The Fletcher Family Legacy

Chapter 3

'Tell me where you live, and I'll visit her this very morning."

"All right. It's not far—we're at the closest side of the village."

They shook hands on the deal, talked a moment more, and Freddie went to investigate the gardener's shed.

Turning at the sound of voices, Charlotte saw Declan carrying her sister outside. Lily was dressed in a nightgown and robe and swathed in a shawl, her slim arms looped around Declan's neck. With her white garments and blond hair and fair skin, Lily was nearly colorless except for the flags of soft pink across her cheekbones and the vivid blue of her eyes.

"... that was the most terrible medicine," she was saying cheerfully.

"It worked," Declan pointed out, bending to settle her carefully on the chaise.

"That doesn't mean I forgive you for bullying me into taking it."

"It was for your own good."

"You're a bully," Lily repeated, smiling into his dark face.

"Yes, I know," Declan murmured, tucking the lap blankets around her with extreme care.

Delighted by the improvement in her sister's condition, Charlotte smiled. "He really is dreadful. But if he manages to persuade more villagers to help clean the house, you will have to forgive him, Lily."

Lily's blue eyes twinkled. She spoke to Charlotte, while her gaze remained on Declan. "I have every faith in his powers of persuasion."

Coming from anyone else, the words might have been construed as a piece of flirtation. But Charlotte was fairly certain that Lily had no awareness of Declan as a man. To her he was a kindly older brother, nothing more.

The feelings on Declan's side, however, were more ambiguous.

An inquisitive gray jackdaw flapped to the ground with a few tchacks, and made a tentative hop in Lily's direction. "I'm sorry," she told the bird, "there's no food to share."

A new voice entered the conversation. "Yes there is!" It was Dahlia, carrying a breakfast tray containing a plate of toast and a mug of tea. Her curly dark hair had been pulled back into an untidy bunch, and she wore a white pinafore over her berry-colored dress.

The pinafore was too young a style for a girl of fifteen, Charlotte thought. Dahlia was now at an age when she should be wearing her skirts to the floor. And a corset, heaven help her. But in the past year of turmoil, Charlotte hadn't given much thought to her youngest sister's attire. She needed to take Dahlia and Luarel to a dressmaker, and have some new frocks made for them. Adding that to the long list of expenditures in her head, Charlotte frowned.

"Here's your breakfast, Lily," Dahlia said, settling the tray on her lap. "Are you feeling well enough to butter the

toast yourself, or shall I?"

"I will, thank you." Lily moved her feet and gestured for Dahlia to sit at the other end of the chaise.

Dahlia obeyed promptly. "I'm going to read to you while you sit out here," she informed Lily, reaching into one of the huge pockets of her pinafore. She withdrew a little book and dangled it tantalizingly. "This book was given to me by Philomena Parsons, my best friend in the entire world. She says it's a terrifying story filled with crimes and horrors and vengeful phantoms. Doesn't it sound lovely?"

"1 thought your best friend in the world was Edwina Huddersneld," Lily said with a questioning lilt.

"Oh, no, that was weeks ago. Edwina and I don't even speak now." Snuggling comfortably in her corner, Dahlia gave her older sister a perplexed glance. "Lily? You have the oddest look on your face. Is something the matter?"

Lily had frozen in the act of lifting a teacup to her lips, her blue eyes round with alarm.

Following her sister's gaze, Charlotte saw a small reptilian creature slithering up Dahlia's shoulder. A sharp cry escaped her lips, and she moved forward with her hands raised.

Dahlia glanced at her shoulder. "Oh, drat. You're supposed to stay in my pocket." She plucked the wriggling object from her shoulder and stroked him gently. "A spotted sand lizard," she said. "Isn't he adorable? I found him in my room last night."

Charlotte lowered her hands and stared dumbly at her youngest sister.

"You've made a pet of him?" Lily asked weakly. "Dahlia, dear, don't you think he would be happier in the forest where he belongs?"

Dahlia looked indignant. "With all those predators? Spot wouldn't last a minute."

Charlotte found her voice. "He won't last a minute with me, either. Get rid of him, Bea, or I'm going to flatten him with the nearest heavy object I can find."

"You would murder my pet?"

"One doesn't murder lizards, Bea. One exterminates them." Exasperated, Charlotte turned to Declan. "Find some cleaning women in the village, Declan. God knows how many other unwanted creatures are lurking in the house. Not counting Lucas."

Declan disappeared at once.

"Spot is the perfect pet," Dahlia argued. "He doesn't bite, and he's already house-trained."

"I draw the line at pets with scales."

Dahlia stared at her mutinously. "The sand lizard is a native species of Hampshire—which means Spot has more right to be here than we do."

"Nevertheless, we will not be cohabiting." Walking away before she said something she would regret later, Charlotte wondered why, when there was so much to be done, Dahlia would be so troublesome. But a smile rose to her lips as she reflected that fifteen-year-old girls didn't choose to be troublesome. They simply were.

Lifting handfuls of her skirts to pull them away from her legs, Charlotte bounded up the grand central staircase. Since they would not be receiving guests or paying calls, she had decided not to wear a corset that day. It was a wonderful feeling to breathe as deeply as she wished and move freely about the house.

Filled with determination, she pounded on Lucas's door. '"Wake up, slugabed!"

A string of foul words filtered through the heavy oak panels.

Grinning, Charlotte went into Luarel's room. She pulled the curtains open, releasing clouds of dust that caused her to sneeze. "Luarel, it's... achoo!... time to get out of bed."

The covers had been drawn completely over Luarel's Head. "Not yet," came her muffled protest.

Sitting on the edge of the mattress, Charlotte eased the covers away from her nineteen-year-old sister. Luarel was groggy and sleep-flushed, her cheek imprinted with a line left by a fold of the bedclothes. Her brown hair, a warmer, ruddier tint than Charlotte's, was a wild mass of tangles.

"I hate morning," Luarel mumbled. "And I'm sure I don't like being awakened by someone who looks so bloody pleased about it."

"I'm sorry." Continuing to smile, Charlotte stroked her sister's hair away from her face repeatedly.

"Mmmn." Luarel kept her eyes closed. "Mama used to do that. Feels nice."

"Does it?" Charlotte laid her hand gently over the curve of Luarel's skull. "Dear, I'm going to walk to the village to ask Freddie's mother if we can hire him as our gardener."

"Isn't he a bit young?"