“Priscilla, no!” he called, his heart skipping a beat as his daughter flung herself over the railing.
“Stop right there, young lady,” he heard Gwendolyn shout. But Priscilla either didn’t hear her or was intentionally ignoring her, because a blink of an eye later, she was zooming down the railing on her stomach, squealing all the way to the bottom.
To Walter’s astonishment, instead of fighting her way through the crowd, Gwendolyn hopped on the railing as well and slid—sitting straight up, with perfect posture to boot—to the bottom, leaping gracefully to the ground before she charged after Priscilla and Samuel.
As he edged his way through ladies still attempting to flee the building, although why they were continuing to do so was beyond him since Samuel was no longer yelling “Rat” every other second, probably because Rat had left the building and was surely on his way to find guinea pig freedom, Walter forced himself to begin composing a suitable response to deal with what was assuredly going to be the loss of Samuel’s pet.
Pressing past five ladies blocking the door, he, along with Cordelia, who’d been dogging his heels, finally broke free of the crowd, Walter hesitating beside the graveyard as he looked around for his children.
“Priscilla’s over by that tall tombstone,” he told Cordelia, nodding to where his daughter was peering around a headstone. “You get her. I’ll go after Samuel.”
Running toward where the carriages were lined up, Walter rounded the corner of the church and stopped in his tracks when he saw a footman striding down the cobblestone walkway, wielding a broom, his sights on a small bundle of fur that seemed to be frozen in place, a guinea pig that, if it survived this ordeal, might need a name change.
“Put that broom away,” Gwendolyn yelled right as Rat began moving again—unfortunately in the direction of the footman still clutching his broom.
Disaster was imminent when the footman apparently didn’t hear Gwendolyn and drew the broom back, clearly intent on taking care of what he believed to be a rat once and for all. Before he could let the broom fly though, Gwendolyn rushed toward him, snatched the broom from his hands, tossed it aside, and then set her attention on Rat, who was now scrambling up the drive, his sights on a green pasture that bordered the church. Without a second’s hesitation, she broke into a run, made a flying leap a moment later, and landed facedown in what looked to be a large mud puddle.
“Is he dead?” Samuel demanded, traipsing into the puddle and stopping beside Gwendolyn, who took that moment to roll over, get to her feet, and brandish what turned out to be Rat, looking the worse for wear—although he might not have been as mud drenched as Gwendolyn.
“He’s fine, Samuel, but what say you let me hold him until we get the little darling home and returned to his cage?”
While Samuel beamed a gap-toothed smile at Gwendolyn, Ethel materialized by Walter’s side. “I’ll deny this if you tell Miss Brinley, but she certainly is uncommonly competent. I would have never imagined any lady had the ability to catch a rapidly retreating rodent with her bare hands, or that she would do so while under threat of being walloped with a broom.”
“She does seem to be a remarkably capable woman,” Walter agreed. “But since Rat has been thwarted from his bid for freedom, I should check on Miss Lowe. She was going after Priscilla in the graveyard.”
Ethel peered over Walter’s shoulder. “I believe she found her and . . . oh dear.” She winced. “This isn’t going to be good.”
Refusing a sigh, Walter directed his attention to where his mother was gazing, finding Cordelia standing two feet away from Priscilla, holding what appeared to be the arm of Priscilla’s rag doll in her hand. Given the outrage stamped on his daughter’s face, it wasn’t a stretch to assume Cordelia had tried to catch Priscilla by grabbing hold of her doll, parting his daughter’s doll from her arm.
Striding into motion, Walter shuddered when Priscilla took a step backward, a telling sign if there ever was one—and something that usually preceded an attack of the kicking or biting sort.
Just as Priscilla lowered her head, a brilliant flash of lightning streaked across the sky, followed by a loud burst of thunder that had the ground trembling. A mere second later, Priscilla was in motion, flying his way as fast as her short legs could carry her. He barely had a second to open his arms to scoop her up, and then she was burrowing her head in the crook of his neck right as the heavens opened up.
A rusty-sounding laugh escaped him as Priscilla arched away from him and caught his eye, her eyes wide even as she blinked rain out of them.
“Miss Brinley wasn’t jesting, was she, Papa?”
“About what, darling?”
She wrinkled her nose. “About God expecting me to behave in His house. I’m going to try awfully hard to behave from now on, because I think lightning hitting me might hurt.”
Another laugh escaped him, and after pulling his daughter close, he lifted his head and found Cordelia waving his way.
“I’m going to accept a ride with Miss Wickham,” Cordelia called before she spun on her heel and raced to where Miss Wickham was gesturing for her to get into a carriage, a groom already steering a pony cart down the drive, one pulled by a pony moving at a plodding rate, obviously the rarely taken out Daisy.
The thought struck that Cordelia may have beat a hasty retreat because she wasn’t up for dealing with his contrary daughter and her one-armed doll, but he tucked that thought aside and headed for his carriage when it began raining harder than ever.
He couldn’t help but smile when Priscilla tucked her face into the crook of his neck as he reached his carriage, where Gwendolyn was already getting Samuel and his mother and mother-in-law settled in it. She turned and shoved a sopping strand of hair out of her face, her brows drawing together when she caught sight of him.
“You’re smiling,” she said.
“You seem surprised.”
“Given the circumstances, yes, I am a little surprised, but . . .” Her lips curved. “You should do that more often. It suits you.” With that, she turned and climbed into the carriage right as Oscar materialized by his side.
“She’s right,” Oscar said, holding Priscilla’s rag doll and its missing arm.
“About what?” Walter asked.
“Smiling. You should do it more often.” Sending him a genuine smile of his own, something Walter couldn’t remember Oscar sending him in a very long time, his son scrambled into the carriage, leaving Walter with the distinct feeling he might have turned a corner with his children, and all because of Gwendolyn Brinley, who currently looked like the drowned guinea pig she was still holding, but who’d accomplished something most ladies would have been hard-pressed to do—rising to a most unusual circumstance, and rising magnificently to it at that.
Eighteen
“Miss Brinley, thank goodness you’ve decided to pay us a visit, even with it being unexpected,” Ethel said as she rushed down the hallway of Sea Haven, Gwendolyn in her sights.
Gwendolyn handed her umbrella to the Townsend family butler, who’d said his name was Benson, and returned her attention to Ethel, who was looking quite unlike herself.
Ethel’s hair was straggling out of her chignon, her sleeves were rolled up, and she appeared to have chocolate dribbled down the front of her morning gown.