He’d meant every word.
The carriage slowed, then turned between two tall stone gateposts and rolled on along a well-tended, tree-lined drive.
Toby’s gaze remained on the children. He’d started this mission utterly certain that he didn’t and never would want a family of his own, and now, all he could think of was how much he would give to keep this temporary family in his life forever.
The children peered out of the windows, searching ahead.
“Is this it?” Bryce asked. “Are we there? At Fellows Hall?” His tone was equal parts excitement and anxiety.
Evelyn hopped off the seat and came to lean against Toby’s knees and peer out of the window in the door. “Look!” She pointed. “There’s the house.”
The children—and Toby, Diana, and Helga—stared out at the house as it came into view. With two main stories, with a lead roof surrounding dormer attic windows, Fellows Hall was built of red brick with pale stone framing the long windows, front door, and porch. A central section—possibly an original baronial hall—was flanked on either side by two substantial wings. Midday light glinted off the glass panes, and as the carriage swept around the circular drive, sunshine bathed the gravel forecourt before the house.
The carriage slowed and rocked to a halt beside the front steps leading to the porch and the white-painted front door, but rather than engaging in their usual rush to alight, the children sat back in their seats and looked at Toby and Diana with big eyes.
Diana smiled reassuringly. “We’re here! Let’s take a quick look about, then go inside and meet your great-aunt.” She tried to make the event sound exciting.
Toby opened the door and stepped down first, then waited on the gravel while Diana encouraged Roland and Evelyn to join him.
Although obviously reluctant, dragging their feet, they obliged, then even more slowly, Bryce followed.
Diana exchanged a look with Helga, then waited while Bryce lifted Bruno down before climbing down herself.
By the time Helga joined her, a butler had opened the double front doors, and two footmen were hurrying down the steps to fetch their bags. Clearly, they’d been expected.
Helga nodded toward the children, clustered around Toby, who had crouched to talk to the three. “You go on and help with them. I’ll take care of the luggage.”
With a grateful nod, Diana went forward.
The butler—tall, of suitable years, with a well-worn face and wispy white hair—looked to be a kindly soul. Framed in the doorway, he was watching the children and Toby with interest and what, at that distance, looked like hope.
Puzzling over the latter, Diana reached the children and Toby—the four who had, somehow, come to be her family in every way that mattered. She smiled at Evelyn, who was clutching one side of Toby’s coat. Roland and Bryce were also standing close.
Toby glanced at her, concern in his hazel eyes. “I was just saying how very neat and tidy the house and gardens are. Rather as if Mrs. Fellows and the staff are looking forward to meeting us and are keen to put on a good show.”
“Indeed.” The observation was accurate; Diana hoped the conclusion was, too. Smiling encouragingly, she offered Evelyn her hand. “Come on. Let’s go and meet your great-aunt.”
Evelyn took her hand, clutched Rupert the Bear even tighter, then with determination in her small face, nodded. “All right.”
Relieved, Diana moved toward the porch steps and, with their little sister leading the way, the boys had to follow, but they still hovered close beside Toby, one on either side, as if ready to seize his hand and claim his protection if anything threatened.
To say she had mixed feelings about what they were about to do would be a massive understatement. She’d known the children since birth; she was godmother to all three. She’d been close to them in Vienna, but the pressures of the journey had only strengthened the bonds between her and them. The relief over having successfully got them safely on board the ship had been gilded by the days of sailing under clear blue skies with no threats in sight. Those had been truly glorious days she’d shared with the three and Toby.
He and she would go on to forge a life together; that was set in stone. Yet even though they hadn’t spoken much of the children, of having to leave them in Hampshire with their great-aunt, she knew Toby felt as torn over the matter as she.
For her part, she didn’t know how she would manage without the children about. They fulfilled that part of her that liked to be needed—that needed to be needed. Even with a new life to organize as Toby’s wife, she would, she felt, feel adrift without the children’s constant demands, demands she didn’t find bothersome at all. To her, those demands were affirmations that she had a purpose in life.
But they’d promised Adrian that they would take the children there and hand them into his aunt’s protection, and so they would.
There really was no other option.
Helga and the footmen had already slipped into the house, bearing away some of the luggage and taking Bruno with them.
Diana stepped onto the porch and, summoning a passable smile, walked forward to where the butler—who definitely looked kindly and also curious and quietly delighted—waited.
As she and Evelyn neared, the butler bowed. “Good morning. Miss Locke, I take it?”
Diana inclined her head.
