Scandals Bride (Cynster 3)

"Indeed," Patience warned, "and so are their teeth."

She looked up at that moment and saw Catriona-Patience raised her brows in question. Catriona smiled and shook her head.

"Ow!"

Patience turned back. "Now be careful-they're only very young and don't mean to hurt."

With her manor filled to bursting, and yet, at peace, Catriona headed on to the stillroom.

She was there an hour later when Patience put her head around the door. "Can I interrupt?"

Catriona grinned. "Please do-I'm only refreshing the linen sachets."

"Perhaps I could help." Pulling a stool up to the other side of the table at which Catriona sat, Patience settled and picked up one of the small linen bags. "I'll sew them up, if you like."

"You can interrupt me any time," Catriona informed her pushing the needle and thread over the table. "That's the part I hate."

Once they'd settled to their tasks, Patience said: "Actually, I was wondering it you could recommend anything to help settle my stomach." She caught Catriona's eye and grimaced. "Just in the mornings."

"Ah." Catriona smiled and dusted off her hands. "I have a tea that should help." She had the canister to hand. "It's mainly chamomile."

The family had celebrated Patience and Vane's good news with a boisterous round of toasts around Richard's bed some nights before. Honoria had tried to take a backseat, claiming a second pregnancy was less news than a first-they hadn't let her succeed. However, other than exchanging warm glances, she and Richard had said nothing; both, independently, had felt the need to keep their news to themselves for a time-to savor it fully before sharing it with others. Setting the canister down, she found a cloth bag and filled it with the leaves. "Have the maid brew this for you every morning and drink it before getting out of bed-it should soothe you."

It worked for her.

Patience took the bag gladly. "Thank you. Honoria doesn't seem to be affected-she says she only feels woozy for about a week."

"All women are different," Catriona assured her as she returned to her task of stuffing dried herbs into the linen sachets.

A companionable silence descended, then the door opened; Honoria looked in. She smiled. "There you are. Perfect. I wanted to ask if you had any remedies made up for teething infants." Pulling up another stool to the table, she picked up an empty sachet and started to stuff it. "Sebastian's cut his first two teeth, but the rest seem to be causing him more bother. He gets so fractious-and, if anything, he can out-bellow his father."

Patience chuckled.

Catriona grinned and slipped from her stool. "Cloves should help. I have an ointment made up here somewhere."

While she poked about and found the jar, then filled a smaller jar for Honoria, the other two industriously stuffed and sewed.

"Actually," Honoria said, handing a stuffed sachet to Patience, "when you come to visit I must get you to go through our stillroom. I know the basics, of course, but I'm sure you could give me a few lessons to good effect."

"Hmm." Patience looked around at the neat rows of bottles and jars, all filled, all labelled. "And when you've finished in Cambridgeshire, you can come and visit in Kent."

Ordinarily, she would instantly have said that she never left the vale; instead, visited by an impulse she couldn't define, Catriona smiled warmly. "We'll see."

They all gathered for lunch that day-when the gong sounded, the three ladies left the stillroom where they'd spent a companionable hour finishing the linen sachets and comparing household notes. As she strolled with her sister-in-law and cousin in law to the dining hall, Catriona could not recall any similar experience. She'd never been party to such a discussion before, never been exposed to the warmth of shared confidences and freely offered advice.

She'd never felt as close to any other lady as she now did to Honoria and Patience. Yet another revelation of what she had not known could be.

The dining hall was its now customary hub of noise and energy. As she took her seat, she looked over her guests with an affection she'd never before experienced. A growing affection.

They, of course, simply took it as their due; they smiled, grinned and even winked at her, then settled to entertain themselves and everyone else. They were all so powerfully alive, so sure of themselves, so innately confident, yet not high in the instep at all; the manor folk, the vale folk-all her people-had taken them to their hearts.

The Dowager sat beside McArdle and lectured him on taking more exercise, something Catriona had tried to hint to him for years. The Dowager didn't hint-she told him. With extravagant gestures cloaked in Gallic charm.

And, of course, McArdle listened, and nodded his head in agreement.

Cook and Honoria compared notes on the success of their efforts with the roasted meats, while the twins called everyone's attention to the highly varied loaves scattered about the tables, prettily sharing all compliments thus gained with Cook's three girls, who turned beet-red with confusion.

Henderson, Devil and McAlvie sat at another table, deep in discussion of who knew what; farther along, Vane and Gabriel were chatting with Corby, Huggins and the stable-lads-about horses if their gestures were any guide.