Spinster and Spice (The Spinster Chronicles, Book 3) Read online

  “Indeed, Miss Lambert.” He chuckled and handed over the note, bowing over her hand.

  Izzy shook her head as she broke the seal, sighing as the butler left the room. He was one of the very few people on earth that she could be impudent with and not feel guilt, and she was now wondering if she had been unwise in doing so.

  Still, he kept her secrets, so that must be worth something.

  She scanned the letter quickly, smiling ruefully that her sister’s penmanship was as perfect as it ever was, though more words had been crossed out than was usual in her correspondence.

  Rose refuses to sleep without the story of the canary or the bluebird or what have you. She has been exasperating Northfield and myself to within an inch of our very sanity, and unless you wish to take up residence with us and be her nanny until this foolishness has passed, I desperately need a copy for myself. We never had this trouble with Cecelia, or either of the boys, so do save us, darling Izzy. My head aches even now, I don’t know what I shall do if you refuse me.

  Izzy scanned the lines a few more times, wondering what was possibly so urgent about this that it warranted the additional expense of sending it express.

  “Well now, that is a promising expression on your face, dear. What’s the note?”

  Izzy looked up, already smiling, at the sound of her cousin’s amusement. Georgie looked radiant, as she had done for the past few months. Marriage, it seemed, agreed with her, and her bright emerald eyes sparkled with a never-before-seen light.

  “What are you doing here?” Izzy exclaimed, rising and going to hug her. “I thought you were not due back for another week at least!”

  Georgie grinned and kissed her cheek, a fair lock of her hair unraveling from its pins. “Well, the weather has been so mild, and Hazelwood Park is delightful, but rather large for just the pair of us. We decided to come up early, particularly with winter keeping many people out of London. It really is the best time to be here.”

  Izzy gave her cousin a quizzical look. “Is it? No one is here after Christmas.”

  “Which is precisely how I like it,” Georgie quipped without reservation. She glanced down at the note Izzy still held and brought her gaze back up to scan her cousin’s face. “That looks like Catherine’s handwriting.”

  “It is.” Izzy held the note out for her, knowing her cousin would take it from her anyway.

  Georgie snatched the paper and gleefully read the words, her lips moving as she did so. “My, my, having trouble with our word choice, are we? Decisions, decisions…” Then she snorted a laugh. “Refuse? When do you ever refuse Catherine anything?”

  “Excuse me,” Izzy protested, taking the letter back. “I am perfectly capable of standing up to my sister.”

  Georgie sighed, knowing that was a lie, and shook her head. “So, I imagine after the meeting today, you will be recording whatever story it is she wants and having it sent over?”

  “More than likely,” Izzy admitted, setting the letter back down on the desk and tidying up the surface. There would be no more thinking or talking of writing while Georgie and the others were here. They were too intuitive, and Izzy was too poor an actress.

  She glanced at the mantle clock on the other side of the room. “Unless I can start it now…”

  “Don’t you dare!” Georgie took Izzy by the arm and tugged her away from the desk. “Just because your sister sent her ridiculous request by express unnecessarily does not mean that…”

  “What was sent by express by Catherine the Terrible and why are we rationalizing it?”

  The cousins groaned in a very soft distress even as they smiled and turned to face Charlotte Wright, the most outspoken of the Spinsters, and by far the wealthiest of the group.

  Charlotte had her hands on her hips, full lips curved in her typical mischievous smile, her dark hair just the faintest bit mussed by the bonnet that had so recently been removed.

  “My sister is not terrible, Charlotte,” Izzy reminded her, though it was rather weak by way of defense.

  “No, she’s not,” Charlotte allowed, making a face of consideration that surprised Izzy immensely. Then Charlotte made the most perfectly derogatory expression that she had ever been capable of. “She’s spoiled and helpless and constantly enabled by her family members, and I am terrified of the fact that she is raising offspring of her own when she is so clearly a child herself.”

  Georgie burst into a fit of giggles and coughs, gasping odd choking sounds in between, while Izzy stared at one of her oldest friends, her lips twitching.

  “Why didn’t you say that instead of terrible?” Izzy finally inquired, feeling rather impish at the moment.

  Charlotte sighed heavily. “It is such a mouthful, so I summarized with terrible.” She rubbed her hands together and moved over to Georgie, bending down to kiss her cheek. “Lovely to see you. How was your Christmas?”

  “Delightful, thank you,” Georgie replied with a smile. “And yours?”

  “Dreadful, thank you.” Charlotte rolled her eyes and sat next to Georgie without any of the same elegance. “I hate siblings.”

  Izzy sat back down in her chair, grinning helplessly. “What did they do?”

  “Don’t encourage her!” Grace Morledge snapped as she strode into the room, cheeks tinged pink from the cold. “I had to listen to the entire saga of the Wright Family Christmas, and I went home and almost hugged my brother!”

  Charlotte cackled in delight and clapped her hands. “Brava, we have finally succeeded! I cannot wait to tell Mama.”

  Georgie looked at Charlotte in confusion. “Is that something she would be proud of?”

  “In a very twisted way, yes,” Charlotte answered, still smiling. She turned to Izzy. “What are we refusing Catherine?”

  “We’re not,” Izzy insisted, more bemused than upset.

  Charlotte had that effect on people.

  “Of course we’re not,” Charlotte sighed. “We never do.”

  Georgie looked at Izzy with the most triumphant expression known to man.

  Izzy ignored her.

  Grace sat down in the chair beside Izzy, shaking her head. “Does anybody know if Edith is coming today? I didn’t hear if she had gone to Scotland for Christmas or not.”

  “She didn’t,” Izzy said, barely avoiding a sad sigh. “I invited her to spend Christmas with us, but she politely declined. I’m afraid she spent it alone in that drafty house of hers.”

  There was an uneasy silence among the four of them at that. Lady Edith Leveson was full of surprises and secrets, and she did not share much of either, despite now being an official part of their group. They all liked her immensely, even Charlotte, but her diminished circumstances and lack of public appearances tended to worry them all.

  A loud crash from the front of the house broke the moment, and they all chuckled at the hasty “Sorry!” they could hear following.

  “Elinor Asheley, what is your h-hurry?” Prudence Vale stammered in her usual way, though the tone was filled with laughter.

  “You’ll hear in a minute, Prue! Come on!”

  Scant moments later, Elinor and Prue were in the doorway, Elinor panting, Prue smiling.

  “This is going to be good,” Charlotte muttered as she rose to greet them.

  Elinor nodded and strode further into the room, still tugging Prue behind her. “Ladies, you will never guess.”

  “Let Prue go, for pity’s sake,” Grace told the younger girl, taking Prue’s other arm and hugging her. “She’s not a child.”

  “Right, right, sorry,” Elinor said, her distraction clear as she released her friend and sank into a chair. “I’m just so overcome.”

  “Really?” Charlotte asked as she greeted Prue. “I had no idea.”

  Elinor looked around the room, eyeing each of them. “Is Edith coming?”

  “We don’t know,” at least three of them said.

  “I can’t wait.” Elinor sat up and looked directly at Izzy, taking her by surprise. Her gaze was direct and a
t least partially in accusation.

  Izzy swallowed with difficulty. Elinor was a clever girl, but could she really know what Izzy was hiding?

  “Someone here has been keeping secrets from the rest of us,” Elinor intoned with the sort of formality one would have expected from her mother.

  Even Charlotte seemed surprised by that, and the silence of the room stretched on. “Besides Edith?” Charlotte pressed carefully.

  Elinor shushed her with a vicious sound, and Izzy felt her face grow warm with anxiety.

  It wasn’t possible. It could not be possible. No one knew, and no one could possibly…

  Elinor shifted her gaze to Georgie with a sharp jerk of her head. “Why didn’t you tell us that Lord Sterling and Horrid Hugh have a sister?”

  Chapter Two

  A gentleman should always be alert, active, and aware of his surroundings. One never knows when opportunities for heroism may arise.

  -The Spinster Chronicles, 22 October 1818

  “That’s what happens when one is a perfect gentleman.”

  “Well, we know he isn’t perfect.”

  “Is he asleep?”

  Sebastian Morton was not asleep, and he was listening, but rather against his will. His friends had, for some unknown reason, decided that he should be the target of their games, and it had not yet grown old for either of them, although it had for Sebastian.

  But he had remarkable endurance for things such as this and years of practice with these two would-be jesters.

  “Ah ha! He twitched!”

  “Twitching happens. Means nothing. Poke him.”

  “Don’t touch me,” Sebastian said without opening his eyes.

  Henshaw snickered and nudged him instead. “So, you are awake! What was the last thing you heard?”

  Sebastian exhaled roughly. “I have heard everything, Henshaw. You weren’t exactly keeping your voice down. And Sterling doesn’t know how to do so regardless, so…”

  “I beg your pardon!” Tony Sterling barked with a half laugh. “Insubordination, Morton?”

  “You resigned your commission, Captain,” Sebastian reminded him, finally cracking an eye open. “Forgive me for not respecting your no-longer-applicable uniform.”

  Sterling grinned at him from his corner of the coach, then turned his attention to Henshaw. “Poke him, would you? Hard.”

  Ever the obedient one, Henshaw turned to comply, but Sebastian edged into the furthest corner of the coach and held up his hands defensively.

  “I will break that finger off, I promise.”

  Henshaw seemed to consider that for a moment, his finger inching closer.

  Sebastian threw him a glare, batting at it. “Would you kindly remind me why we are riding off to a ball in the carriage like three boring bachelors when you, Sterling, have a wife? A new one, in fact, whom you happen to like very much.”

  “Love,” Sterling clarified, raising a finger in the air. He cleared his throat and nodded firmly. “Love, Morton. I love her very much.”

  Henshaw groaned good-naturedly. “We know, man. Calm yourself.” He shook his head and muttered, “Man gets himself a wife and turns into a sonnet.”

  Sebastian waved his friend off briefly. “Right, whatever you say, Sterling. Henshaw and I like Georgie immensely, so the question stands; why are you riding with us and not with her?”

  Sterling frowned at his apparent lack of enthusiasm about his beloved wife. “She insisted she had to ride over with the Spinsters to finish catching up and told me to come with the pair of you, though I have no idea why. I can assure you, it won’t happen again. She’s far better company.”

  “I should hope so,” Henshaw grunted. “She is your wife, after all.”

  Sterling’s foot kicked out with lightning speed and whacked Henshaw across the shins, eliciting a grunt of pain from the larger man. Wisely, he refrained from returning the favor, which would have resulted in an all-out war in a moving carriage wherein two grown men turned into misbehaving ten-year-olds.

  Ridiculous.

  There really was no explaining his friends, and he had never attempted to try. They were excellent men, there was no question of that, and he would have laid down his life for either of them. In fact, he had come close to doing so in their battling days. At times, they were impeccable gentlemen and fine examples.

  Other times they were more like this, and he could only shake his head.

  “Don’t shake your head at us, Sebastian Morton,” Sterling suddenly broke in. “You can’t be proper and disapproving of us for a few moments in here when you will be practically clinging to us when we get to Stanworth’s, and you are surrounded by females.”

  Henshaw fairly howled with laughter at that, which was not appreciated.

  “I’m reserved,” Sebastian reminded him, “and not particularly comfortable in formal social occasions.”

  “That is not an excuse,” Henshaw insisted firmly, shaking his head. “The whole idea behind formal social occasions is to break down reserve and improve on closer acquaintance. And you do want to find a wife, do you not?”

  Sebastian reared back in shock, cheeks heating at once. “Well, I mean, eventually… Of course, yes…”

  Sterling chuckled into his fist. “The panic, Henshaw… the panic!”

  “Then to balls and parties we will go,” Henshaw went on, ignoring Sterling’s hysterics. “Again and again until we find that most fortunate of women for you.”

  Sebastian rolled his eyes with a groan, and looked out the window of the coach, shaking his head. Henshaw was clearly in one of his more immature moods, which Sebastian would simply have to endure until his adult version decided to reappear.

  It wasn’t always like this. More often than not, Henshaw was honorable and sincere, respectable and serious, though not quite to Sebastian’s extremes. He was the best of companions and an excellent soldier, reliable to a fault, and wildly overprotective of his seven sisters. The fact that he saw Sebastian as a brother ought to have been a mark of great honor, but most of the time, it only led to moments such as this.

  Sebastian couldn’t say he minded all the time. He might be a reserved man, but he wasn’t stuffy or puffed up. At least, he hoped he wasn’t. He had no intention of being the sort of man that spent his time standing in the corner disapproving of everyone and everything that did not meet with his standards or approval. He just didn’t find any use for being frivolous, and he did find comfort in being consistent.

  His sister was always reminding him that a little fun wouldn’t be remiss for anyone, but Kitty had no idea what he had weighing on his shoulders, the pressure he felt towards her, and the respectability she would need to make a good match herself. He had to be the example, he had to take care of her, and he had to be impeccable in the eyes of Society.

  His friends, for all their good qualities, would never understand that. Sebastian took great pride in being a man of sound mind and firm understanding, reserve or no reserve. He could lay out a well-thought-out plan with precision and execute it flawlessly, whether on the battlefield or in other aspects of his life.

  Except, perhaps, for the treacherous landscape of a London ballroom. That was a far more dangerous venue, and he was completely at sea there.

  The only reason he felt comfortable at all was that his friends were in attendance, and the very few acquaintances he had of any real value would keep him grounded. Add in the fact that it was still winter in London, so the number of guests would be diminished, and Sebastian’s comfort level increased.

  “Did you just sigh, Morton?” Henshaw guffawed with another nudge. “What’s so dreadful about spending the evening at a ball?”

  “Only the prospect of watching you dance,” Sebastian admitted, truly sighing in despair this time. “It’s simply agony to witness.”

  Sterling immediately picked up the gauntlet and joined in, much to Henshaw’s distress, leaving Sebastian to smile slightly to himself.

  He couldn’t let his friends have all the
fun, after all.

  “Oh, come now, Morton. Things aren’t so glum as all that, are they?”

  Sebastian turned to face the lovely figure of Georgie Sterling, smiling up at him in her usual mischievous way. She took a great delight in teasing him, though never to the same extremes that her husband and Henshaw did. He had never been certain if that was due to their only recent association or some sympathetic streak she had within her, but he was grateful for her restraint where he was concerned.

  “Not at all, Mrs. Sterling,” he informed her, bowing politely. “Particularly now that you are speaking with me.”

  Her full lips spread into a broad grin, her green eyes dancing. “Flattery from Mr. Morton must always be treasured, I thank you. But you know how I feel about being Mrs. Sterling.”

  “Yes, ma’am. My condolences.”

  Georgie burst out laughing and rapped him on the arm with her fan. “That is not what I meant!”

  Sebastian shrugged. “Nevertheless, that is what you said.”

  She rolled her eyes, groaning faintly. “Morton, don’t call me Mrs. Sterling. I adore my married state and my married name. You hear me? Adore. To the extreme.”

  Now he rolled his eyes but smiled. “I hear you, yes. No need to emphasize it.”

  “Uncomfortable?” She chuckled softly and sipped the lemonade she held. “Apologies. Just call me Georgie, will you? I can’t stand being formal.”

  “In private, I will naturally call you Georgie,” Sebastian allowed. “In public, I believe I must pay respect where respect is due.”

  Georgie seemed surprised, or perhaps simply bemused. “You respect me, Morton? Really?”

  He, himself, was surprised by her surprise, hoping his behavior had not led her to believe otherwise. “Of course I do. You’re a singular woman, Mrs. Sterling, and far too good for the likes of Captain Sterling.”

  She smiled still, something softer and possibly even more delighted. “That may be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me, Mr. Morton.” Then she leaned closer. “And I do hope you inform my husband of that particular aspect of your opinion with some regularity.”