Tactfully, he had omitted any mention of the struggle it had been to bring Grace’s education up to snuff in matters of deportment. She had taken to reading so readily, and had been a delightfully agile student of dance, having parlayed the agility she had cultivated as a rather skilled little pickpocket into the elegance necessary to master dancing—but learning to move at a sedate walk rather than bobbing and weaving through a crowd had been a battle of its own. She moved at a gallop so frequently that she rivaled a good horse for speed.
Felicity drew in a steadying breath. It was fine. Itwouldbe fine. Grace was all of the things Ian had said…even if she was a little more, besides. She might register as a bit peculiar amongst her peers, but she would also be the headmistress’ sister, and that would lend her some degree of legitimacy.
For the rest of it, well—there would be plenty of further lessons in deportment.
“Just think,” Ian said, “by the time she’s left your school, she’ll be a proper lady. Perhaps Charity and Anthony will sponsor her for the Season, hmm?”
“Well, it would hardly be sporting to ask Mercy to do it. She loathesLondon.” Still, the thought was comforting. That Grace would have the best life they were all capable of giving her; a life of security and opportunity that would go some small way toward making up for the insecurity of her youth. Even as a duchess, certain doors remained closed to Charity, owing to her past as a rather infamous courtesan, but she still held significant sway amongst a fraction of the Ton. Only a fraction, but to Felicity’s mind, it was the best one. And it contained a number of powerful and influential families. Even if she could never gain entrée into the most select echelon of the Ton, still she called enough people friends to allow for quite a busy social season. And Grace would certainly benefit from that.
“I’m just going to miss her,” Felicity sighed.
Ian spluttered out a laugh. “Felicity, you’re going to see her every day. Besides,” he said, “Nellie will be there when you’re not, and you know you couldn’t hope for better. She’ll look out for Grace, just as she looked out for you.”
“But she won’t be here,” Felicity said. “Putting her elbows on the table, or—or leaving books strewn about the house, or thundering down the stairs.”
“ThatI won’t miss,” Ian admitted. “It’s rather disconcerting, you know, to have one’s business interrupted by such a sound. More than once, I thought that the house had surely been invaded by elephants. I’m not certain how such a small girl manages to create such a large sound, but I’ve considered moving my office farther from the stairs a time or two.”
Felicity introduced the point of her elbow to his midsection, provoking a muted grunt.
“Besides,” he said, his voice slightly strained. “It won’t be too many more months until we’ll have someone else who will make every bit as much noise and will also be in dire need of lessons in deportment.” And he laid one hand gently upon her stomach, where their first child rested inside her.
It was early days yet, but the signs were undeniable. There would be a new addition to their family come winter. “Shall we tell Grace today?” he asked.
Felicity gave a small shake of her head. “Let’s let today be just for her,” she said. “I want her to visit over the weekend. We’ll tell her then.” And in the meantime, she would satisfy the aching need to share their news by writing to Charity and Mercy.
Grace thundered down the stairs at a rapid clip, the foyer collecting the sound of her shoes striking the steps and echoing it back in a maddening cacophony. “I’m ready!” she declared brightly as she arrived, bouncing on theballs of her feet in a surfeit of excitement. “Do I look all right?” she asked as she twirled about, the skirt of her blue gown belling out.
Felicity’s ears were still ringing from the last of Grace’s footfalls. “You look lovely, Grace, truly. Are you certain you’re ready? Because if you’d prefer to delay a little longer—”
Ian squeezed her shoulder gently. “She’s ready,” he said softly in her ear. “Just look at her. You’ve done your best for her. And the rest…well, the rest will fall into place on its own.”
He was right. She knew he was right. Grace was going to be just fine. She would settle in at the school, make friends of some young ladies her own age, and have a grand time being the giddy young girl she was rather than the sneak-thief she had once had to be only to survive. Rather bravely, in her own opinion, Felicity muffled a sniffle behind her hand.
Although not quite well enough, for Grace nudged Felicity’s shoulder with her own. “Don’t go all watering pot now,” she said. “I’m coming home to visit on the weekend, remember? And then you can tell me about the baby.”
Felicity’s mouth dropped open. “Grace! Were you spying on us before you came down?”
“Only for a little while.” Thoroughly unrepentant, Grace sauntered toward the door. “What? I had figured it out days ago, besides.”
Ian chuckled and said wryly, “I ought to have known.”
Grace gave a little shrug, which sent her golden curls tumbling over one shoulder. “You cast up your accounts quite a lot, lately,” she said sweetly to Felicity. “Mostly in the mornings. You’ve gone green about the gills at the breakfast table thrice this past week alone. And you’ve gained a bit of weight just about your middle.”
“Grace.” Felicity narrowed her eyes.
“Also I might have listened outside your door a few nights past. After you abruptly left the table when the cook served salmon for supper.”
“Oh, you wretched little—”
“Felicity,kindlydo not kill your sister on her very first day of school.” Laughing, Ian wrapped one arm about her waist, anchoring her to his side. Striving to arrange his face into some manner of firm expression despite his amusement, he added, “And Grace.Doendeavor not to be killed. That means no undertaking of activities which you know well enough are impolite. Such as spying upon people and listening at doors.”
“And remarking upon my waistline!” Felicity added indignantly. Whetheror not it happened to be true was of no consequence.
“It’s only going to grow,” Ian said, in what Felicity assumed was meant to be a placating, reasonable tone of voice. “Babies do tend to have that effect. And it will happen whether or not she remarks upon it.” He leveled a stern look in Grace’s direction. “Which she ought not to do, because it is not polite to make unflattering remarks upon someone else’s personal appearance.”
It was not the first time Ian had had to play the role of peacekeeper, nor was it likely to be the last. For all that Felicity was pleased to have found another sister in Grace—and to all accounts, Grace just the same—they did have the remarkable tendency upon occasion to squabble like—
Well, more or less like sisters, Felicity supposed. Grace, like most young girls of Felicity’s experience, had a predilection for mischief, and for placing her finger upon a raw nerve and pressing until she gained a reaction. But she was also sweet and affectionate and kind. Though the world she had found herself thrust into was very different from the one she had escaped and she did not always understand the rules of etiquette and deportment, she had come so far in only a few short months.
