Zach airily waved his hand. “The housekeeper at Langston Hall knows what is needed, as do your sisters. They love to plan parties. All you have to do is authorize the expenditures, then stand at the head of the receiving line and be charming.”
Nick scowled.
“Yes, just like that.” Zach tapped the tip of Nick’s nose.
Nick tossed back his brandy and slammed the glass on his desk. “Fine.”
Chapter 25
Two weeks later, Nick stood on the side steps of Langston Hall with his five sisters and their husbands, greeting every person who lived in Keyhaven, it seemed, welcoming them to the festival in his garden. He had even dressed as befitted a country gentleman, wearing a dark green frock coat, buff breeches, and shoes with silver buckles, his long hair restrained with a single black velvet ribbon at his nape instead of in a queue.
Audrey and Evelyn had both asked, but he refused to take out his earring. “It’s just like the one Grandfather is wearing in his portrait,” he reminded them. Per long-standing tradition, he and Grandfather had both received a gold earring to mark the first time they sailed around Cape Horn, albeit about forty years apart.
Nick and Zach had ridden horses from London to Langston Hall. Zach had not once complained about the cold and wet journey, and rarely tried to draw Nick into conversation. Certainly did not mention the voyage from Portugal.
Nick had let Jonesy sail Wind Dancer back to Keyhaven from London. Maybe one day Nick would be able to step aboard again without feeling like a knife was twisting in his chest, that the ship would once more be the sanctuary it had been for him since the first time he sailed with his grandfather.
Everywhere he looked he saw Harriet. Even smelled her scent on his pillow in his bunk. He should never have let her write navigation entries. He could launder or replace the bed and bedding to banish her scent, but she’d left her indelible mark—literally—with her neat penmanship in his logbook. He’d have to start a new one with blank pages.
Canvas canopies had been set up on the lawn in case of rain, though the scudding clouds blowing inland revealed the afternoon sun as often as they blocked it. To keep everyone warm, two smaller fires were burning at strategic points in addition to the bonfire. Not one but two pigs were roasting. A quartet was playing on the back lawn—a fife, pennywhistle, and two fiddles—and a temporary dance floor had been laid on the grass. At least two dozen people were dancing a jig. Cider was flowing freely, and tables were laden with platters of food, including one table devoted entirely to apples—pies, dumplings, toffee apples, sauce, apple chutney to go with the roast pig, and a platter heaped with apple slices next to a pot of caramel sauce bubbling on a brazier.
Food and other preparations had been made in such a way that the kitchen staff and footmen were able to come out and take part. Every servant, employee, and tenant of the Sheffield holdings was out here with their families, to gawk at and thank the much-absent heir who had finally resumed a beloved tradition.
“Your mam would be proud, you bringing everyone together again like this,” said Mrs. Gilmer, holding her hand up. Nick lightly grasped her gnarled fingers and dropped a kiss in the air above her knuckles.
“Thank you.” Nick had to swallow a sudden lump in his throat. “I can’t take credit, though. It was Uncle Zach’s idea.”
“Oh, he’s such a scamp.” Sun broke through the clouds, gilding her white hair like snow. She had lived on Langston land so long she would have been a young bride greeting his grandparents on this very spot decades ago. “She was so happy to finally have a boy after all them girls. You look just like you da, you do, tall and handsome.”
To his surprise, Nick was able to smile without hesitation.
She raised a work-roughened hand to cup his cheek. It was quite a stretch for her, as the top of her head barely reached the middle of Nick’s chest, her shoulders stooped.
Nick recalled how the shepherd’s wife, now a widow, had often requested Nick “test” her biscuits and jam tarts when he was out exploring the fields and forested lands around Langston Hall, a boisterous child escaping his tutor. He cleared his throat. “How is your cottage? Was it snug during the storm two nights ago?”
She beamed. “Mr. Berwick sent a crew of energetic young men. Got the whole roof replaced in just one day, they did, right before the rain came. The winds blew but nary a drop came inside. Bless you.”
Impulsively Nick bent to give her a quick, gentle hug. “Have to take care of our most revered residents,” he said softly. And he meant it.
As he straightened, he felt the weight of all four viscounts who had preceded him, over a century of male ancestors. This time the pressure wasn’t suffocating. It felt more like a comforting cloak settling around his shoulders. He wasn’t a harsh taskmaster like Adam, nor was he an unpredictable pleasure-seeker like Zach, but somewhere in between their extremes. He was a Langston, damn it, however it came about. He’d fulfill the role and give what was due to the title and all it encompassed. He just wanted to have fun along the way.
He now understood why Adam had given away everything that wasn’t entailed.
Because Nick inherited the title but almost no cash, he couldn’t spend money in pleasure clubs in London, in gaming hells, or betting on boxing matches like Zach. Nick had to do something. Had to go earn his own liquid assets, in the form of working for the Home Office during the war, then a little importing business during peace. He liked to think he would not have become as ramshackle as Zach if he’d been able to lead a life of leisure. Thanks to the course Adam had set him on, though, Nick would never know.
Mrs. Gilmer gave Nick’s cheek another pat and moved on to reminisce with Audrey and Nick’s other sisters.
Other tenants like Mrs. Gilmer shared memories of previous festivals hosted by his mother and the preceding viscount, conjuring images that Nick had suppressed for years. He was finally able to see past his mother’s deathbed confession and remember her as the happy hostess, laughing and chatting with her guests on these very steps, arm-in-arm with her husband if he was not at sea.
At last there was a break in the stream of people wanting Nick’s attention. He took a look down the receiving line at his sisters, standing next to the best husbands their dowries could buy. Except for Caroline in the middle, of course, who’d fallen in love at seventeen with the surgeon who happened to be Grandfather’s houseguest that week, who had bandaged her sprained ankle when she fell off a horse. Norton saw Nick and gave him a wave.
Nick gave him a jaunty wave back.
His sisters had lined up in family order rather than the rank they’d married into, so Evelyn, the youngest, and her earl were at the end of the line instead of the beginning. “Save the best for last,” Lord Crandall had joked, before staring adoringly into Evelyn’s eyes.
Nick brightened further when he saw that the next carriage to pull up in the drive bore the Penrith crest. When the footman let down the steps and opened the door, instead of the Marquess emerging, Nick’s friend Alistair, Viscount Moncreiffe, unfolded his long frame and stepped out, and held his hand out to assist his wife down. The couple strolled toward the receiving line, the epitome of decorum, until Charlotte let go of Alistair to run the last few steps and throw her arms around him. “Nicky!”
Nick used her momentum to grab her and hoist her up, swinging her around in a circle, before he set her down and planted a kiss on her cheek. “Charlie! Glad you two were able to tear yourselves away to come.”
