“For me,” Penny said, “it wasn’t so much that. I’m the daughter of an earl, and I’ve known Charles all my life. We moved in the same social circles and our families were close. It wasn’t anything social that was my problem-it was more if I was woman enough to accept all of him, all the parts he’d kept hidden from us all, not just me, but his whole family. It was like trying to embrace a man where half of him remained permanently in shadow. I wondered, at the time, whether I could be strong enough to see him all, know him all, and yet continue to love him all-not just the laughing buccaneering adventurer that anyone with eyes can see, but the devoted and deadly spy beneath.” She paused, and an expression Linnet could only define as serene joy passed over her features as she smiled. “But I discovered I was strong enough, and I’m still reaping the rewards.”
“Hmm.” Phoebe tapped her chin. “I did wonder at the time if I was suitable-suitably suitable, I suppose you might say. I was already immersed in the agency, it took up most of my time, and I’d convinced myself that marriage was not for me.” She smiled, the expression as joyous as Penny’s. “Deverell convinced me otherwise, but I can see parallels with your situation.” Phoebe met Linnet’s eyes, understanding in hers. “The thing one needs to remember is, while we may not be the most conventional of ladies, they are, indubitably and indisputably, not conventional gentlemen.”
“That’s entirely correct.” Penny nodded sagely. “Our gentlemen are more. And as such, it’s been my observation that conventional ladies are not to their taste, and further, are highly unlikely to be able to handle them.” She gave a more decisive nod. “That’s my tale, and I intend to adhere to it. However”-she rose-“you might want to consider that not one of Royce’s ex-operatives, no more than Royce himself, has married a conventional lady.”
She paused, head tilted, then said, “Minerva is probably the most outwardly conventional, and Letitia and Clarice-you’ll meet them all at Elveden. Yet even those three… once you learn of their backgrounds, and if you give them a challenge, a problem, or heaven forbid threaten anyone they hold dear, then you’ll uncover something quite outside the realm of the conventional.”
Phoebe snorted. “Oh, yes. Those three of us all-they would without a blink take on the Lord Chancellor himself and reduce him to quaking. As for Prinny, they’d likely send him gibbering.”
Both Phoebe and Penny smiled as if relishing the thought.
A gong sounded in the distance. Phoebe glanced at the clothes neatly folded on the bed. “Come on-let’s set aside your things for tomorrow and pack everything else. Then after lunch, we can start on the children’s things.”
With much to think about, and a still, as she thought of it, questing heart, Linnet readily fell in with her hostess’s directions.
After lunch, she followed Phoebe and Penny up the stairs to the big nursery, which took up most of the upper floor of one of the house’s irregular wings. At one end was a large circular chamber filling one of the old castle’s towers. With wide windows giving wonderful views out to sea and along the coast, it was the perfect place for the children to play.
It was instantly apparent that the best way in which Linnet could assist with the children’s packing was to distract the four older children. Pulling rank as captain of the Esperance , she had no difficulty luring them to the wide window seats beneath the tower room’s windows. Ensconced there, they played spot the ship, then spot the bird. As there were plenty of specimens of the latter readily visible, and as the children’s fascination with ships had yet to wane, they happily pointed and displayed their knowledge, arguing, then listening as Linnet explained and corrected. Eventually, at her suggestion, they started making up stories about the ships they saw-about their voyages, their captains, and crews.
Relaxing against the window frame, Linnet smiled, laughing and encouraging their flights of fancy. The three boys were especially inventive, describing pirates and treasure and sea battles.
Phoebe’s daughter, Jessica, tiring of such nonsense, climbed up to sit alongside Linnet. Reaching up a hand, she touched Linnet’s loose chignon, face lighting at the silken feel. “Can I braid it? I sometimes do Mama’s hair.”
Linnet smiled into green eyes much like her own, and even more like Phoebe’s. “If you like.” Shifting so Jessica could kneel at her back, Linnet reached up and pulled out the pins anchoring the mass. When it cascaded over her shoulders, Jessica oohed, then ran her small fingers through it.
“One big braid,” Jessica decided.
Smiling, Linnet left her to it and gave her attention to settling a discussion over the relative merits of swords or knives in dispatching scurvy pirates.
Jessica was gentle, carefully using her fingers to comb out Linnet’s long hair, then doggedly plaiting; she had to go back and forth a number of times, unraveling the braid to redo it tighter or straighter, but eventually she slipped from behind Linnet, scurried out to the main room, then returned a moment later with a ribbon.
Climbing back beside Linnet, Jessica frowned with concentration as she tied the end of the braid, then she sat back on her ankles, surveyed the result, and smiled. A big, beautiful smile. “There you are.” Laying the fat braid over Linnet’s shoulder, Jessica patted it. “That will keep it neat.”
“Thank you.” Linnet leaned forward and dropped a kiss on Jessica’s head. Drawing back, she squinted down at the slightly lopsided braid. “It’s lovely, but you mustn’t be upset if later I have to brush it out and put up my hair for dinner.” She met Jessica’s eyes confidingly. “It’s what ladies have to do.”
Jessica nodded back solemnly. “I know. Mama has to do that, too.”
“So does our mama,” Penny’s boys chorused.
Linnet laughed. Opening her arms wide, she managed to hug them all. She rocked them for a moment, an armful of warm, trusting, energetic bodies, bodies who laughed and giggled, then she released them-slowly.
Slowly straightened, staring blankly across the room, then she blinked, turned her head to look outside. “Look-is that a rowboat all the way out there? Or a fishing boat?”
The children swung back to the windows, kneeling and peering out to see, arguing once they’d located the boat she meant, bobbing on the waves in the bay.
Dragging in a breath, Linnet let them good-naturedly bicker, seized the moment to find her mental feet again.
She wanted children.
She’d forgotten how much. She’d buried that want so long ago she’d forgotten how much it had ached, and for how long, when she’d made her decision not to marry.
At the time, she’d already started gathering her wards. She’d told herself that they would do, would be enough to absorb and satisfy any maternal instinct she possessed.
But it wasn’t maternal instinct that ached inside her, that made her press her fist to her breastbone, fight to draw a full, even breath.
In the instant the boys had chorused, she’d been struck by a thought-out of nowhere, yet not-a stray thought of what it would be like to look into midnight blue eyes that held that degree of mischief. To see such eyes laughing up at her out of an innocent face.
She’d wanted, for that waking instant had dreamed of, Logan’s child. Son or daughter, her vision hadn’t been specific, but the thought of a little Logan running wild…
Had made her heart ache.
Had reopened the empty, hollow cavern below her heart.
Dragging in a longer breath, forcing her lungs to function, she blinked again, straightened on the seat, then leaned to look out of the window. After a moment, she said, “It’s a fishing skiff. Can you see the nets dragging behind it? Look at the way the wake is churning.”