Almost a Scandal (42 page)

And what a cat’s-paw that would be, with two lovelorn females—and possibly the two most unalike females in the entire country—moping about the house all day long. Sally was already heartily sick of herself. It would be insupportable to add another.

“It may be a longer while yet, before Owen is given a ship. Just because he’s been made post doesn’t mean he’ll be quickly given a command.”

“Will he not? But he is a hero of Trafalgar, just like you. And he is brilliant. Everyone tells me it is so, and I know it from my own experience of him. And of course my father, Lord Burroughs, will use all of his not inconsiderable influence on his behalf. That, combined with your own father Captain Kent’s excellent reputation in the navy, will assuredly gain him all the influence and patronage he needs.”

She was probably right. But her speech brought up another problem. “
I
am not a hero of Trafalgar, Grace.
Richard
is. I don’t know what Owen has told you—”

“Oh, he has told me all, for he does not believe there should be secrets between a man and his wife, even family secrets. He told me you took Richard’s place for the sake of family honor when Richard refused to go. Oh, and that is another thing—Owen also says that we need to find Richard, and see him, and tell him everything as well, so he will know what to say to people when they speak to him of Trafalgar, as they will. For he doesn’t know a thing, does he? Owen says he’s been hiding somewhere in Cambridgeshire, learning to make sermons the whole time.”

Sally was not going to go galloping about the country trying to fix Richard’s problems. Doing so was what got her into so much trouble from the start. “Frankly, I had much rather not. And I fancy Richard does not want to be found.”

“Oh, that’s nothing. I’m famous for making people do what they think they don’t want to do. You’ll see.”

“Yes, I think I already do,” Sally admitted with a strange wonder. “For you’ve already made me like you.”

“Have I?” Grace cried with delight, before she bounded up to alight upon Sally with a well-scented embrace. “Oh, I am so glad. I should like to be your friend of all things. I think you the most intrepid young woman I’ve ever heard of, with all your exciting exploits. I quite envy you your adventures, and I’m beyond thrilled that you’re to be my sister. I never had a sister, but if I got to pick one out, she would be exactly like you!”

“Would she? A great galumphing thing like me? Aren’t you afraid I’ll try to grind your bones to make my bread? One of my feet is bigger than your entire body. I could snap you in two, like a precious porcelain doll.”

Grace laughed again, just like Christmas bells, merry and bright. “Stuff and nonsense. I won’t hear of any galumphing, whatever that is. You, my dear new sister, are above all that. You are a goddess, brave, burning, and statuesque. And besides,” she said, digging into her meal, “I’m not so very fragile. I may look dainty, but I could eat girls like you for breakfast.” She paused and smiled up at Sally. “But I had rather not. I had much rather love you, and live with you, instead.”

There was nothing Sally could do to defend herself against such a ridiculously charming, heartfelt appeal. She had been lonely, for far too long. And it just might be interesting to try something new for a change, and have a sister.

*   *   *

“Do you know what I should like above all things?” Grace asked from the window seat in Sally’s bedroom, where they had repaired after their walk.

After a fortnight, Sally had gotten used to Grace’s outrageously scattered style of talk. It kept her vastly entertained. Far too entertained to brood. Or mope about.

“A ship to sail, a star to set her by?” Sally joked. “No, that would be me. For you, how about either a chocolate
gâteau
or a house full of babies?”

“Babies?” Grace was so surprised at the suggestion that she rolled off the window seat and sat up. “What on earth would I do with babies? I would much rather have a chocolate
gâteau
.”

“You would love them, of course,” Sally said simply, and then asked, “How old
are
you?”

“I am one and twenty.”

“As old as that?” Sally had missed the mark by almost six years. And never in a hundred years would she have thought Grace to be the elder of the two.

“It’s only that I’m so petite,” Grace explained as if she could tell what Sally was thinking. “People think me younger. And that I’m so spoiled.”

Sally smiled at her sister’s frank assessment. Whatever Grace might be, she was not deluded. She knew her own strengths and she used them ruthlessly. It was something Sally would do well to remember. And emulate.

“Well, I should like it of all things if you had babies. It would please me to no end. And I think you should like it, too. Especially if you’re planning to live all the way out here with me, after Owen is gone. If you had a baby, you would have a little piece of him left behind, for you to mind, and love and spoil, all in your own turn, when he is gone.”

“Oh. Well, I hadn’t thought of that.”

“Had you not? Dear Grace, you do know where babies come from, do you not? Or are you just counting on God giving you your way, and handing you the appropriate baby when you want one?”

“Oh, Sally, how you can make me laugh. Of course I do know. Owen was very good in explaining it to me, but at that point, you know, I already had a fair idea of the way of things.”

“I imagine you did.” But Sally had much rather not hear about the particulars of it. If she had to listen to Grace praising Owen in this, as she did in all other things—well, Sally didn’t think the bounds of siblinghood could withstand the assault of such information. She did not want to know about the process, only about the result.

“So it’s decided, then; you’re to have the babies, and make me an aunt, so I will have nieces and nephews to spoil and ruin.”

“Shall you? What a droll person you shall be.” Grace’s smile showed she was becoming enamored of this version of their future.

“Oh, yes. I will be useful and funny, and I will take all my nieces and nephews—I think it fair to say yours will only be the first—on all the marvelous adventures their careful mothers will not allow. Especially my nieces. I will take them sailing in Falmouth Bay and teach them all the wonderful, useful, enjoyable things no one else would teach them. Like how to whistle like a sailor. Every boy should know that, but so should every girl.”

“Will you teach me?”

“Of course. Especially as Owen will hate it. He likes to think you’re delicate and soft. It should be fun to disabuse him of his ideas.”

“Oh, Sally. How I do love you already. You will make a most treasured, favorite aunt. You know everything. And I have ever so many questions that Owen will only laugh at and never answer.”

“Questions?”

“Yes!” Grace sat down on the bed. “I should like to know what it was like. What your life was like aboard ship. With all those men. And of course, what dear Owen’s life will be like once he receives his ship.”

“Well, a captain’s life is very different from what mine was like as a midshipman.” For one thing, her brothers never had to hide and lie about who they were. Although they may have anyway.

“Owen says midshipmen are all blockheads and must eat rats,” Grace said with an avidity bright enough to rival Will Jellicoe’s. “But I can’t imagine you were ever a blockhead.”

“Thank you, Grace. But I’m a blockhead enough about some things.” Many things. All the things that included Col. “Maybe not about naval things, like navigation and watches and eating rats—they’re called millers, just so you know—but about everything else. All the things that you do so well. Going out in the world and making it like you.”

“Millers,” Grace repeated solemnly. “But why should you think the world does not like you? You have only to smile! I know you have a smile that quite lights up a room, when you try to. And even when you don’t. You have that special something your brothers have—a gleam in your eye that entrances.”

“That is only a sister’s kindness. Ask Owen. He will be glad to tell you tales of his tall, awkward sister.”

“Stuff and nonsense. I know in your current state you may not be in the way of seeing yourself as kindly as perhaps you will again, when you are fully recovered.”

Here, at last, was the heart of the discussion. Grace had been tactful, and even subtle about her scar, and didn’t belabor her point, but every day, she managed to bring their conversation around. But Sally had to admit, she didn’t mind. It did her good to talk about it, and not be forever walking on eggshells, tiptoeing around the topic of her ruined face.

“Grace, I am not going to recover. There is no cure for this particular evil. I will always have this horrible scar.”

“My dear sister.” Grace clasped Sally’s hand. “The scar will fade. They always do. And it is only superficial. When people look at me, all they can see is my little doll face, and would treat me like a doll, but I will not allow mere appearance to be the measure of who I am. And neither should you. And really, Owen was right. Your scar is not that bad.”

“
That
bad being…? A deep powder burn? A missing eye? An amputated limb?”

“Oh, Sally! It is only because the scar is still somewhat new and pink. In time, it will fade. And I haven’t even broached the possibilities of
maquillage.
I’m a positive wonder with face powders. How do you think I manage to make myself look so flawless?” Typically, Grace paused only long enough to draw breath. “But honestly, anyone who knows you, and loves you, does not even see it. Now that I know and love you, I see
you,
not your scar. Your brother sees you, the same sister he has always adored. He cannot see that there is any difference.”

“But there is a difference.”

“Only because you say there is one.” And then, after a long moment, Grace narrowed her eyes at Sally. “Goodness, if I did not know better, I would say what you are truly suffering from is not a saber cut but a broken heart.”

Sally’s sad, broken heart made a little hiccup of protest in her chest, but she ignored it, just as she had taught herself, and moved on. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know perfectly well I’m a tall, frightening ogre who has no heart. And you have got me off topic, which is you making me those nieces and nephews. And you can best do that alone, without my help, so off you go.”

“Ahoy, there.” Owen’s voice spiraled up the staircase. “Sally? Grace, my love? Where have you gotten to?”

“There is my brother now.” Sally made a little shooing motion at Grace. “Off you go. This is your chance.”

“Sally!” Grace slapped playfully at Sally’s knee as she sprang to the door. “I’m up here with Sally. But don’t come up here unless you’ve wiped your great dirty boots.”

“Yes, I’ve wiped my great dirty boots,” Owen replied from the doorway with his usual cheerful bluster. “I’ve brought the post.”

Sally steeled her heart against the sharp shard of expectation that wedged itself into her chest.

“What news?” Grace asked.

“Father has written,” Owen replied, “although from his letter, I cannot reckon how he did not outrace the post.”

All of the trepidation Sally had managed to carefully stow away inside her over the past two weeks began to unfurl within her chest.

“But what does it say?” insisted Grace.

“In the wake of Trafalgar, he writes, the Admiralty have been generous with leave, and he expects to be home no later than—”

“When, Owen, when?” Grace was all but hopping up and down.

“Well, if that frigate I’ve been watching enter the Carrick Roads is any indication, I would say this afternoon—”

Sally didn’t wait to hear the rest. She tore up to the top of the house, to the balcony surrounding the gabled roof, as fast as her pounding heart allowed. There, in her glass, a frigate was just passing out of sight along Pendennis neck.

“Happy sight, is it not, Sal? And the others are coming, too. There’s letters from Dominic—”

“Matthew?” Sally’s voice was rising on the high tide of her excitement.

“And Matthew, and even Daniel. Damn his eyes, I haven’t seen Daniel in years. Well, there you have it, Sal. It seems we are all come home, to see you.”

She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t. She was going to face them all with all the happiness such an event—to have her brothers home at once—could occasion.

Almost all. It had not escaped her notice that Richard still remained quite conspicuously absent.

“And coming to see me as well, I hope.” Grace’s teasing smile showed she was not in the least bit put out by Owen’s omission. And it was a comfort to Sally to know that her delightfully outgoing sister-in-law would be more than happy to make herself the center of attention, if only to spare Sally.

“You may count upon it, Grace. They will be wild with delight at a new sister,” Sally assured her. “And we will have a wonderful homecoming. Just in time to celebrate Christmas together. Does Father say how long he may stay?”

“No, but you may ask him yourself this very evening.”

Not even her apprehension at seeing her father—and more importantly him seeing her—could dim the happiness blossoming in her heart at the prospect. “Let’s go warn Mrs. Jenkins to prepare herself for guests.”

“Yes, let’s,” agreed Grace, and led the way to the stairs. “Oh!”

She stopped halfway down, and turned up to Sally. “Now I remember what I was going to say.” Grace clapped her hands together in delight. “Of all things, I should like a ball.”

Chapter Twenty-five

Of course, they held a Christmas ball. A very little ball, by Grace’s estimation, but a ball nonetheless. And the first ball Cliff House had ever hosted, at least within Sally’s memory.

From the moment they left the rooftop, Grace could think and talk of nothing else. As far as she was concerned, Sally’s father and brothers had done the equivalent of moving heaven and earth—in the form of the very recalcitrant Lords of the Admiralty—to get themselves home to see her, and Sally owed it to them to celebrate.

“There is such an abundance of good news,” Grace enthused. “Captain Sir Alexander Kent’s baronetcy, our marriage, your brothers’ safe returns, and the navy’s thrilling victory at Trafalgar.”