Diana smiled. “When we return to the other house, we’ll repair Rupert, and he’ll be as good as new.”
Evelyn looked up at Drake again. “Rupert also helped stop the bad man with the gun in the alley, the one who was going to shoot our friend Eva. But Rupert flew at the man’s face, and then Eva shot the man dead.” The last phrase was delivered with Evelyn’s characteristic bloodthirstiness.
Drake blinked again, then set the dispatches down on his desk and, rather weakly, waved to the chairs grouped before the study hearth. “Perhaps we might all sit down, and you can tell me about your journey.”
Before any of them could move, the door swung open, and Drake’s wife, Louisa, marched in, closely followed by Toby’s sister, Pru, and his cousins Therese and Antonia.
Louisa’s gaze fixed on the children. “There they are!” Over her shoulder to the other ladies, she said, “I told you there had to be children somewhere in Hamilton’s domain. Nothing else puts that particular smile on his face.” Satisfied that she’d hunted down the reason for Hamilton’s apparently telltale smile, she raised her green gaze to Diana’s face. “Hello.” Louisa held out her hand. “I’m Louisa—Drake’s wife and Toby’s cousin.”
“And I’m Toby’s older sister, Pru.” Pru, then Therese and Antonia, lined up to introduce themselves to Diana.
Having been warned by Toby that something of the sort might occur, Diana coped with the sudden influx with commendable calm.
Of course, Pru being Pru, she immediately went on to introduce herself to the children, as did Therese and Antonia.
“But what are you all doing in here?” Louisa asked.
Evelyn promptly held up Rupert and told her story again.
After that, there was no chance in the universe that the four ladies would consent to being excluded from a complete recitation of their adventures.
Drake looked less than pleased, but Louisa and the other ladies ignored him and bore Diana, the children, and the hero of the hour, Rupert the Bear, off to the drawing room, leaving Toby and Drake no option but to trail along as well.
“Best if we tell all of you the whole tale in one sitting,” Toby murmured to Drake. “It’ll save us from having to repeat it.”
Drake shot him an intrigued and speculative look. “Whole?”
Still smiling rather inanely at his new family, Toby amended, “Well, as much as you need to hear.”
Drake huffed, but followed Toby into the large drawing room.
They all sat, and Louisa called for a tea tray, which pleased the children. The tray promptly arrived, along with a second tray with glasses of milk and plates of cakes and biscuits borne in by Hamilton, who had clearly been waiting for the request. The children beamed their thanks at Hamilton, then settled about the low table and addressed themselves to the fare.
Louisa poured for the adults, and the cups were passed around.
Once all were supplied with suitable sustenance and the children were distracted, Toby suggested that Diana start their tale with the unexpected death of her father.
Despite the lingering sadness the memories brought, Diana discovered that all that had transpired since had dulled her sorrow. Her father had wanted her to live life to the full, and now that she had so much to look forward to, she could look back on losing him with a degree of acceptance. Life moved inexorably on, and now she had Toby and the children and the family they would create to fill her life.
Toby took up the tale, relating how he had come to meet the Fellows family and how Adrian Fellows had proposed a trade of sorts. “It was the perfect way to get out of Vienna. We lost the Prussians entirely, and it was just bad luck that the Austrians summoned Heinrik back and set him on our trail. He was clever enough to guess that I might have opted to travel by a less-obvious route and, again by sheer luck, stumbled across us.”
Between them, she and Toby described the various segments of the journey—the carriage ride out of Vienna, the train journeys, the driving through the countryside in a cart—largely glossing over their time on San Giulio. That masquerading as a family had made it easier for them to pass unremarked was a constant theme throughout their narrative. The tale of having to seek refuge with livestock, including goats, in order to avoid their pursuers brought grins and teasing comments for Toby, while the mad dash from Cuneo had Pru and Drake nodding understandingly.
Their retelling of the clash in the dockside alley in Marseille brought the ladies to the edges of their seats.
“Good heavens!” Pru exclaimed, looking at the children. “You have been having adventures in truth.”
The three grinned at her, their undimmed happiness on show.
Diana remembered to mention that, in the alley, they were sure that Eva had realized that the dispatches were concealed inside Rupert. “But nevertheless, she handed the bear back to Evelyn.”
Toby glanced at Drake. “In return for them standing down and getting out of our way—not that they had all that much choice, yet them withdrawing from the field did make life easier for us—Heinrik suggested that you might see your way to sharing at least the gist of what’s in the dispatches.”
Drake’s brows rose. “Once I’ve read the documents, I’ll consider it.”
“After that,” Toby said, “we left Duncan’s men to tidy up and got on board, and the voyage itself was something of an anticlimax.”
Diana smiled. “If I might add, that was a welcome relief.”
