Free Worth Lord of Reckoning by Grace Burrowes

shout. “Mrs. W? Ye must come quick to the children’s rooms.”
    He wheezed down the kitchen steps, looking mortally relieved to have found her.
    “The young ladies be in a taking, Miss Snyder is wringing her hands, and ye must come.”
“You sit, Mr. Simmons, and catch your breath. I’m on my way.”
    She did not run, though. Simmons had already set a questionable example for the junior staff with his haste and shouting. She also suspected Yolanda and Avery were engaged in a version of finding their balance with each other, and among young ladies who were family, that way would not always be smooth.
    “Girls, please stop shouting,” Miss Snyder was saying when Jacaranda arrived at Avery’s room. “I meant no offense, not to anybody. We’re to help each other in this life and—Mrs. Wyeth, hello. I apologize on behalf of the children for the racket.”
    “These two are old enough to make their own apologies for cutting up the king’s peace. Now what has caused this uproar? Avery, you first.” Jacaranda closed the door and stood with her arms crossed, barely resisting the urge to tap her foot.
    Avery launched a righteous volley in English liberally garnished with French, explaining that dear Wickie was off in the village on her half day, but the Miss Snyder creature attempted to brush Avery’s hairs in Wickie’s absence, and while an aunt might brush a niece’s hairs, Miss Snyder was nobody to be assuming such privileges. Not nobody at all , of less consequence than a moose.
    Yolanda looked abruptly away, and Miss Snyder looked down at her hands.
    “Yolanda, what have you to say?”
    Yolanda took a moment to compose herself, for which Jacaranda respected the girl.
    “Miss Snyder was only offering to help, and Avery went off on a grand scold, and that was wrong. I am not brushing my niece’s hair until she apologizes.”
    “I shall not apologize to somebody I don’t know for forbidding her to brush my hairs.”
    “And yet,”—Jacaranda treated Avery’s tousled hair to a slow perusal—“you can hardly come to table with your hair looking like that, can you, child? The hedgehogs will ask to make the acquaintance of your hairdresser.”
    Avery got a look at herself in the cheval mirror and was too young to hide a grin. “Wickie will be back, and she can brush my hairs.”
    “If she pleases to,” Jacaranda said. “Who pays Wickie’s salary, Miss Avery?”
    “Uncle.”
    “So from whom will Wickie take her orders?”
    “Uncle, but she listens to me, too.”
    “Miss Snyder will listen to you, too, so what do you wish you’d said to her?”
    Avery studied her reflection in the mirror, biting her lower lip.
    “Miss Snyder, I do not know you, and you are not my Wickie. I would not have you brush my hairs. I will brush them myself, but thank you for wishing to help.”
    “You love your Wickie,” Miss Snyder said. “Nobody should be insulted by that. Which brush would you like to use?”
    Problem solved, Jacaranda repaired to her sitting room, intent on regaining her own balance, with herself, by herself. Alas, Mr. Reilly, the land steward, patrolled the door to her parlor, a relieved smile blooming on his face when he spotted her.
    “Our dear Mrs. Wyeth! There you are, and how are you on this fine day?”
    Subtlety was not Reilly’s forte, but he was good-hearted, if timorous. The middle of the month would soon be upon them, the master was in residence, and Reilly wasn’t about to forgo his monthly cup of tea.
    “I am fine, sir, and you?”
    “Ready to spend an hour with a gentle lady,” he said, bowing slightly. “I don’t suppose you have a pot of tea on hand?”
    “We’ll ring for a tray.” Like Mr. Simmons and half the footmen, Mr. Reilly indulged a sweet tooth at every opportunity. “How is Mrs. Reilly?”
    He prattled on about his wife’s sister’s cousin’s something or other, then wandered around to discussing his various children, at least one of whom was the brightest