“But why did he choose my mother?”
“She was a diamond of the first water that Season, and he was a duke…damnably wealthy.”
“And that was it?”
The older man had simply nodded.
“Did he court her and get to know her?”
Beesley had stifled a grin and a chortle. “Oh my, no. He went to London, sought her out at a ball, and then made arrangements with her father.”
“And that was it?”
The quizzical look on Beesley’s face had made Julian abandon his questioning, but one last thought slipped from his lips before he’d thought it through. “Were they in love, do you think?”
With that, his family retainer had given him his first taste of a splash of brandy in a crystal cut glass in the estate office. When they’d finally settled at a window seat overlooking the vast Edgewood gardens, he’d given Julian the “talk.”
“Marriage, my boy, is a business contract, nothing more, particularly when one is possessed of a fortune like that of your family’s.”
“But I’m not a family. There’s only me.”
Beesley had placed a hand on Julian’s shoulder. “Patience, my boy. The woman you choose, not the woman you fall madly in love with, will bring you the family you seek. Someday.”
Shortly after the “talk,” The elderly Harwood Beesley had held Julian back from Eton for a year at the age of eleven to begin his tutelage on the inner workings of the estate he’d inherited. He’d discovered an entire universe of people he’d never known existed, people for whom he’d forever be responsible.
At first, he’d chafed at being imprisoned at Edgewood House while his friends moved on without him at school. And then he’d met the people whose labors created the great wealth he’d inherited. He’d ridden out every day with Beesley to inspect the workings of the tenant farms, the mill, the stables, the dairy, and the brewery his father had established in nearby Rumsford. That brewery not only supplied ale to the local Whistling Pig, but also delivered wagonloads of barrels sloshing to the rims to inns as far away as London.
“Julian—.” Wills’s shout above the noise of the crowd brought him back to present realities. “What were you doing up there with Mina?”
George interrupted. “You know she’s not allowed out of the nursery wing when guests are in the hall. We’ll all have the devil to pay if Mother finds out.”
Julian wrapped one of his long arms around George, pulled his head beneath the crook of an elbow and pinched his nose shut. “And just who is going to tell your mother?”
“Owww,” George moaned, and tried to twist away from Julian’s grasp. His elaborate feathered hat rolled to the floor. The more he struggled against Julian, the harder the taller boy pinched.
“All right, all right. I won’t tell anyone.”
Julian relaxed his grip and gazed down at his fake mustachioed friend. “That was the right answer.” After a short, thoughtful pause, he extended his bear-like paw and snatched George close to his chest again. He whispered in a loud hiss, “If someone in your family besides your father were to take an interest in that poor child, perhaps she wouldn’t wander the freezing cold halls of Montcliffe barefoot, without any sort of chaperone.”
* * *
Mina watchedBridget carefully sweep the covered metal pan full of hot coals between the sheets on her bed. One of the footmen had used iron tongs to fill the pan from the recently restored nursery fire. Nurse snored on in the adjoining room, oblivious to the bustle of servants caring for Mina.
A downstairs maid had brought up a tray with a small pot of cocoa and a few biscuits, which Mina devoured while relating her dancing adventures with the bear who was actually a duke.
When Bridget nodded at the footman, he closed the nursery windows to the damp, cold night air before hurrying away and clattering down the rear stairway, probably to return to his position near the entrance to the ballroom.
Mina was more familiar with the movements of her family’s servants than the family itself. She felt much more accepted by the army of those who toiled below stairs than by her family, except for her father, who spent little time at the Abbey.
“Mina…,” Bridget began, her voice soft and low. “You know you should stay out of the way when your brothers are entertaining their friend.”
“You mean Julian?”
“Why, yes…His Grace.”
“He doesn’t like it when I call him that.”
“But, Mina, someday, when you’re a grown-up lady, you’ll need to understand how to address lords and ladies in society.”
