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Chapter Text

Heyrick Park
Sussex
November 1859

“I am just finishing this letter, Mama. Are the girls ready?”

Charlotte stepped up into the study.

Resting her hand on the doorframe, she paused. She did not feel like entering the room.  

Not today.

Her eldest son looked up from the desk. His hair very much the same color his father’s had been on that summer day in 1820. Atlas was six and thirty. His father had been but a few years’ shy of that age when she first learned of the miser and recluse of Heyrick Park.

Tom’s words.

Tom Parker was gone. Lady Denham had nearly outlived him, threatening—every year like clockwork when time for the Sanditon House garden party rolled around—that she had no intention of dying anytime soon. Finally, even she had to admit that she could no longer climb the stairs of the great manse. Lord Babington arrived one chilly September afternoon to take her to his family’s estate, and that was that. The cantankerous benefactor succumbed two months later. Unlike the phoenix, she did not rise from the ashes. At least not the second time.

They were all gone now. Those who built Sanditon into the resort Tom Parker envisioned all those years ago. Tom’s words eventually came true. For several years, Sanditon was indeed the most fashionable, the most sought-after respite from London’s summer heat and still air. The day that Queen Victoria arrived to dedicate the railway station would remain the greatest day in the town’s history. Arthur Parker never hesitated to remind any who cared to ask about that day that Her Majesty visited long enough to attend a concert performed by Miss Elizabeth Greenhorn.

The contributions of Heyrick Farm and the Colbourne family did not go unnoticed. The school, the resurrection of the lending library, the successful Theatre Royal, the dance and music academy, the public gardens carved from a corner of the Heyrick estate, and the ongoing restoration of the Old Town.  

Charlotte was not sure why such memories were flooding her thoughts.

Perhaps it was the significance that he had been the last. The last of the original investors.

As Atlas scratched his pen along the bottom of the paper before him, Charlotte took the time to look over her left shoulder. If she bent her neck slightly, she could just see the edge of the gilt frame bordering Lucy’s portrait.

The girls had not yet gathered in the foyer. It was still quiet.

Almost as quiet as it had been the day she first entered her future home—when she had silently removed her bonnet and gloves, placing them on the foyer table under the watchful eye of Mrs. Wheatley.

As quiet as a tomb. A mausoleum.

Charlotte remembered cocking her head to look up at the portrait of the first Mrs. Colbourne and thinking how elegant Lucy looked--her brown hair styled in ringlets and her hands folded in repose.

Lucy was still there.

Alexander had asked Charlotte about moving the portrait to Leo’s room or perhaps to the hall near the girls’ rooms.  

Time passed; the portrait remained.

Not because he had been remiss. The truth was that it had not mattered to Charlotte. She wanted Leo to know that her mother was not to be forgotten.

Besides, they were otherwise occupied with the early days, weeks, and months of their new marriage.

As the days blurred together, and a season or two passed, neither one of them felt the need to discuss the question further.  

There was always so much to do. Then Alexandra arrived not even a year after the wedding.

Followed by the school, the twins, Augusta’s marriage and new home in Hampshire, then more Colbourne girls, and finally a second son, then Leonora moved to America, married, and settled near Alexander and Samuel’s first cousin, Henry.

Then the last baby. Oh, how she had cried, entering the world. That little one proudly announcing her presence as the eighth child.

They hesitated before naming her Octavia for the little girl was not their eighth. Not in their minds at least. They considered Augusta their own.

To ease their minds, Augusta announced that if her aunt and uncle named the baby Nona, she would call the child “…some ridiculous nickname such as Nonny Noo Noo.” Octavia, in Augusta’s mind, was the much stronger and regal name of the two. “Besides, it is Roman, and that is all that matters.”

And, so, the decision was made.  

With the birth of another girl, Augusta finally won one of the household’s infamous shilling wagers. Leo wrote to her father that she had been correct all along, and she would return to England at some point. She could not live and die never having laid eyes on her baby sister. In her words, Octavia was ‘yet another Colbourne female sent from the angels in Heaven to vex Papa.’

“Mama? You seem far away.”

Atlas pushed the tall wooden chair away from the desk and smoothed his black waistcoat.

Charlotte could not deny how much Atlas resembled his father. The same color eyes, the same slightly askew curl falling toward his forehead, a freckling of moles along his jawline.

More cleanshaven than his father had been that day she first stepped into the study.

His waistcoat had been canary yellow. Matching the color of the walls.

“I was thinking of your papa. The first time I met him was in this room.” Charlotte let out a staggered breath. “He never welcomed me. Not properly. Not as a gentleman should. The first words out of his mouth were numbers.”

Atlas smiled. “Seven fifteens. Yes, I remember you telling us that story, and how old Luna followed you out the door.” He chuckled and pulled his frockcoat from the back of the chair. “Luna knew what a gem you were…are.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Well, I do not know about ‘gem’ but I appreciate that you think well of your mother.”

Satisfied that his coat was buttoned and sleeves straight, Atlas made his way toward the door and kissed her cheek. “Think well? That is an understatement, Mama.”

Charlotte nodded her head toward the desk. “Is everything in order?”

Atlas looked toward the letters and papers neatly stacked on the right corner of the desk. “In order? He was meticulous, Mama.”

“I do not doubt it.”

“I do not have the heart to move the stack to the lefthand corner of the desk despite the fact that it would be easier for me. It is the desk of a left-handed man. Even the inkpots are where it would have been most convenient for him.”

Charlotte bit her lip and fought to keep a serious expression.

The images came unbidden. She closed her eyes for a second.

They laughed.

He had not known his own strength. In a fit of passion, he had nearly sent her, the papers, the ink, the paperweight, and the small clock skittering across the desk and onto the rug.

Charlotte remembered clutching at his cravat in an attempt to untie it as quickly as she could. He had lost a button from his waistcoat. One of her stocking ribbons ended up in the fire because he had tossed it so far in his eagerness.

They had been married but a month.  

She was already expecting Alexandra but would not know until weeks later.

Charlotte cleared her throat and reopened her eyes. “No, you do not need to change anything if you do not wish to do so. Allow yourself that time.”

His brown eyes studied hers. “Mama,” Atlas began softly then stopped.

“What is it, Atlas?”

“I was just going to ask…are you sure that you wish to travel to Bath so soon? So soon after today, that is.” He swallowed.

“I am certain. He is everywhere in this place. In these rooms, the halls, the grounds, the stables, the lane, the pastures. The cliff path. In each and every one of you. I cannot escape, and I do not wish to, and yet, I think that I need to leave to gather my strength before I can face those daily memories. Your father once left also. He went to Bath to reorganize his thoughts and to make changes in order to be a better father for Augusta and Leo.”

Atlas nodded. “Yes, another story I remember. He said that you were everywhere. He forever felt your presence. The house felt your absence. He used to walk up to the schoolroom and sit for an hour in silence. Sometimes he would walk by the brook or to the old arcade or to one of his hiding places, but he said that you haunted the park. He was never far away from you, and it tore at his soul because he wanted your presence more than anything, yet, at the same time, wished to dispel it. He feared he would not survive without you. Mrs. Wheatley once told me that she did not know what would become of Papa…become of Papa, Augusta, and Leo if you did not return to them.”

Charlotte looked toward the window. “I arrived in this room my first day. I was dismissed in this room. I returned to it months later.”

She felt movement against her full black skirt as her granddaughter’s rough-haired lurcher pushed against her leg for attention.

“Celestia! Do not muss Mama’s dress!”

“Oh, she is of no worry. Are you? You were looking for someone, weren’t you? Someone you used to visit here. He would always have a treat for you or would give you a good ear rub.” Charlotte ruffled the dog’s ears and was rewarded with a contented woof.

The canine’s tongue lolled, and she quickly trotted past the fireside chairs to jump up onto the window seat to look out onto the drive.  

“You are determined to leave for Bath in a few days?”

Charlotte began to pull on her wrist-length black gloves and nodded. “Yes. Augusta will travel with me. Do you recall our old friends the Brooks-Allens? Abigail is now a widow. She lost her dear Richard in the spring. She has written that she has no desire to ramble about the Royal Crescent by herself. Although, I think something else is on her mind. She has received a call from Ambrose Hunter, Patience’s brother.”

Atlas raised an eyebrow. “He never married, did he, Mama?”

“No, Ambrose and Maria continue to reside at the family’s estate in Wiltshire. Rowde Lodge. However, he is in Bath this autumn and thought it remiss not to call and pay his respects.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm, indeed. Augusta thinks something is afoot.”

“Mama, all of you do realize that Bath is severely out of fashion, correct?”

“We are aware. It is all the seaside now. Her Majesty had made the Isle of Wight quite fashionable. Yet, we live by the seaside as it is. Why should I wish to travel to see a different beach than the one in Sanditon?”

“Point taken.” Atlas offered her a hand down from the one step leading into the hall. “Now, Mama, Mr. Hunter may call on Mrs. Brooks-Allen as he wishes. I ask that he not call upon you unless his only intention is friendship. At least not this autumn or winter or spring, or--”

“Atlas Colbourne!! Today of all days!”

The new master of Heyrick Park held up his hands in innocence. “It was merely a comment, Mama. From what I recall of Mr. Hunter, I do not believe you would have much interest in seeing him beyond afternoon tea or from across the transept at church. Now—”

“There is no ‘now’, Atlas Henry. Not now. Not ever. Am I understood? Even if you are teasing, that is enough.” Charlotte’s voice caught and a tear slipped down her cheek.

Before she knew it, a single tear became two. Then three. She sobbed. Something she had rarely done in front of her children or grandchildren.

He touched her sleeve. “Oh, Mama. I did not mean to upset you. Pay me no heed.”

Charlotte shook her head as much to clear her thoughts as to indicate that she had not taken his words that seriously.

She sniffed and wiped her nose with her gloved finger while Atlas hastily reached for his handkerchief. He pressed it into her left hand. “I am sorry, Mama.”

Regaining her composure, Charlotte wiped her eyes and nose. “Atlas, would you tell Anne and Xandra that I will be in the foyer in just a moment. Please find your brother. I believe he walked down the drive for some fresh air. I will be just a few minutes.”

Atlas gave her a half smile. “Yes, Mama. We will wait for you.”

Charlotte removed her gloves and clutched them in her left hand. Turning once more toward the study, she blinked at the light coming in through the windows.

Walking across the rug, she ran her hand along the top rail of the far chair and joined Celestia near the window seat. Instead of sitting down, Charlotte rested her shoulder against the window frame.

She did not bother to fight the tears this time.

I miss you so much, Xander. Just one more day. One more hour. That was all I wanted. Stubborn man. Did I wish to leave? No. I never wished to leave. How could you have even asked me that question?

Glancing down at the opal stone on her left ring finger, she remembered the amethysts, the aquamarines, the later emeralds, and garnets. Today, other than her wedding ring, her jewelry was jet. She vowed that the moment it was appropriate, she would once again wear the amethysts.

Despite her tears, Charlotte smiled softly as she heard the dairy cattle beyond the fence in the nearby pasture.

You did so well. So very well. All the hours that you spent at this desk...the finest dairy in all of Sussex they say. Now, ice cream. Arthur gave you the idea. Every seaside town in England, Alexander! Sussex should be no different, and who best but Heyrick Farm. You were wise to listen to him.

“Mama?”

Her daughter’s voice, which had always had a slight crackle to it even when she was a little girl, broke her thoughts.

Charlotte turned to take in the tall, trim woman with lustrous brown curls. The same curls that were perpetually unruly and half brushed when she was a child were now woven into a low chignon affixed with a comb ornately decorated with dark pearls.

Anne Colbourne had always been his mirror image in female form. Same cheeks, same tendency to talk from one side of her mouth, same vocal patterns and mannerisms.

“Yes, Anne?”

“Atlas said you were here. Solomon is ready for the service. He has walked ahead with Simeon to the graveside. We should not keep them waiting much longer. Have you had enough time?”

No, there would never be enough time. A lifetime had not been enough.

Charlotte nodded and reached for Anne’s hand. Anne responded with a small smile and lightly squeezed her mother’s fingers.

“We all miss him, Mama. It will not be the same.”

“No. He will always be with us, though, Anne.”

“Yes.”

Anne crooked her elbow, and Charlotte looped her arm through her daughter’s. As she did so, she glanced around, taking in the fireplace, the bookshelves, the paintings, Augusta’s embroidery work, the chairs, the crystal decanter, and the pair of boots that still stood in the corner of the room.

Boots. Half hidden by the door, they had gone unnoticed by Mrs. Goodwin and the maids.

Oh, well, the boots could sit for a while.

Charlotte looked over her shoulder one last time.

She could see him standing there in his teal striped waistcoat, book in hand.

Miss Heywood, on reflection…

She never burned that waistcoat despite threatening to do so more than once.

Eventually, years later, the fabric was repurposed into a coat and bonnet for their daughter Vivian’s doll.

On reflection.

On reflection, she would not have changed anything: the arguments, the smiles, the laughter, the tears, the kisses, the walks, the dances, the morning rides together.

Every child they welcomed into their lives.

No, not lives. Life. Their life.

The life she had stayed to make with him.

Everything he had offered.

Everything they had risked.

Everyone they had ever loved.

Charlotte stepped down into the hall and saw Augusta and Leo standing near the drawing room door. Samuel stood between his nieces. His shoulders stooped and his beautiful grey eyes cloudy with sorrow. Her brother-in-law now relied on his walking cane to remain steady, but as she approached, he stood taller. Leo steadied him with her arm.

“Charlotte?” Samuel’s voice trembled. They had lost Susan Colbourne three years earlier. With her death, he had become a shadow of himself. A true recluse. Until the day Charlotte asked him to return home—to return to Heyrick Park—to live out the remainder of his days with his family and friends.

Charlotte stepped forward to take his hands in hers.

“Oh, Samuel.”

On reflection, Samuel had indeed deserved the thanks she bestowed on him at Bedford Place nine and thirty years ago.

For if it had not been for Samuel, Xander might not have worked up the courage to find her and tell her that he was in love with her.

Charlotte smiled at Samuel through her tears.

No, she would not have changed a single second or minute of the life that she and Alexander Colbourne had shared together.

Once together, not a single day had been wasted.

For theirs was a love that would continue and never truly die.

A forever love.

A fathomless love.

Chapter Text

July 1860
Heyrick Park
Sussex

Octavia Augusta Colbourne traced the etched dates on the gravestone with the fingers of her left hand.

April 1786 – November 1859

Swiping at a tear that ran down her cheek, she idly smoothed the grass at the base of the stone and propped a handtied bouquet of blue cornflowers against the slab. Standing up from her crouched position, she brushed her hands on the skirt of her black muslin dress and took a step back to assess her work. The grave was always kept neat as a pin—even when late autumn and winter had brought windswept leaves and assorted twigs from the nearby oaks.

Looking past the second row of graves, where her father had been laid to rest next to his mother, she spied her own mother leaving a similar bouquet of mixed blooms at a grave close to the cemetery’s rear stone wall. Octavia knew the grave well, for it belonged to the most loyal of all Heyrick Park staff—the woman they considered to be their father’s second mother, Vivian Wheatley.

Gathering the fabric of her black dress in both hands, Octavia trod carefully. A soft bark could be heard, and her niece Elizabeth Anne’s lurcher, Celestia, trotted quietly toward her. Ruffling the dog’s ears, she encouraged the hound to head toward Charlotte.

“Mama, I think it is unfair.”

“What is unfair, Tavie?”

“That I did not have the chance to know him that long…neither of them. Papa and Mrs. Wheatley. Nor Mrs. Gress. Not as long as everyone else. Two or three balls at that, and Papa groused about his knees hurting the entire time we danced!” Octavia exhaled with a breath that was part laugh and part hiccoughed sob. “It is not fair.”

“Two and twenty years, my dear. If it is any consolation, that is more than some will ever have. Life and love are not competitions. Although I understand why you feel that way. I certainly wish I had many more days to spend with your father.” Charlotte absently patted Celestia’s head as her eyes flicked toward Lucy Colbourne’s headstone. “Your father knew his mother but a few short years. Your sister? She never knew her mother.”

“I know. Still.”

“Your brother is another example.” This one stabbed Charlotte’s heart and always would. History almost repeating itself.

Roseline’s grave was not far from Alexander’s; its stone etched with exquisite scrollwork. Atlas had insisted that the stone not be plain.  

In the same hour that Heyrick Park welcomed its next heir, the estate lost its future mistress. Watching the light and life leaving her daughter-in-law’s eyes that cold winter day had nearly broken all of them. Charlotte thought that Alexander would bury himself again in the study—the memories of his own loss as a young man revived and haunting anew—reflected in the shadows that darkened Atlas's visage.

Charlotte recalled how as a teen, Atlas had spoken of Xandra and Anne’s friend Roseline Radcliff with a roll of his eyes. In his last year at Oxford that all changed when Atlas stepped into a London ballroom, and that same dark-haired girl—now a young woman with a delicate neck and brilliant green eyes—had turned to look toward he and Anne Colbourne as they approached the dance floor. A swish of rose-colored silk and one look was all that it took. Atlas had spoken of nothing and no one else the remainder of the academic year. A foregone conclusion if ever there had been one.  

Now, her youngest was just a little older than the twins had been that season. Charlotte glanced sideways to take in the tall young woman who, like the twins, had inherited Alexander's hair color and features.

Brushing aside the black grosgrain ribbon of her straw hat, which kept batting against her cheek with each gust of breeze, Octavia bent to pluck a stem of rudbeckia growing near the cemetery wall. “Do you think his knees did hurt, Mama, or was that just Papa being Papa? He seemed quite hale to me.”

Charlotte smiled wistfully. “It very much sounds like your father being your father. Despite his seriousness, his sense of humor was not that different from your Uncle Samuel’s.”

“They are nothing alike!”

“Perhaps not but consider how your sister Mary is.”

The left side of Octavia’s mouth curved upward. Her dark brown eyes brightened. “Mary is too dry witted for her own good. I am not sure how or why my poor brother-in-law puts up with her.”

“Hmm.”

Twirling the rudbeckia stem by rubbing her palms together, Octavia pursed her lips. “So, you are saying that Mary is very much like Papa, and he was teasing me my entire first season?”

“I would not put it past Alexander Colbourne; that is all I am saying.” Charlotte moved along the row, Celestia yipping and trotting ahead. “There are times when I wish Mrs. Gress had been buried here instead of London. Mrs. Goodwin regularly reminds Atlas that when her time comes that she wishes to be buried in Somerset. I suppose everyone has their choice…preference, I should say.”

Octavia nodded, following behind, still twirling the green stem between her fingers. “Speaking of preferences, did Papa wish that I had been a boy? Oh, I know that he said he never minded and that he loved all his girls, but did he truly?”

Charlotte plucked a few more stems of the rudbeckias and mixed them with the other flowers in her basket. She had decided to make impromptu bouquets for Susan’s grave and Lucy’s. “You are tiring me with all these questions. Why are you so curious about his knees, whether or not he wished for a boy and so on?”

Shrugging, Octavia jogged a few steps to keep up. “I am merely curious. As I said, I feel like I missed out on ever so much.”

“No, he did not wish that you were a boy. He had two sons before you. That is enough.”

Setting her basket on the ground, Charlotte picked several long threads of grass and used them to tie the stems of the bouquets. “Will you place this by Lucy’s grave, please?”

Octavia nodded. “I suppose I did have a special connection to Papa that no one else in the family has.”

“And what is that, my dear girl?”

“We were born on the same day! Well, I was not born in 1786, but you know what I mean.”

Charlotte tilted her head and studied a passing cloud, trying to find a shape in the cumulus puff. “You almost did not have that connection. It was nearly the stroke of midnight, you know. I think it was through sheer will that I delivered you into the world before the last chime of the hallway clock. Dr. Fuchs was checking his watch second by second. He never said, but I would not be surprised if he had placed a wager on the shilling bet. Up until his last days, Augusta gave your father grief just to tease him that the old clock was wrong, and you were born on the 15^th.”

“That sounds like Augusta. ‘Tis no matter. My cousin cannot change my birthday now!”

“No, that is true.” Charlotte stooped and bit her lip as she placed the second bunch of flowers at Susan Colbourne’s grave. “As you were always one to brighten our days, my dear friend, a little something to brighten yours,” she whispered, touching the top of the stone.

Straightening up, Charlotte looked around and was satisfied with the flowers and how well-kept the graves were. The groundskeepers did their part to keep the family resting place well-trimmed. “We should return to the house. Your Uncle Samuel will be ready for tea. Anne’s playing entertains him for only so long. I know that he is frustrated that his eyesight is not what it once was; he cannot read as much as he wishes. Speaking of your Uncle Samuel, though. Now that is someone who regularly complains about his knees!”

Octavia snorted. “Uncle Samuel ready for tea? Knowing Uncle Samuel, he will be ringing for his afternoon sherry by now. ‘I may need something much stronger than tea!’ he always declares.”

“Some things never change. Your uncle is the finest of men, though. Never doubt it.”

Walking back to her father’s grave, Octavia straightened the cornflowers for they had blown over from the breeze. Celestia pushed in next to her to sniff at the blooms. “Mama, do you think Papa would have liked our idea of having a cornflower for each of us…you, Augusta, and all of us children? I know you said that originally there were just three—"

“He would like it very much, Tavie. What began as three blossomed into ten. He once said that he was leaving behind a legacy that made him very proud. He loved each one of you more than he could ever express.”

Returning to join her mother, Octavia looped her arm through Charlotte’s. Celestia barked again and ran ahead. “I think what you are saying is that he loved you more than he could ever express.”

“I can make no such claim.”

“So you say, yet your children disagree, as does my uncle, and Mrs. Goodwin, and Mr. Elliot, and old Dr. Fuchs, and—”

Charlotte laughed. “Enough!”

Octavia gave her a cheeky grin and dropped her arm to run ahead to select a stick to toss for Celestia. Seeing Octavia searching for a stick, the lurcher woofed in anticipation. Drawing her left arm back, Octavia threw the stick as hard as she could. Celestia excitedly hurtled forward to chase and retrieve.

Recalling a similar moment from forty years earlier, Charlotte could almost hear Luna’s bark as if it had been yesterday. She smiled when her youngest child turned around to look at her, brown eyes dancing, wisps of her dark curly hair dancing in the summer breeze.

Hearing Celestia bark, a young, dark-haired boy ran out of the house’s main doors onto the terrace. “Aunt Tavie! May I throw the stick for Celestia after you?”

“Of course, Henry! If she ever brings it back.”

“Grandmama, Uncle Samuel says it is well past teatime. He says Aunt Anne and Elizabeth have played far too long today. He says he is starving!”

“Oh, he is, is he?”

Henry Colbourne nodded. “Uncle is being cant…canteronkus.”

Charlotte laughed. “My dear, I think you mean cantankerous.”

“Yes, Grandmama, that is the word!”

“Henry, please tell your father that your aunt and I have returned from our turn about the grounds, and that it is time for his tea. Mrs. Goodwin baked ginger biscuits for she knows they are his favorite.”

“Ooh, Mrs. Goodwin’s ginger biscuits. One more throw, Henry, then we all must go inside. Celestia as well.” Octavia handed her nephew the stick.

Charlotte lowered the basket of flowers below her waist and turned around to take in the grounds before them; her eyes lingering on the main drive leading to the road to Sanditon.

Listening to the birdsong interspersed with the musical notes from the drawing room pianoforte, she was temporarily transported to a different July day.

“Mama, are you coming in?”

“I will in a minute. I will just wait for Henry.”

Octavia reached for the basket of flowers. “Very well. I shall see you inside.”

Charlotte thanked her youngest but kept her eyes on her grandson and the energetic lurcher in the distance.

“Miss Heywood, I wondered if we might take a turn about the grounds.”

Chapter Text

Hill House
Sanditon, Sussex
June 1850

“Papa Xander! Papa Xander!”

Alexander Colbourne smiled at the sound of boots clattering along the upper hall, a cacophony quieted only by a ribbon of wool runner blanketing the wooden stairs leading down into the foyer. Two dark-haired boys, nine and six, practically bowled each other over in their excitement to reach him.

Oh, to have such energy so early in the morning.

“It is Grandpapa!” Valentine Hill called out as he scrambled about his study, packing his medical bag, and rooting among his desk papers in search of some unknown object. “I am not sure why you boys insist on ‘Papa Xander’. Your grandfather’s title is to be respected, please!”

Feeling a tight hug around his waist, and small fingers tugging at his morning coat pocket, Alexander tousled the boys’ hair. Victor’s as wavy as Vincent’s was straight.

“Papa Xander does not mind, Papa!”

“Too many papas!” Alexandra Colbourne Hill appeared from the rear hallway, the cuffs of her strawberry-hued pagoda sleeves fluttering as she placed her hands on her hips and smiled warmly at her father. Stopping long enough in the entryway to kiss Alexander’s cheek, she ducked her head into the study. “Valentine. Have you eaten?”

“I cannot---” Valentine dropped his bag on a wooden chair near the study’s doorway. “How is a doctor to go about his day without his pocket watch? Good Morning, Alexander. No. I could swear—”

“Please do not swear, my dear! Not in front of your children. Besides, there is no need.” Alexandra held up the silver timepiece by its chain, swinging it before him. “It was in the greenhouse.”

“When was I even in the greenhouse yesterday?!”

“Maybe Millie dragged it away, Papa.” Vincent gave up searching Alexander’s pocket for possible sweets that the horses had not consumed. “She is always tucking objects aside.”

“The watch is a little heavy for a kitten to carry off, Vincent, although I would not put it past her.”

“Papa, breakfast is still warm. You are later than usual today!” Alexandra raised an eyebrow, her expression gentle but concerned.

Alexander held up his hands. “Yet, I am here. You know that it is Thursday, and that Thursday mornings are reserved for riding, walking, or breakfasting with my favorite daughter.”

Alexandra’s laugh was sharp and bemused. Out of habit, she smoothed the folds of her wide dress skirt. Alexander thought she had never looked healthier, and other than the rounding of her abdomen underneath the layers of petticoats and dress fabric, few would know that she would welcome her third child at the beginning of autumn. “Favorite daughter? Oh, I am until Augusta is at your side, or Mary is amusing you with yet another of her unending observations. Not to mention Vivian, who probably just this morning talked you into yet another item for her trousseau. Ah, then Tavie. I have never seen a smile on your face as wide as when you are with your youngest, tramping about the grounds. Who am I forgetting? Your beloved Anne, and finally, Leo. Leo. You miss her so much you are likely fit to burst. Favorite daughter? Hmph.”

“Too many daughters! Too many aunts!” Victor raised his hands in a mock fluster.

“Not for Papa Xander! He can never have too many daughters!” Alexandra winked, her blue eyes teasing. “Victor, you know that you love each and every one of your aunts one hundred times over.”

“How can I love Aunt Leo, Mama?” Vincent queried. “I have never met her. I have only seen the drawings.”

“Well, in about two days’ time, you will no longer be able to say that you have never seen your Aunt Leonora or your cousins Charles and Lucy.”

“Are they really coming all the way from America?”

“Indeed.”

Valentine walked past again; a triangle of toast clamped between his teeth as he pulled on his jacket. He mumbled something like “I must go” before pulling the bread out of his mouth long enough to peck Alexandra on her cheek. “Mr. Dewhurst this morning. Gout. Mrs. Pennicott in the Villas. She is visiting from Bristol. Oh, and William Chawston’s hand. The burn is healing, but I wish to check it again today. I should be home for luncheon. Enjoy your breakfast!”

“You must eat more than a slice of toast!”

“No time!”

“V. Hill!”

“Speaking of which. Too many V. Hills in this hallway!” Valentine wiped his lips and reached for the medical bag.

“And there shall be another one come September! A piece of toast is not enough.” Alexandra stamped her booted foot to get his attention.

“A. Colbourne! I shall be fine. You know Mrs. Dewhurst always has tea and buns for me. Whether I wish it or not! I have said my piece. No more V. Hills. Boy or girl. We have discussed this. I forbid it.”

Alexander looked up at the foyer ceiling in amusement. He was familiar with this good-natured squabbling between his daughter and son-in-law, although he acknowledged that the phrase ‘I forbid it’ still haunted him. Then again, it was not as if his words had had any impact anyway with a certain recipient thirty years earlier.

Folding her arms across her chest, Alexandra looked to her father for support. He shrugged in return.

“What about Veronica?” she suggested. “Mrs. Fuchs reminded me that it is a strong name.”

“No.”

“Valeria?” Alexander offered.

Clamping on his hat, Valentine whisked around. “No, it sounds like an incurable disease.”

“Valeria Messalina. You know very well that it is an empress’s name. Victoria then.”

“You cannot have a Victor and a Victoria, Xandra! One monarch in this household is enough.”

Victor giggled.

“Oh, honestly, go, Valentine! We shall discuss this later. In the meantime, Papa and I will come up with more V names to vex you. Please send our regards to Mr. and Mrs. Dewhurst.”

“As always, good day. Boys, if you would like to visit Grandpapa’s Barca while I saddle Avon, please make your way to the stables. Victor, you are going to help Vincent build the birdhouse for the garden today, are you not? I picked up the wood yesterday. You may start your project, but only with Grandpapa’s assistance with the hammer.”

“Yes, Papa!” Victor and Vincent practically tumbled out the front door as their father laughed.

“I hear there are sweets in Barca’s saddle bag.” Valentine winked at his father-in-law and finally made his way out the door for his morning calls.

Quiet settled on the foyer, and Alexandra let out a low, relieved laugh. “I pray for a girl, Papa. Perhaps another female in the house will bring some calm.”

Alexander held out his arm to escort her the short distance to the breakfast room. “How are you feeling?”

“You know I am well. I will be even better once Leo is here. I am excited that their visit will last all summer, although I know it will grow more difficult for me to move around. Is Mama beside herself with excitement? Mrs. Goodwin? I cannot imagine.”

“Beside herself is one way of phrasing it. Your mother…let us just say that my goal is to encourage Charlotte to take a nap or else she will be falling asleep at the dinner table on Leo’s first day here.”

“I have never sailed the Atlantic, Papa; however, I suspect the experience is exhausting. For all you know, Leo may fall asleep at the dinner table!”

Alexander held out her chair in the sunny and comfortably decorated breakfast room with its bank of wide windows facing the garden. Hildegard, the now elderly tabby, flicked her tail in greeting but soon blinked her eyes and returned to welcoming the bright sun streaming through the glass panes.

“This is Leo, Xandra. A force with which to be reckoned.”

Pouring his tea, Alexandra offered him the plate of fruit. “I wonder if she has much changed. That is if marriage and children have dampened Leo’s enthusiasm. Oh, I know she writes such interesting stories in her letters, yet…often we do not tell the whole truth on paper. At least, I try to guard what I say.”

“You are too much like me, Xandra, which is why you do so.”

“Mama has always been discrete and sensible. Not much different.”

“Yes, but your mother has always been willing to take the risk of forging her own path and speaking her mind.”

“Did I not forge mine, Papa? I married when I was eighteen years old!”

Alexander looked around, taking in the inviting cushions and the pleasant oil paintings of the sea and cliffs surrounding Sanditon. A whimsical painting of the Hill’s two cats was paired with a rendering of his two grandsons. Augusta had sketched both the prior winter.

He had always liked this house, which he had purchased as a wedding gift for Alexandra and Valentine. It was comfortable and perfectly proportioned. Lived in. It reminded him very much of Dr. Hill’s Salisbury cottage when he had first visited the young man to offer him the position as head of the Parker Hospital.

“I have lost you, Papa. Deep in thought.” Alexandra hummed a little as she wiped a bread crumb from the corner of her mouth.

“No, I was just admiring the oils. I have always liked this house.”

“Well, you cannot have it. It was a gift from my favorite father, and I am loathe to let it go.”

A wry smile formed on Alexander’s lips. “Your favorite father. I believe you have only one.”

“This is true.”

“Yes, true.” Alexander’s smile softened as he looked at the stray tea leaves at the bottom of his cup.

Unlike some, who have more than one father.

Had Leo changed? What would he see in her eyes when they saw each other once more? He had denied for weeks that he was nervous. It was ridiculous. Nervous to see his much-loved daughter once again and to meet his grandchildren for the first time? Ridiculous. Yet, if it was so preposterous, then why did he find that every ounce of excitement that bubbled up within him was tamped by a pressing dread?

***

Heyrick Park
Sussex
June 1850

Charlotte smiled at the sight of her granddaughter Elizabeth sitting on a blanket which had been placed before the study fireplace. The infant reached for a carved wooden cow, one of several animals in a toy menagerie including a horse, a goose, and a sheep. Disinterested in the play creatures in her midst, Helia, Alexander’s lurcher, yawned and rolled closer to the fire.

“I see someone is enjoying the new farm set that Great Uncle Samuel sent from London.” Recognizing her grandmother’s voice, Elizabeth looked up with her round brown eyes, a gurgling sound escaping her lips. She clapped the cow and goose together.

Atlas sat back from the contract he was reviewing at his father’s desk. “She cries if Roseline or I attempt to take the cow out of her hand and keeps making a bellowing noise. I think Elizabeth is saying ‘Moo’. Nevertheless, Mama, I am not sure whether to thank Uncle Samuel or tell him that we have no more room in the nursery.”

“Your uncle would see right through that fib, Atlas. As if that would stop his bestowing gifts on his nieces and nephews. What is this?” Charlotte pointed toward the pages before him.

“A new contract with Mr. Young in Brinshore. He wishes to extend the Willow tearoom purchasing agreement for another two years and plans to serve ice cream three times this summer.”

“May it be as much of a success as it was last year. You will go in person?”

Atlas glanced at Elizabeth and nodded. Looking up at Charlotte, he smiled. “I shall speak with Arthur Parker to see if he shall accompany me. You know how he loves planning for such events. Last summer, the days that ice cream appeared on the menu were the busiest days for the tearoom all year!”

“As it said in The Chronicle!” She sat down in one of the reed-backed chairs and picked up the small wooden sheep, making it dance across the blanket, much to Elizabeth’s delight. The little girl clapped her hands, and Helia thumped her tail in appreciation.

“Mama, you must be tired. You and Vivian were up and down this hall all morning. Anne and Mrs. Goodwin have been buried in the kitchen just as long. It is Leo visiting, not Her Majesty the Queen! Although no one would know it. Roseline keeps asking me questions as if she has never set eyes on her sister-in-law.”

“Atlas! Leo has been gone for years. Roseline met her, what, once? Around the time Leo married Laurent? And Roseline was a girl. I would hardly expect my daughter-in-law to remember much about Leo at all.”

“No matter. You look tired.”

Charlotte stood, straightening the wide skirt of her slate blue dress and adjusting the cameo-pinned lace at her collar. “That is your way of saying I look old.”

“Mama!”

Charlotte shook her head. “I am teasing you, Atlas. Now, finish your contract, please. I will need your help and Sam’s. I should like a fresh assortment of flowers from the greenhouse for the east wing rooms. Augusta is arriving this evening, and I would like a bouquet for her room as well.”

“Mama, do we not have staff to collect the flowers? Can the gardener not do it? And I never know which ones are your favorites! If I select the wrong ones, then—” Atlas brushed the air above his head with a waving of his hands, as if to illustrate that he wished to be rid of the responsibility. Which he did.

“You know which is my favorite. It grows in no greenhouse and will not be in bloom until at least another month. As Mr. Shakespeare might say, ‘Methinks you protest too much.’ Your sisters would appreciate your assistance. Mrs. Goodwin has been working far too hard these past two days. You and your brother have sailed around preparations so far, disappearing to the stables or claiming that Mr. Puttick’s roof is leaking. It has not rained in four days, Atlas Henry, so I am not sure how you know that the gamekeeper’s roof is leaking?”

Atlas pursed his lips and grabbed the arms of the high-backed chair to push himself away from the desk. “How do you…how…why…I—” His jumbled words died on his tongue as he realized it was a battle not worth fighting because he would never win.

Atlas looked so much like his father that Charlotte imagined that this must have been what a frustrated Alexander had been like in his first years as master of the estate—when she was a young girl in Willingden on the cusp of womanhood.

Charlotte arched an eyebrow. “Yes? How do I what?”

“I shall gladly cut flowers, Mama, and I will tell Sam that he must help. The next time it rains, though, you may find that Mr. Puttick’s roof needs repair. In truth, the cottage does need restoration. I have said as much to Papa.”

“Very well, but such decisions can wait until after your sister arrives and settles in.”

“I do not know what is in bloom. Pink flowers?”

“White and yellow.”

“See, Mama, this is why I do not like to be charged with such responsibility.”

“Whatever you select will be wonderful, and I shall be most grateful.”

***

Alexander quietly opened the door to his bedroom. According to Anne, Charlotte had retreated for a moment of rest before dressing for Augusta’s evening arrival from Hampshire.

Whether or not she was resting, Charlotte was at least stretched on the bed, her face to the window, her long waves unpinned, and slippers removed. Stockinged feet were curled under her skirt, a shawl loosely arranged over her shoulders.

He tiptoed toward the bed until he heard her soft laugh.

“Xander, never consider a career in burgling.”

“I may need to do just that—burgling—if Vivian orders one more gown from the modiste. Not to mention, how may petticoats does one young bride need?”

This time, Charlotte did not contain her laughter. She raised her head and looked over her shoulder toward him. “She has ordered three gowns. Fashions have changed in case you have not noticed. Women wear more undergarments than they did when I was her age. You said three gowns, and she has kept it so. It simply seems like many new pieces because it is all at one time.”

“House and home, Charlotte.”

“You say, and yet, I know that there is a wooden box from Triveton’s in the third drawer of that dresser as we speak! A box I have never seen before, lately forwarded by one Mr. Samuel Colbourne to his brother, Alexander, for the occasion of his daughter Vivian’s marriage.”

Alexander stepped around the bed so that she would not need to strain her neck to see him. “How do you know the contents of the box are not for you?”

“I do not—” Charlotte narrowed her eyes. “It is not. Is it?”

He shrugged and sat on the window seat to remove his low boots. Kicking them aside, he began untying his silk necktie.

“What are you doing? I was hoping to ask you to ride to Dr. and Mrs. Fuchs to ask—”

Alexander’s fingers stilled. “Are you unwell?”

“No! Beatrice sent a message that she collected our order at Chawston’s along with her own, but she will not be able to attend dinner this evening at Heyrick Park after all because Reverend Hankins has taken ill again. I wondered whether you would ride back into town to collect the bakery boxes for tomorrow morning.”

“Does Chawston no longer deliver? Charlotte, you may not be ill now, but you will make yourself ill with all this…this…perfection you are trying to achieve. This is not like you.”

He stood and unbuttoned his coat and waistcoat, tossing both onto the window seat cushion before climbing over the fabric of her blue skirt to reach the center of the bed. He plumped his two pillows before lowering himself to rest behind her.

“What are you doing now, Xander? Please do not become too comfortable. I am not trying to achieve any perfection as you say. As for Chawston’s, I thought William let the young assistant he had hired---”

Alexander silenced her words with a kiss. His left hand reached around her waist, guiding her hips his direction.

“Xander, I—”

Silenced again. This time, he felt her relax. A little. At least she kissed him back.

“Sanditon gossip,” he murmured, his left fingers deftly loosening the top two pearl buttons on her bodice. He bent to kiss her clavicle, the seemingly forever unkempt grey curl at his forehead brushing against her untanned skin. “Leo and the children do not expect all of this, Charlotte. Augusta might wish for fresh flowers and Sanditon’s finest confections, but she does not expect it either. None of our children do, so please tell me—” he paused to whisper kiss her jawline and the tip of her chin. “Tell me why all the fuss?”

“I will not tell you. You will laugh.”

Alexander paused his attentions and pushed himself up to better look at her. “Now I am curious.”

Charlotte tilted her head on the pillow to gaze out the window rather than at him. “It is rather ridiculous.”

“What is? Tell me. I will not laugh.”

“I am…I am nervous. There I said it. I know. It is ridiculous.”

Pushing himself away from her, Alexander rolled to the center of the bed, pressing his shoulder blades into the mattress and his head into the feather pillow.

He blinked. “No. No, it is not ridiculous. Why are you nervous?”

“You are not?”

“You forget that I have experience with not seeing an immediate family member for ten years.”

“You and Samuel quarreled. With Leo there has been no argument, and so it is not a useful comparison.”

“You have not answered my question.”

Charlotte turned on her hip to face him, her skirts twisting beneath her left knee. “Neither have you, sir!”

“I asked you first.” He squinted into the bright sunlight that had reappeared from behind a cloud. “’Tis only fair.”

Charlotte pushed herself up. “I am not spending this time talking in circles with you. So much for this precious rest everyone thinks I should have! I do have tasks I wish to complete.”

Reaching across, he gently circled her wrist with the fingers of his left hand. “Please stay. If I tell you, will you stay?”

Charlotte sighed. “I…I do not expect you to understand, but Leo knows so much more of the world than we do now, Xander. When she married Laurent and left for America, we were still her guardians, her protectors, the ones with the wise words of advice. We knew more about society, and well, simply life than she did. Yes, Leo was five and twenty, but all she knew was Sanditon, Willingden, Bath, and London! Now, I feel as if we are the innocents. For all the books I have read and the French verbs I have conjugated, I have never been to France. It is not as if we took the grand tour when we married. Alexandra came so soon and the twins. I would not have it any other way, yet our travel has taken us to Derbyshire at the furthest! I have never been to the lakes, not even to visit Mr. and Mrs. Crowe! What do I know of what Leo, Laurent, Cousin Henry, and Madame Marguerite have seen! Not to mention Laurent’s brother!”

“Let us please not speak of him, although I wish the man well. You know that Marguerite Cambron’s health is poor, and she is at best sitting in Henry’s garden this very moment and not traveling state to state or to Canada as she intended. I would not wish to be in her shoes.”

“No, I…I suppose not. Yet—”

“Charlotte, why have you not mentioned this before? You are frustrated; I can tell.”

“We have not had time, Xander. Tavie just turned thirteen this spring.”

Alexander wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her toward him so that she could rest in the crook of his arm. As was always natural for them, she placed her hand over his heart.  

She closed her eyes for a moment before speaking. “You have not told me why you are nervous.”

“I will; however, we are not yet finished with your point. Would you like to travel? Where would you like to go?”

“I should like to see Cumbria. I should like to see the Roman walls in the north. I have heard and read so many things, Xander, yet I wish to see them with my own eyes. To believe they are true.”

Alexander kissed her forehead. “So you shall. Tavie is old enough. Would you like to take Sam and Tavie after Vivian’s wedding? Perhaps Anne should like to go. She has been so downcast of late. Atlas knows the estate accounts well enough now that I feel comfortable leaving him on his own for a few weeks. Or would you like the two of us to go by ourselves? Whatever you wish, Charlotte, I wish for you to be happy.”

Charlotte brushed her thumb across his lips. “I should like all of those in turn. I do want to be here at Heyrick for Xandra’s confinement.”

“I shall write to Mr. Crowe and ask his advice for an inn or house that we may let for at least two weeks.”

Looking into the soulful brown eyes that had entranced her from their first weeks in each other’s company, Charlotte knew that he spoke the truth, and knowing him so well, knew that the letter would be written the following day if not that very night.

“Thank you, Xander. Now, I wish to hear of your trepidation.”

Alexander stared at the twin oils on the bedroom’s mantel—one of Leo’s son and daughter when they were toddlers and a newer one of ten-year-old Charles and soon-to-be nine-year-old Lucy Marguerite. “I wonder who I will see when I look into her eyes. Charles looks so much like her, Charlotte. My heart almost stops. It is as if I can hear her voice. Unfortunately, I can hear my own voice. The words I said.”

Charlotte quieted in his arms. “Her? You do not mean Leo. You mean Lucy. Your Lucy.”

“Mine. I do not think she was ever mine.”

Charlotte tucked herself as tightly as she could against his ribs. Of course, for Alexander it was once more a living reminder. Charles and young Lucy were their grandchildren. Not theirs—she and Alexander. Not by blood at least.

“Xander, how long has this occupied your mind?”

He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing. “Since Leo’s letter announcing the trip.”

“Why did you keep this from me?”

“Because—” he grasped her shoulders as if to keep himself anchored against the pull of a tide. When he continued, his voice was but a whisper. “Because it seemed—”

“Ridiculous.” She finished his thought.

“Ridiculous, yes.”

“I think, Mr. Colbourne, that we should set ‘ridiculous’ aside or place it in the corner where it belongs. More than ten years have passed. It is natural to feel excited, nervous, expectant, and a multitude of other words. I wonder if Leo feels the same. Charles and Lucy have never met any of us. Leo and Octavia have never breathed the same air, and yet, they are sisters. Shall we think of them? What it must feel like. Sam and Vivian remember, but they were little. Perhaps we should stop being ashamed of how we feel and acknowledge that each of us carries our own memories. We have our own hopes. Leonora is our child, and I imagine she will be the same bright, curious conversationalist she always was but now armed with more stories than we can fit into one evening dinner. We have a summer to savor. Let us enjoy having everyone under one roof again and be grateful that they are making the journey. A safe journey.”

“Come end of summer, I know I will not want to let her go. Not just Leo but the children as well.”

Charlotte kissed his stubbled cheek. “I think Laurent will not be pleased if you kidnap your own daughter and grandchildren, Xander.”

“It would not be kidnapping. Leo is mine, after all.”

“Oh, I believe you gave her away at a church in London some years ago, my love.”

He sighed. “And I shall give another one away later this summer.”

“To a good man who is worthy of Vivian. We have been fortunate, Xander. Our daughters have made wise choices.”

“Mm. Except for Mr. Dreary.”

“Drury. You are as bad as Sam calling him that name. Anne is not to blame. Roseline chastises herself daily for introducing Anne to the Drurys. Our daughter’s heart shall heal, and she made a wise choice in changing her mind. You cannot fault her. You will recall that I made the same choice, and my decision to end my engagement to Ralph Starling is the reason we are here. That our children exist. Anne is too much a treasure to give her heart to an undeserving man.”

Charlotte looked into his eyes knowing that he bore the weight of Anne’s heartbreak as much as their daughter bore the pain herself. “Now, I think I have earned my short nap. Will you stay or can I persuade you to ride to the Fuchs’s for the Chawston boxes.”

Alexander growled. “I thought you had forgotten about all that in the midst of our conversation!”

“I forget nothing, Xander!”

He pushed himself up again, bringing her with him. “As I am well aware. The things I do for you, Mrs. Colbourne.”

“So you will go to town?”

“I will go to town.” He cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “In a minute.”

“A minute! Xan—”

A kiss quieted her exclamation, and Charlotte could not help but giggle as he rolled them both so that he was now on her side of the bed by the windows. “I said in a minute, Mrs. Colbourne, and I mean to make the most of said minute.”

“There is very little you can do in a minute, Xander.” She met his smirk with her own.

“Oh, Charlotte, you might be surprised.”

***

Spears House
Portsmouth, Hampshire
June 1850

Augusta looked down from the bedroom window, catching her children Brook and Susannah making the most of their last minutes with their Aunt Catherine and Uncle Jasper before the day’s journey to Sanditon. Brook laughed as Carrick, her brother-in-law’s spaniel, jumped up into the open door of the Grange’s carriage and barked, announcing his desire to join the Tytherleys on the last leg of their journey.

Brook was in the midst of a growth spurt; his coat sleeves were already shorter than they had seemed the week before. He was tall with long legs much like hers. Susannah, whose wavy hair was decidedly more auburn than her brother’s, was petite with a slight figure. Valentine Hill had explained that Susannah would likely always be small and delicate due to the circumstances of her birth. Yet her difficult and premature entry into the world did not keep her from running after her older brother or dancing with as much energy as the tallest girls in Whaddon with their bright cheeks and perfect health.

Catherine handed Susannah a small, wrapped box, and the ten-year old’s face lit up. Even though the distance from Portsmouth to Tytherley Grange was not that far, these visits did not occur as often as one might think. The days and weeks seemed to pass in a blink of an eye as one season flowed into the next. Augusta honestly wondered how her little boy, barely the height of a wolfhound’s shoulder, could now be on the cusp of manhood. Before she could blink again, he would be off to Oxford.

“Gus?” Simeon’s booted step on the hall stairs stirred her attention. “Is the trunk ready? May I close the lid or are you not finished packing?”

The two topaz rings on her left hand caught the sunlight as she turned to find her husband waiting instruction, his traveling coat draped over his arm and hat in hand.

“Just my shawl. I am ready.” Augusta handed him the knitted piece and retrieved her book from the bedside table. “I shall take the Poe with me.”

Simeon placed the shawl on top of the paper-wrapped manuscript Augusta had carefully tucked in among her dress bodices and his morning coat. Closing the lid, he secured the trunk’s leather straps. “Do you think they will be pleased with the manuscript? Uncle and Leo?”

Augusta handed him the volume of poetry so that she could tie her bonnet ribbons. “It is difficult to say. I changed the names and the setting entirely, yet it is still our story. The story of my first year at Heyrick Park.”

“A story of childhood.”

“A story about childhood, Simeon, but not a story for children. The subject is far too sad.” She tightened the pale green bow at her chin, keeping her eyes on him. “Remember, my memories of being a young girl are vastly different than yours, or Brook’s or Susannah’s for that matter.”

“Susannah is still a girl, Augusta. She has not yet known heartbreak, and I wish to keep such pain from her as long as I can and with as much determination as I can muster.”

Augusta hesitated. “What if Uncle becomes angry, Simeon? I wrote…I wrote what I knew of his father, what little he shared. His father’s temperament was so different than his mother’s. Anne and Henry Colbourne seemed night and day based on what Mrs. Wheatley would tell me…what little Uncle Samuel intimated. What if--?”

Simeon’s voice was soft. “Let him decide for himself. Let Leo decide what she thinks. As you say, the story is disguised enough that no one would recognize the characters. If you have their acceptance, then Mr. Jance will move forward with publishing. If they do not wish it, then at the least, you have put your thoughts on paper, bringing yourself long-sought peace.”

She nodded. “Very well. I cannot believe that I shall see Leo tomorrow. I wonder if I shall recognize her. Oh, I know she cannot have changed much, but she will see my strands of grey and laugh at me for almost needing spectacles to read music.”

“Almost?” Simeon chuckled. “We should go; the horses are growing impatient. I doubt that Leo has changed that much, Augusta. She will be excited to meet cousins, nieces, and nephews she has heard so much of yet has never met.”

“A sister she has never met! To think!”

“True! What a strange situation for Tavie. For both of them! Now, downstairs. Enjoy these last moments with Catherine. I shall follow in a minute.”

Augusta’s footsteps echoing as she descended the tight staircase to the hall, Simeon took her now abandoned place by the window, looking down to see Jasper give directions to the coachman and Brook helping his aunt place a luncheon basket in the carriage.

He bit his lower lip, eyes focused on Augusta. He had read the wrapped and tied manuscript at her request. She was correct. It was not a book for children. In finally telling her story and putting pen to paper, she had unveiled what had been buried in her heart for so long. Pain that she needed to express, hurt that needed to heal. Seeing her smile and laugh now with his sister, his wife seemed a different woman from the one she had been for most of their marriage. Her writing had saved her, in a sense. Saving her in a way that he had never been able to try as he might.

Seeing Leo would do Augusta a world of good. It had been too long. Far too long for cousins whose bond, despite an ocean between them, was inseparable.

***

Heyrick Park
Sussex
June 1850

“Your mother requested a bouquet or two of flowers not the entire greenhouse!” Persephone Goodwin looked up from the biscuit dough she was rolling in the kitchen, Octavia at her elbow standing ready with a flour-dipped cutter. “At least I am assuming that is you behind those stems, Mr. Colbourne and Master Samuel!”

Roseline Colbourne smiled toward her husband and brother-in-law as she bounced little Elizabeth on her lap, her daughter’s hands clutched around the toy wooden cow, refusing to part with the much slobbered-upon bovine.

“See, Mrs. Goodwin! This is why I do not care for assignments such as this!” Atlas lowered a brimming basket of yellow, white, and pinkish flowers at the opposite end of the table from where their housekeeper and his youngest sister worked. “I choose too few, or choose too many, or choose the wrong color. I am hopeless when it comes to floral artistry.” He held out one of the pink stems to his wife. “Your favorite color, my dear.”

Roseline laughed. “Oh, Atlas, you are more romantic than you claim. Thank you.”

Sam dropped his basket next to his sister Anne’s chair, scattering several flowers at her slippers.

“Honestly, Sam! The same cannot be said for you. Do have a care!” Anne bent down to retrieve the stems, hitting her head and dislodging two hairpins as she did. “Ow! Why can you not—aagh!!”

“You are in a foul mood, sister. Will you ever be kind again? Or sing again for that matter? This moping over Dreary Leonard cannot go on forever. Do not blame me for his faults!” Sam, never one to let an opportunity to annoy his sisters go to waste, fluttered the tiny white petals of one long stem at Anne’s ear.

“Do stop!” Anne swatted his arm.

“That will be enough, Master Samuel! I am tired and have several dozen more to bake after this. Please take the flowers upstairs for Mrs. Colbourne.”

“To think you are off to Oxford! And so mature! I hope Papa’s investment in your studies is not in vain,” Anne grumbled.

“I wish I could study at Oxford,” Octavia mused as she transferred the cut lemon biscuits from Mrs. Goodwin’s board to the baking tray. “Or be a lawyer like Uncle Samuel.”

“I am afraid that will not happen anytime soon, Tavie. Although if you ever wish to review a contract or two, I have several I have read three or four times and still cannot make heads or tails! Perhaps you will have better luck.” Atlas eyed the pan of biscuits recently removed from the stove, and waiting until Mrs. Goodwin turned toward the window, lifted one only to find that it was still very warm. He shuffled the disc between his hands to avoid burning his fingers. Elizabeth watched him in fascination and gurgled her delight.

“If you think that I do not know what you are doing, Mr. Colbourne!”

Popping the biscuit quickly into his mouth to hide his thievery from Mrs. Goodwin, Atlas soon regretted his action. “Owww!!”

Octavia and Sam chuckled.

Anne rolled her eyes at her twin and sighed. “Honestly! You are worse than Sam. Mrs. Goodwin, I think I will take some of these flowers to Mrs. Wheatley, if you do not mind. She…I just need some fresh air.” Anne’s voice faltered and grabbing a handful of the blooms, brushed past Sam and ran toward the laundry room and the servants’ entrance.

Mrs. Goodwin watched her departure.

Atlas swallowed the last of the biscuit wedged in his mouth and found both Roseline and the housekeeper frowning.

“Atlas.” Roseline’s tone was tinged with mild disappointment.

“Should I…should I go after her?”

“Do you need to ask? You two used to be able to read each other’s minds. Has so much changed, Mr. Colbourne?” Mrs. Goodwin cocked her head and pointed the tip of her rolling pin toward the laundry.

Atlas turned and followed Anne’s path past the boot room and through the laundry, brushing aside a white sheet hanging on a line, and out the doors leading to the lower terrace steps.

Turning the corner, he broke into a jog to catch up with Anne. He knew she was taking the brook path toward the stables and the family cemetery.

“Anne!”

His twin looked over her shoulder but kept walking, the flowers bundled against the bodice of her pale ochre dress.

“Anne!” Catching his breath, Atlas fell into step next to her. “I thought I would join you.”

“Your idea or Mrs. Goodwin’s?”

He touched her sleeve, and she stopped walking. “May I carry the flowers?”

Anne shook her head but still handed him half. “I thought since Mrs. Wheatley will not be here this time. Leo…when Leo arrives. She did not even have a chance to say goodbye.”

Atlas held out his elbow for her, and she looped her arm loosely through his. “It is thoughtful of you, Anne. A kind gesture that few of us would think to consider. This is not the first time in her life that Leo has lost someone dear to her without having the chance to say goodbye. She never knew her mother.”

“Leo was a baby then. She knew Mrs. Wheatley her entire life. Mrs. Wheatley raised her until Mama married Papa. Everyone is so excited to see Leo and the children. I am as well. Yet, everyone seems to be forgetting that not every moment of this journey will be filled with flowers, seashells, and happiness.”

“I do not think that life is ever that blissful, Anne. Those moments are short-lived and precious.”

Anne scoffed. “You are seven and twenty with a beautiful, intelligent wife, and a rosy-cheeked, precious and perfectly named daughter. An estate that will one day be yours when all this around us should belong to Leo. In a fair world, that is. I wonder if that will come rushing back to her when she returns. How she used to prod you when we were young. Leo thought that you did not appreciate what you had inherited. In a way, she was right. I half wonder if that is why she wished to go to America in the first place. To escape the constant reminder that she could never inherit as you will. Please do not tell me about short-lived and precious, Atlas. You have…you will have many moments of—” A jagged cry escaped her lips before she could control it.

“Oh, Anne.”

“What do you know of unhappiness? Truly, brother? You have everything!” She wretched open the iron gate of the cemetery with more force than she intended, sending a quarter of her flowers to the ground.

“I am sorry. I am sorry for it all, Anne.” Atlas bent down to retrieve the flowers. “About Leonard. Everything. I know you are angry and hurt. You have been questioning your decision for weeks.”

Letting out a huff of air, she glanced around at the headstones. “I did not love him, Atlas. Or rather, we did not have what I wished to have. What Mama and Papa have. What Xandra and Valentine have. What you and Roseline have. Yet it is so…very…hard to be the one left without. What if I do not have another opportunity? I live here and die here? To torment you and your children?”

“You do not torment me, Anne, and it is far too soon to think that nothing will ever change. Think of…oh, Simeon’s sister Catherine. Even Mrs. Fuchs. They hardly married when they were two and twenty! You think that I have it all, yet I do not. I would gladly hand every acre of Heyrick Park to Leo if the law allowed. I would summon up a man worthy of you tomorrow, if I had that power, but I do not. So, I do not have it all. I cannot repair each and every thing I wish. Nor can Papa, and believe me, I know he wishes he could.”

Anne moved silently between the graves, touching her fingers lightly at the top of her grandmother Anne’s stone as she passed. Atlas followed a short distance behind her so as not to trod on the hem of her dress. She paused at Mrs. Wheatley’s headstone and gently placed the flowers over the short grass at the carved base. “Leo is coming home, Mrs. Wheatley,” she whispered. “She will visit you and Lucy tomorrow. I know it.”

Atlas crouched down and picked up a few scattered leaves left from the last of the spring rains. “Until tomorrow then, Mrs. Wheatley.”

A tear splashed Anne’s cheek as she echoed, “Until tomorrow then.”

***

Heyrick Park
Sussex
June 1850

“Apologies, Anne, for displacing you.”

Augusta sidled into the chair at Alexander’s right at the head of the dining room table. Every leaf available had been placed to extend the wooden surface, and their seats were almost in the doorway leading to the main hall. Charlotte, at the foot, had had to wrap her skirts as tightly as she could to squeeze into her place at the foot next to the windows.

“I anticipated it, Gus.” Anne scraped butter across her toast and nodded for Simeon to place the ham platter at her elbow. “I will move further down the table when Leo arrives. Not to mention Xandra and Uncle Samuel. Why I shall be in the middle before you know it!” She gave her cousin a resigned smile and forked two slices of the pork—one for her father, and the other for herself.

“Will we have room for Leo, Lucy, and Charles?!” Vivian looked up, balancing a forkful of egg before her. “Mary is not even here yet! Nor Xandra, Valentine, and the boys. Papa, you may have to purchase a bigger house!” With a wink, she took a bite and beamed Alexander’s direction.

“I shall have no money left to buy one, Vivian. You are spending all my savings,” Alexander teased. “Mary arrives at the end of the week. She, Samuel, and Susan are traveling together. Mrs. Fuchs is returning with them if her brother’s health allows. She has not yet been on the railway and wishes to experience it before she dies. Her words, not mine. I do not think she is departing us in that way any time soon. Beatrice will stay in London for a week.”

“I wish the railway were finished between here and Salisbury. It would make this journey all the shorter.” Simeon smiled toward Charlotte. “Augusta and the children could visit more often.”

“That would be delightful!” Charlotte sipped her tea. “I am already thankful that it has made travel to Bath all the easier. In fact—” she paused when she noticed Mrs. Goodwin fly past the dining room doorway, smoothing her apron. “Xander?” She held up her hand to draw his attention. “Does Mrs. Goodwin need assistance?”

The voices around the table quieted, and they heard the heavy wooden doors of the foyer open. Then Mrs. Goodwin speaking to Elliot with excitement. Another call and then the crunch of carriage wheels on the drive.

“They are here!” Atlas pushed back his chair. “I can see through the hallway.”

Charlotte gasped and touched Susannah’s sleeve. “Come! Everyone!”

Augusta dropped her serviette and likewise gripped Alexander’s shirt cuff. “Uncle?”

“Calm yourself, or you shall overwhelm them.” He spoke with more confidence than he felt.

Sam whooped, and Anne could not help but smile.

Then they heard a laugh, a question, an exclamation from a familiar yet not familiar voice. An accent that seemed different than most of them remembered. Flatness with a mild lilt.

“Mrs. Goodwin!”

Alexander and Augusta reached the door to see Leo throw herself into the housekeeper’s arms. Laughter bubbling up from both women.

“Mrs. Cambron! Oh, Miss Leonora.”

Leo held the woman, hugging her fiercely. Then she beamed at Elliot, and propriety aside, embraced the family’s long-serving groom. “Oh, Mr. Elliot. To see you both! It is as if I never left.”

When she turned, Alexander felt as if no time had passed. There she was--still tall, her skin sunburnt, eyes still the most marvelous shade of blue. Her blonde hair seemed faded from the sun and exposure to the sea and salt. Hair still parted down the middle with a concession to current fashion in the soft swoops that covered the tips of both her ears. Leo’s face erupted into a grin. Her cheekbones were still as sharp as the Colonel’s. With a swish of her sky-blue skirts and the wave of a white-laced cuff, she was before him. “Papa! Augusta!”

Then she was in his arms, and he breathed in the scent of sea, salt, and timbers carried in the fabric of her dress and her hair. He kissed her forehead and clasped her to his shoulder. “Leo, are you real?”

Laughing, she pushed away from him only to embrace Augusta with as much enthusiasm. “Very real!”

Charlotte moved forward, and Leo shrieked. “Mama!”

“My dear girl. My dear, dear girl.” Tears could not be contained at that moment.

Octavia stepped forward, moving shyly.

Leo turned, unable to stop smiling. Her children stood by the carriage just as shy as their young aunt, who was but a few years older than them.

“You must be Tavie. I am your sister Leonora.”

Octavia, unsure what to do, bobbed. She had taken a flower from one of the bouquets and extended it toward Leo with her left hand.

“Ah! You are left-handed like Papa. You and Xandra. A special trait to share, and I know you share a birthday with Papa as well.”

“Yes.” Octavia nodded and let out her breath, relaxing as Leo hugged her.

“Anne! Oh, Vivian. Atlas! And Roseline, I do so look forward to meeting my niece. And—” Leo stopped, spying the petite girl next to Simeon. “Susannah?”

“Susannah Leonora.” Her little cousin reminded her.

“We shall be best of friends. May I introduce you to your cousins Charles and Lucy.”

Alexander could see Lucy Colbourne in Charles’ expression. His eyes were the same color, yet there was a soft kindness present. Unlike his maternal grandmother, his eyes were not hardened with frustration as Lucy’s so often were. Young Lucy’s blonde ringlets and ribboned waist were fashionable. Her features were like Leo’s, yet the girl was dressed much more elegantly than he could ever imagine Leo dressing. No doubt the influence of her father, Madame Marguerite, and Madame Belvoir.

At that moment, Helia, noticing she was missing some excitement, bounded forward barking. Before Alexander could call out to the lurcher, the hound circled Lucy and Charles, wagging her tail.

Charles seemed delighted and burst into French.

“Maman! Regardez! C’est votre chien, Grand-père? Quel est son nom?”

“Helia,” Charlotte answered, pleased to see Charles take to the animal.

“Grand-père, Maman says that we might go riding? Lucy should very much like to play the piano forte. That is, if we may…while we visit.”

“Of course, Charles. This is your home. We shall ride and picnic and go to the sea, and Lucy may play the piano forte to her heart’s content.”

“Well, you must be starving,” Augusta raised her eyebrows. “Please come in for breakfast.”

“There is ham!” Octavia offered. “Oh, and you shall have fresh ice cream this week! Atlas is trying mint to see if it is a nice flavor.”

“Ice cream?!” Lucy’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, Maman, you did not say!”

“I am not sure that I knew.” Leo threw an inquisitive glance her brother’s way.

Atlas shrugged, attempting to look innocent. Leo shook her head and laughed.

“Oh, but Leo, the table is very crowded. We may have to sit on each other’s laps. Or you may have to eat standing up!” Sam called back over his shoulder.

“Sam!” Charlotte chastised her son and pushed him ahead of her. “I will send you to eat in the kitchen.”

“Good, there is more elbow room there!” Sam smirked and ducked his head to avoid having his ear being playfully boxed by Atlas.

Leo paused before walking into the foyer. Once she stepped into the house, her eyes immediately went to her mother’s portrait. A soft smile formed on her lips. Reaching for Augusta’s left hand, she gave it a firm squeeze. “Oh, Augusta, this is the best day ever.”

Augusta narrowed her eyes before rolling them. “What a tragically dull life you must have led, child.”

Leo twirled the flower Octavia had given her. She bumped her elbow and hip against her cousin’s. Dark blue dress fabric swishing against sky blue fabric, Augusta bumped Leo back.

Alexander and Charlotte waited patiently in the hall.

“Girls!”

“Breakfast is growing cold.”

The two women glanced sideways at each other and burst into laughter.

For whatever had been and whatever would be, it was indeed one of the best days ever.