The Companion of Lady Holmeshire by Debra Brown Page A

welcome sight to the arriving guests after languishing in a coach for such a distance.
    The Countess wanted to stretch, like a child out of church, upon disembarking. Instead, she reached up to wave and acknowledged Helena’s excited welcome from the balcony above the portico. Footmen came out to assist the group, and the butler, Grantham, stood at the door.
    “ I will announce your arrival,” he declared to the visitors, despite the greetings from above and below. The Holmeshires entered, and he tended to their needs. A footman informed Nanny Bowen and the lady’s maids, “Servants’ quarters are on the top floor, the nursery is on the second and I will show you the back stairs.” They departed immediately, taking Nicholas along.
    Wills and Emma looked around the awe-inspiring entrance, astounded, and followed Grantham and Winnie up the grand staircase to the excitedly waiting Duchess. She led them down a stately, forest green hall, passing Corinthian pillars along the way, to the Drawing Room. There, watercolors lined the walls, the signatures of famous artists lying along the borders. Ferns beautified and warmed the atmosphere, sitting atop marble pedestals of various heights along the navy and white papered walls. Over the fireplace hung a portrait of the reigning Queen Victoria, flanked neatly on each side by paintings of the uncrowned late Queen Caroline and her daughter, the nation’s beloved Princess Charlotte of Wales. The rule of Charlotte had been defeated forever, not by armies or uprisings, but by her death at the birth of her stillborn son. Feelings of grief that the portraits brought to the visitors were graciously wiped away by the welcoming words from Their Graces. The much older Duke, gray subduing his once flaming hair, stood at attention to receive his honors in a stylish long, brown frock coat over a high-collared shirt and low-cut vest.
    “ I’ve waited this day to kiss my dear sister-in-law,” he related as she curtsied, and then kissed her cheek, “and we shall have tea together, ere I must leave. Is that not a fine greeting? But politics, it seems, must be argued. Please sit. Do I know this lady?” He motioned toward the reticent Emma, still standing, divine in her traveling dress, near the doorway.
    “ Sir,” Wills replied, as he returned to escort her further inside. “She is my mother’s companion, Miss Emma Carrington. I pray, my mother cannot live without her for a moment, and she must stay with us.”
    "Well, you have grown bold enough to inform me of that, have you, Wills? I am happy to learn of it. I am an old bear, but you will be grateful to know that I generally leave the matter of whom we will receive to your Aunt Helena.” He turned and mumbled, gesturing fully, to a statue of a former king in the corner, “She has impeccable taste; she often forgets to invite Lady Embry to tea. The old hag will be coming to dinner, I fear, because her esteemed husband is worth all the misery. Now,” and he turned back to his guests, “where does Miss Carrington care to sit after so much time in a coach? This chair over here, I propose, as I have not yet seen it lurch, neither left nor right.” His gruff airs had been mellowed by the passing of years, and his marriage to Helena had brought him such joy that in matters at home he had become more a grandfather than a general. Her opinion meant everything to him, and she upheld his position loyally.
    The ladies chose comfortable Queen Anne chairs, and Winnie reported a wish that she could put her feet up and still please dear old Miss Wathem. Helena laughed and said that there was no need to please her anymore. They had always gone behind her back anyway, and especially when it was just the family sitting together. “But Sister,” she said, relaxed and teasing, “How will we explain our behavior to Miss Carrington? Now that concerns me more, as she has heard the worst of it quite recently and will remember the admonitions better than