Page 3 of A Marriage of Convenience with a Rake
Woodford House, October 1817
“Faster! Gertrude! Run faster!”
“I can’t,” the childish voice of a little girl protested. “You catch her.”
“Come on!” Eleanor yelled. “I’m right here. Come and get me.” She paused, giving the children—just four and six years old—time to catch up with her. She grinned, a delightful feeling of joy welling up in her as the two small children who ran after her pattered on down the hallway in earnest. Her bare feet gripped the wooden boards, and she ran on, hurrying ahead of them.
“Faster!” Little Johnny, the eldest at six, was urging his sister on, all the while racing ahead. Eleanor paused, letting the boy come within a few inches of her and then took off, her bare feet fast down the hallway.
“No! I almost had you!” Johnny yelled delightedly, then pattered on after her as she took off round the corner. She raced past the parlor door, colored ribbons that she held in her hands like streamers trailing along, a target for the children to catch. Her mother’s voice stopped her in place.
“Eleanor! Not so fast! And those children are making a frightful ruckus.”
Eleanor sighed, hanging her head. Her pale brown hair flopped over one eye, and she paused to tuck it out of the way. She frowned, her strong, squarish face transforming from delight to sorrow and then back to contentment as she exclaimed. “I have an idea! I’ll take them outside.”
Mama sighed. “If you insist. But do calm down a little—they will be overwrought all day if you play with them like that.”
Eleanor let out a long breath. She shut her hazel-green eyesfor a moment, then opened them. “Very well, Mama,” she said slowly. “I’ll take them outside and we’ll play something different. Come on, Johnny! Come on, Gertrude. Where’s little Rebecca?”
“She has just woken,” Mama commented, gesturing to the hearth, where a small child lay curled up on a chair. At almost three, Rebecca was the youngest of the family, and the smallest of Eleanor’s nieces. She grinned at the small child, who grinned back.
“Ewwa,” the child murmured.
“Yes! I’m here,” Eleanor said with a smile. Rebecca could talk very well for herself, but the lisping nickname she’d given Eleanor had stuck. Eleanor lifted her off the chair and carried her to the door, pausing to glance at her brother, Jonathan, and his very tense-seeming wife, Rachel, who sat at the tea-table. Eleanor frowned as she carried the little child into the hallway.
There’s something bothering them in there, she thought to herself confusedly.
Her brother Jonathan and his wife, along with their three children, had arrived unexpectedly from London—just an hour’s drive in the coach—the previous day. Her parents had welcomed them, but Jonathan was not himself, and Rachel had barely spoken a word since they arrived. Eleanor had taken care of the children for the day, but the other adults had remained in the parlor, white-faced and interested in little else besides huddling at the tea-table talking in hushed tones. She had not had the opportunity to join them to inquire about it—the entire day from the previous afternoon had been filled with tending to the children.
“Look, now!” She grinned at the older two children, who had followed her outdoors. They stood in the middle of the lawn, which was soaked with late autumnal sunshine. It was chilly outdoors, but in the sun and sheltered from the breeze it was glorious. She breathed in deeply, breathing in the cool, fragrantair. “There are some chestnuts over there. Does someone want to collect them?”
“Chestnuts? Hurrah!” Little Johnny, eyes wide and round, ran to the proud chestnut tree in the corner of the garden and fell to his knees. Eleanor watched with delight as he scrabbled about, collecting as many as he could. His younger sister joined him, shrieking delightedly and doing her best to collect as many nuts as she could as well. Eleanor stood and watched, little Rebecca in her arms, peering out curiously. She stroked the child’s downy, pale hair.
Her gaze moved about the garden, the sunshine bright on the lawn around them. Woodford estate was a large property, settled on an acre of land. Her father, who had made his fortune in industry, had procured it when her brother was just three and she had just been born. The family had lived there for one-and-twenty years, enjoying the peace and beauty of the setting.
Rebecca stirred, drawing her attention back to the present. “Look at that. What are they doing, eh?” she asked the child softly.
“Nuts,” Rebecca informed her briefly.
“Indeed,” Eleanor said with a laugh. “They are collecting nuts. Do you think they’ll find the magic chestnut?”
“Magic?” The little girl’s eyes widened in amazement.
Eleanor laughed. “Yes. There’s a magic chestnut, that, if you say a little rhyme when you hold it, it turns into a coach. Then you can get up into the coach and travel wherever you like.”
“Really?” Rebecca inquired, enthralled.
Eleanor chuckled. “It might be so,” she told her. “It’s a story I heard from the old witch in the woods.”
“Witch in the woods?” Rebecca asked, gazing up at her with apparent fear.
“Not a bad witch,” Eleanor assured her, patting her head fondly. She walked closer to the other two children, who wereholding up their chestnuts to the light, rubbing and polishing them.
“You have to find the magic one!” Rebecca informed her siblings firmly.
“Magic?” Johnny asked, looking up inquiringly at his aunt, Eleanor.
“Yes. If you say a magical rhyme when you hold it, it turns into a coach,” Eleanor told them, biting her lip. She hadn’t planned the rest of the story yet—she'd have to make it up as she went along.
