Carrick House by Shelley Adina

Author:Shelley Adina [Adina, Shelley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939087799
Publisher: Moonshell Books, Inc.

Chapter 6

Lizzie and Claude arrive

Two evenings later, a tube arrived to tell them that Lizzie and Claude were taking their leave of their grandmother Seacombe, and boarding the Flying Dutchman the following day. They would arrive in time for tea.

“Oh, goodness.” Claire looked up from the stiff stationery, still curled in the same shape as the tube. “We must rearrange ourselves again. Maggie, we will need to put Claude in Lewis’s room. Perhaps you and Lizzie could bunk together, and Peony go in with Lucy? Or Lucy go in with Dorrie? I do not want poor Peony having to take refuge at an hotel.”

“Of course, Lady, but don’t forget there is Sophy now, too,” Maggie said. “She came last night, and shared with Lucy. Chad has agreed to work for Lewis at the club, so Lewis took him when he left.”

Claire put a hand to her hot cheek. She’d forgotten all about Sophy and Chad. Good heavens, this simply would not do.

“Darling, don’t fret,” Andrew said, rising to take her in his arms. “You and I will simply sleep on Athena. I confess I find it every bit as comfortable as our room here. And it is certainly quieter.”

“Oh, Andrew, you are a genius.” She hugged him with a surge of relief. This was why he was so highly regarded in Wit circles—his thinking had the gift of mobility, jumping over obstacles like a deer and landing with perfect balance. “That is exactly what we will do. In the landau we can be back and forth for breakfast in twenty minutes, and there will be accommodations for everyone here.”

“Claire, may I speak to you?” As she looked up from the society pages of the Evening Standard, Lady Jermyn’s face did not show the relief that Claire might have expected at such a happy plan. Despite their rapprochement of this morning, her essential character—and Claire’s, too, of course—would not have changed.

“Of course, Mama. Let us go into the office.”

Everyone was enjoying their after-dinner pastimes in the drawing room, so Claire was not about to send them all away. Not when Sophy—goodness, how had she overlooked the poor child?—still looked a little skittish and uncertain, as though someone might chase her out with a broom. Claire was not altogether sure she wouldn’t scarper altogether, but Maggie was a steadying influence as the two perused the sections of the Evening Standard that Lady Jermyn had already discarded. An outsider might have thought they were reading aloud. In fact, Maggie was testing Sophy’s ability with the letters to determine where her education should begin.

Peony was out at the theater with the Havershams, but Claire would leave her a note telling her of their augmented numbers, and letting her know she would need to move up to the girls’ floor.

Lady Jermyn followed her back to the office, where Claire sank onto the sofa under the window that overlooked the garden. She patted the embroidered cushions companionably. It would not do to sit behind her desk, and she certainly wouldn’t permit her mother to do so.

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