Was Mr. Rockford a lonely person too? Did he have no family? Or friends? Somehow it seemed unlikely that the Marquess of Denbigh was his friend. And yet he had invited the man to his home.
And Amy and the children and she. They would have been alone too, lonely despite the fact that there were four of them. Was that why he had invited them? But no, she knew that was not the reason. Besides, she did not like to think of its being the reason for any of the invitations to his guests. The Marquess of Denbigh compassionate? She did not like the image at all.
But what about those children? The ones he had taken from lives of desperation in London and brought here. But she knew only Lady Clancy's version of that story.
The marquess and Lady Clancy had been left to talk alone, she realized suddenly. She was being ill-mannered and not doing her part to sustain the conversation.
Lord Denbigh was looking at her, his keen gray eyes holding hers. "Your children are contentedly settled in the nursery, Mrs. Easton?" he asked. "Mrs. Webber will make them feel quite at home. She was my nurse many years ago and was quite delighted to come out of retirement for the occasion."
"Thank you," Judith said. "Kate had eyes for nothing but the rocking horse before I left, and Rupert had spotted the books."
"But you must not feel that they are being confined to the nursery," he said. "You must allow them downstairs as often as you wish. I have never subscribed to the theory that children should remain invisible until they have grown as sober and dull as the rest of us. And at Christmas time especially children should always be allowed to run wild- or almost so, anyway."
"Thank you," Judith said again.
And she stared, fascinated, as he smiled at her. A smile that only just touched the corners of his mouth and brightened his eyes, but a smile nonetheless. And one that transformed his face for the moment from harshness to handsomeness.
Judith felt that growingly familiar somersaulting feeling within and concentrated on keeping her breathing even.
Chapter 7
"Judith." Amy came bursting into her sister-in-law's dressing room the following morning after a quick knock. "Ah, you are up. His lordship is a magician or a prophet, I do declare. Have you seen?"
Judith had indeed seen and had had much the same thought. And also the thought that if it had only happened one day sooner, or better still, two, she might have been saved. She, not anyone else. Amy would have been disappointed and the children quite despondent.
"Yes," she said. "It must have been snowing in earnest all night for there to be such a thick covering already."
"And it is still coming down," Amy said. "Do you realize what this means, Judith? Snow for Christmas. It does not happen often, does it? Especially fresh white snow. It is going to be perfectly splendid for the children. Have you heard about the children? I do admire Lord Denbigh for doing such a thing. But will this snow impede their coming here tomorrow night, Judith? I do hope not, though of course it could be said that it is not at all the thing for such children to be brought into a house with guests. I think the idea quite charming, however. I hope you do not think it is in poor taste with Rupert and Kate here."
Amy was excited and enjoying herself already-Judith could see that. There was even a flush of color in her cheeks. The Misses Hannibal had taken her to their bosoms the evening before and Mr. Rockford had even tried flirting with her. Amy had never been made so much of in her own home.
"It will be a new experience," Judith said, swiveling about on the stool, her temporary maid having finished pinning up her hair. "I look forward to it. Shall we go down to breakfast?"
Amy's fears were put to rest very soon after breakfast. Rupert and Kate were very eager to be outside in the snow. Judith and Amy dressed themselves and the children warmly and descended the stairs. But when they emerged into the great hall, it was to find the front doors being opened and children of all sizes and descriptions pouring inside, all variously covered with snow, all seemingly talking at the same time. Two adults came in after them. The marquess was emerging from a downstairs room.
"Cor blimey," someone yelled, "it's three feet tiiick out there if it's an inch."
"Ow, luverly," someone else shrieked, "fires. Me fingers is froze off me 'ands." A thin girl detached herself from the mob and raced for one of the fires. Two others followed her.
"Ow, look," a tall and gangly boy said above the general hubbub of noise. " 'Oo are the nippers, guv?"
The Marquess of Denbigh stood with his feet apart and his hands clasped behind his back. "The nippers, Daniel, my lad," he said, "are Master Rupert Easton and his sister, Miss Easton. Could you children not have left at least some of the snow outside? Did you have to drag it all inside with you?"
A chorus of voices explained with varying degrees of coherence that there had been snowball fights to accompany the walk from the village.
"And Val got shoved in the snow by Toby," one of me larger girls said, "and Toby got shoved in by five of us girls and got 'is face washed in it too."
"Ah," the marquess said. "That explains it, then. Now, left turn the lot of you and march smartly into the salon. Mrs. Hines is having warm chocolate sent up for you."
"And cake too, guv?" Daniel asked, a cheeky grin on his face.
"Left turn," the gentleman who had arrived with the children said sternly. "And the 'guv' is 'my lord' to you, Daniel, as I have explained five thousand times at a conservatively low estimate."
As quickly as the hall had filled, it emptied again, leaving behind only the adults and Rupert and Kate.
"May I go too, Mama?" Rupert asked hopefully.
"Me too, Mama?" Kate tugged at her cloak.
"I shall take them in with me if you have no objection, ma'am," the lady who had come with the children said. She was plump and matronly and looked perfectly capable of dealing with the toughest urchin.
"Mrs. Easton," the marquess said, "Miss Easton, may I present Mrs. Harrison and Mr. Cornwell, the very capable and long-suffering guardians of the hurricanes who just passed through here?"
Mr. Cornwell was short and inclined to stoutness, though Judith guessed that there was a great deal more muscle than fat on his frame. Frost was melting from his sandy mustache and eyebrows. His fair hair was thinning.
"Ladies?" he said, bowing to them.
Mrs. Harrison curtsied. "Despite all the noise," she said to Judith, "the children are quite a harmless lot, ma'am. They will not gobble up your own children, I promise you." She smiled.
"I am afraid," Mr. Cornwell said, "that their elocution slips alarmingly whenever they get excited about something, Max. And this morning they are very excited." He turned and addressed himself to Amy. "One would hardly know that in the schoolroom they often speak something approximating to the English language, would you?"
"Go along, then," Judith said, relinquishing Kate's hand to the outstretched one of Mrs. Harrison.
The two children disappeared inside the salon. A moment later two maids followed them, each with a tray laden with steaming cups. A third maid was carrying a tray of cakes and muffins.
"Come into the library, Spence," the marquess said, "and breathe in some sanity for a few minutes. Ladies, will you join us? You are dressed for the outdoors, I see. I was about to send up to invite you and the children to accompany us once the party arrived from the village. This is the morning when we are to haul in the Yule log and gather the greenery for decorating the house. The task is now to be made more difficult and infinitely more exciting by the presence of the snow. Rockford should be down soon too."