The one she used to look forward to, too.

“Pet the kitties.”

“A lovely notion.” Though Bart would scare most of the kitties away, all except the shameless old mamas who seemed to know a kitten favored by a child might find an easy life as a pantry mouser rather than the rigorous existence awaiting the barn cats.

When they reached the ground floor, Bart pelted off in the direction of the library, there to collect paper from the duke’s desk. Esther paused long enough to tell a footman—old Thomas—to have a brazier and some spills prepared for the services to be held at the stream.

Outside the library door, Gayle dropped her hand and peered up at her. He had beautiful green eyes, the same as Bart. Victor’s eyes were a slightly darker hue, and baby Valentine’s eyes had lost nearly all traces of their newborn blue.

“Mama?”

Esther dropped to her knees. Gayle did not shout his sentiments, even in his most sanguine moods. “My dear?”

She pushed soft auburn curls away from his face. He’d been born blond, but his hair was darkening as he matured. He tolerated her affection silently, a little man more preoccupied with his inner world than most his age.

“If you could do anything you wanted to do this afternoon,” Gayle asked, “what would you do?”

Esther turned, braced her back against the wall, and slid to a sitting position. “I’m not sure.” This question, and her reply to it, caused a lump in her throat. Many things brought a lump to her throat. “I might take a nice long nap.”

She was treated to a frown that put her much in mind of her husband. “A nap isn’t fun. We’re supposed to have fun for our outings. Petting the kitties is fun.”

“You don’t like the Viking burials, do you?”

The frown did not dissipate. “Was Grandmama a Viking?”

In the way of little minds, he’d skipped across several ideas to connect two disparate concepts. He did this a lot, which fascinated Esther as much as it worried her.

“Gayle, we did not put your grandmother’s body on a ship, light the ship on fire, and send the ship out to sea. That was for great Viking warriors, for kings long ago and far away. Nobody does that anymore.”

“Grandpapa won’t go away on a ship?”

Ah.

Esther pulled him into her lap, a warm, sturdy bundle of little boy full of questions and fears a mother could only guess at. He bore the scent of hay, suggesting some obliging footman had already stood guard over a sortie to the haymow, where the boys play Highwaymen and Pirates and Damned Upstart Colonials.

Why did little boys never play Dukes and Earls?

“His Grace will go to heaven when God sees fit to call him home. Grandpapa has lived a long, honorable life, and St. Peter will throw a great fete when His Grace strolls through the pearly gates.”

“Will Grandpapa need a footman to help him?”

Such worry in such a small body. “He will not. He will strut.”

This caused a smile. “Like Papa?”

“Like all of my menfolk.” Esther blew on the back of Gayle’s neck, making the sort of rude sound boys delighted in.

She thought he’d squirm away then, but he sighed, little shoulders heaving up with momentous thoughts, then down. “Will Uncle Peter strut when he goes to heaven?”

Gracious God.

“He will strut, and he will shout to everybody that he has come home.” Dear Peter probably hadn’t shouted or strutted since Esther had met him five years ago.

Now Gayle did scramble to his feet. “Will I shout and strut when I go to heaven? Will I be as big as Bart?”

Esther rose, though it was an effort that left her a trifle light-headed. “You will carry on as loudly as anybody, and my guess is you will become very proficient at strutting. You are a Windham, after all. As for being as big as Bart, you are as big now as Bart was when he was your age.”

This concept, that Bart was merely half a lap ahead in the race to adult height, always pleased Gayle. “I want to make birds with my paper, not ships that burn.”

“We can do both.” Though Bart would want to throw rocks at the birds when they became airborne, and Gayle—in a perfect imitation of His Grace—would point out that burning ships was a waste of paper.

Esther followed her son into the library, where Bart—appropriately enough—was already seated at the desk, sturdy legs kicking the air as he folded paper into some semblance of ships.

While the boys argued halfheartedly about which was more fun—birds or ships—Esther sank into a chair and tried not to think about whether she’d be capable of strutting into heaven when her turn came.

No, she would not, though in heaven, she would get a decent nap. She would get as long a nap as ever she wished for.

* * *

“Madam, you have a leaf in your hair.”

Esther glanced over at Percival, her expression confirming that she’d misinterpreted her husband’s attempt at friendly repartee as censorship. Percival reached forward to tease the little bit of brown from the curls at Esther’s nape. That she had time to picnic and lounge about should please him, but had she really sat through dinner with a leaf in her hair?

The instant Percival’s fingers were free of her hair, she moved away. “How was Squire Arbuthnot?”

A year ago, heavy with child, she would have moved into her husband’s touch.

“Rather the worse for drink, as usual, but the man can ride better drunk than I can sober. And he understands drainage, whether we’re talking about the contents of the wine cellar or boggy terrain.” Boggy, stinky, insect-laden, unplowable, useless land, such as graced too many acres of Moreland property. “I was damned lucky Comet didn’t come a cropper.”

His lady wife was already in a nightgown and robe, depriving him of the pleasure of undressing her. Something about her posture suggested that Percival—a man with five years of marital reconnaissance under his belt—had best wrestle off his own boots.

Esther sat at her vanity and pulled pins from the coronet of braids encircling her head. “Did you come to any conclusions in your time with Arbuthnot?”

“I concluded His Grace has spent many years establishing a presence at court, and more years railing against the buffoonery of the Whigs, but he has neglected his acres.” Which surely counted as a greater offense than being comely and having all one’s teeth. “Putting things to rights here will take years.”

Esther rose from her vanity and approached him. He could see she was tired, see it in the shadows beneath her green eyes, in the tightness around her mouth. Even so, his body warmed and his heart sped up in anticipation of her touch. Was not the uxoral embrace a married man’s greatest comfort at the end of a wearying day?

Her fingers went to his cravat. “Have we coin to put things to rights?”

Percival lifted his chin, while in his breeches, something else did not lift at all. “Coin is not a cheering topic, Esther. After dinner, I tried to bring up the need for improvements on the home farm and the tenant farms. Peter stared at his cards as if whist were some arcane Eastern invention. Tony took up a post by the sideboard, and His Grace started lecturing me on my shortcomings.”

Though that lecture hadn’t been half so objectionable as a single remark earlier in the week regarding a dead wife.

“Shall I approach His Grace?” Esther asked. She drew Percival’s cravat from around his neck, draped it over his shoulder, and started on his shirt buttons.

She sounded quite serious. “You?”

“We are operating on the same allowance you were allotted upon our marriage, Husband, and yet we are also now blessed with four children.”

Children did not eat much. Their clothes were small and passed down from one to another, and the boys were too young to need tutors. Still, there were aspects of raising a family that loomed as terra incognita to Percival, and his wife was tired. He took Esther’s hands in his, finding her fingers cool. “Esther, have you need of more coin?”

As he asked the question, he realized she was wearing a robe she’d had when they’d wed, more than five years previously. Then it had been a rich emerald velvet, now the elbows had gone shiny with wear.

“I have no need of coin beyond the pin money established in my settlements, but two nursery maids for four little boys is rather a strain.”

A strain. He dimly perceived she might be telling him that strain devolved to her, and his father’s crude barb came back to him. Because the topic was difficult, Percival took his wife in his arms, the better to read her reactions.

“What sort of strain?” Esther bore the scent of roses—she’d always borne the scent of roses—and that alone made some of his fatigue fall away.

“Valentine does not yet sleep through the night. Victor is also prone to wakefulness. Somebody is always cutting a new tooth or scraping an elbow. Winter is coming, and with it, illness is a given. Boys destroy clothes hourly—this is their God-given right, of course—and the house staff cannot be bothered sewing clothes for the children of a younger son. Boys also need toys, books, games, things to edify and distract. They need linens—Victor abhors sleeping in a crib when Bart and Gayle have their own beds, but I haven’t the nerve to ask for another bedroom for Bart and Gayle. Bart wants a pony, but you well know what it will mean if you procure one for him.”

She paused. He kissed her cheek. Perhaps her monthly approached, though it had been a rare visitor in their marriage. “Bart will share with his brothers?”

“He will not share, meaning Gayle must have a pony too, and somebody must teach the children to ride. Each boy must have proper attire, we must have pony saddles made or purchased, a groom must be detailed to care for their mounts and ride out with them, and there is no money for any of it.”