“Come on.” Phin took her hand—which was still stupidly outstretched—and tugged her toward the wagon. “I’ll help you in. Climbing into a wagon is more complicated than entering a carriage.” He paused to lift his suitcase into the wagon’s bed as Hazel walked around the far side of the wagon, approaching the driver’s seat.
“You’ve clearly forgotten that I’m a heathen from the West,” Lenore said, blinking rapidly to clear the shock from her head and hopping easily onto the wagon’s seat. As soon as Phin climbed into the seat next to her, as Hazel busied herself with the horse, she leaned in and said, “You didn’t tell me your sister was—” She snapped her mouth shut, unsure how to finish her thought.
“There was a fire when she was twelve,” he whispered quickly, leaving it at that for the time being. He edged his way past her, sitting in the driver’s seat as Hazel attempted to pull herself up. “I can drive home,” he said, taking the reins from her.
“Don’t you dare, Phineas McGuire Mercer,” Hazel scolded him, using her hip to bump him to the middle of the wagon’s seat and yanking the reins from him. “I am perfectly capable of driving a wagon.”
“You’re perfectly capable of being an arse as well,” he muttered, staring flatly at her.
She returned the look with one just as sharp, then used her one hand to snap the reins and encourage the horse into motion.
All in all, Hazel Mercer was a remarkably good driver, especially given her limitations. Lenore spent the entire journey out of the city and along the dark road that led to the Mercer estate watching her and listening to the banter between her and Phin. The two were obviously close. They chattered away as though they’d never been apart, attempting to bring Lenore into the conversation whenever they could.
Exhaustion, and the sense that she had fallen through the looking glass into some strange, new world, hung heavily on Lenore’s shoulders, though, and as the miles wore on, her spirits grew more and more depressed. She’d missed home before in the past year, but the social life of London and the excitements it held had kept her distracted enough not to dwell on it. Journeying through the countryside in a wagon, listening to a brother and sister laugh and rib each other, opened up a veritable Pandora’s Box of emotions in Lenore that she’d avoided for too long.
She missed her mother. She missed her brothers and sisters. A whole year had passed in which she’d missed birthdays, Christmas, the Fourth of July. She missed baseball in Haskell and the fierce but friendly rivalries between ranches that it fostered. She missed picnics after church during the summer and balls at Theophilus Gunn’s hotel in the winter. She missed being around people for whom class was something one did in school and not a distinction that separated people. She even missed horrible, horrible Vivian and Melinda Bonneville and the way they made everyone’s lives miserable because they were miserable themselves.
“You’ve been awfully quiet,” Phin said as Hazel directed the wagon off the main road and along a path toward a modest-sized house that was illuminated by moonlight. “Still sleepy?”
“That must be what it is,” Lenore said in a too-quiet voice.
“It’s them,” a small voice shouted from one of the upstairs windows as Hazel pulled the wagon toward an out building beside the house. “They’re back!”
“Did you bring Lionel with you?” a second voice asked.
“Amaryllis Marie Mercer, what have I told you about opening that window when it’s so cold out?” Hazel called up to the window even as it slammed shut. “I swear, those girls will be the death of us all one of these days.”
“I have a sister who is the same way,” Lenore said as the wagon stopped and Phin climbed over her, hopping down and then helping her down. “Daphne,” she went on. “She’s thirteen—no, she’ll be fourteen by now.” A lump formed in her throat as she jumped to the ground, then stepped away from Phin.
Damn Bartholomew Swan and his villainous ways. She’d spent so long being afraid of him, then hiding from him, then figuring out a way to stay hidden, that she hadn’t contemplated how much he’d actually taken from her. And now here she was, walking around the back of a wagon, the scent of the country in her nose—not exactly like it was at home, but far more like it than London—her heart breaking in the dark, and she couldn’t do a damned thing about it. She hadn’t realized how helpless she truly was until she’d landed in a place where she was safe.
“Something isn’t right,” Phin said, walking up to her as she reached into the back of the wagon to take her traveling bag from where Hazel had stored it. Hazel was busy tending to the horse. He rested his hand on the small of her back as she leaned into the wagon, then kept it there, nearly drawing her into an embrace, when she straightened. “I’m sorry that I didn’t warn you about Hazel’s condition before. I think so little of it these days, and I was concerned about getting you away from London as quickly as possible, that the details slipped my mind.”
“It’s not your sister,” Lenore said, then cleared her throat to dislodge the lump of emotions there. She glanced up at Phin. The moonlight reflected off of his spectacles, but she could still see his eyes and the kindness they held. Everything about him was alluring and wonderful to her, even his scent after a day of traveling. Her heart wanted to wrap herself in his arms and never let go, but that was as impossible as going home again. Still, she owed him the truth. “I’ve just come over all homesick,” she said, lowering her head and stepping away from him.
“I suppose that’s understandable, all things considered,” he said, following her.
“Phineas! Phineas is home!” a girl’s voice rang out in the night.
“Huzzah!” a second girl cried.
The owners of those voices charged forward as Phin and Lenore neared the house, rocketing themselves toward Phin and throwing themselves at him with abandon. The smaller of the two—who looked to be about nine—leapt straight at him, nearly knocking Phin backwards as she wrapped her arms and legs around him.
“Where is Lionel?” the younger one asked.
Phin dropped his suitcase to hug her, laughing. “I’m happy to see you too, Amaryllis. And you, Gladys.” He ruffled the hair of the older girl, who looked to be about eleven, as though she were a boy. “Lionel couldn’t come home this time. The queen needed him to advise her on the guest list for a costume ball. But might I introduce you fine ladies to our guest, Miss Lenore Garrett, Princess of Wyoming.”
Twin gasps followed Phin’s introduction. Amaryllis jumped down from Phin’s arms, and the two girls faced Lenore with wide eyes.
“You’re not really a princess, are you?” Gladys asked, narrowing her eyes in a way that reminded Lenore very much of some of Phin’s more circumspect expressions.
Whether it was the deep longing she felt for her own siblings, exhaustion finally turning her brain to mush, or the sly look Phin now wore, Lenore pulled herself to her full height and answered, “Why yes, I am,” with absolute seriousness.
“No!” Amaryllis gasped. “They don’t have princesses in America.”
“Have you ever been to America?” Lenore asked as Phineas gestured for them all to continue on into the house.