skipped into the room, skirting the map on the floor while her brother looked at Cecey. “Can we touch?”
