“James, you little rascal. Where are you hiding?" Jackie called out down the long hall of Wintercrest Manor.

She took her slippered steps very carefully with her little cousin, Elisabeth, holding her hand. They paused for a moment, as Jackie was sure she heard a giggle.

Sure enough, the sound came again. It was the soft laughter of a three-year-old who couldn’t contain himself. Elisabeth gave her own toddler laugh in reply, covering her mouth with her free cherubic hand.

“We’ve caught them now,” Jackie said to her partner.

Jackie slid open the door to what seemed like an empty bedroom. She could, however, hear the rustle of bedding.

Jackie put a finger to her lips and pointed under the bed for Elisabeth's benefit. They both snuck over and got down on their knees before the long bed covering.

With a swift movement, Jackie lifted the bedding to reveal Elisabeth’s twin brother hiding under the bed.

“Got you!” Elisabeth called out to him.

“Where is Aunt Abigail?” Jackie asked as she helped pull the three-year-old from under the bed.

It wasn’t a room that was often used, and his clothes and dark hair were now covered in a light coating of dust.

James promptly sneezed as Jackie attempted to brush it off. Mrs. Murray wasn’t one to rise to a temper, but she would be very unhappy to see the boy in such a state.

Elisabeth decided to search the room as Jackie did her best to brush her brother off. She knew her Aunt Abigail couldn’t be far away from her hide-and-seek partner.

“Found you, too,” Elisabeth called out as she poked behind a privacy screen.

There, she did find her Aunt Abigail, much too old for silly games, but still happily playing with her two nieces and nephew.

“Oh, dear. I thought I really had you fooled that time,” Lady Abigail Grant said as she was led by the hand from behind the curtain.

“Aunt Abigail couldn’t fit under the bed,” James said with a giggle.

“I could so fit,” Lady Abigail retorted with a hand on her hip. “I just didn’t want to get all dusty like you.”

The children all happily laughed with their aunt before she returned them all to the nursery. It would soon be time for Lady Abigail to dress for dinner.

“May I come down with you too, tonight?” Jackie asked.

“I am afraid not. We are to have Captain Jones and a few of his officers from the militia with us tonight.”

“But I am almost twelve years old. Certainly that is old enough,” Jackie retorted.

Lady Abigail knew that her niece was now at that age where she no longer wanted to be treated as a child left in the nursery. She had struggled with the same frustrations as a young girl.

“I know it doesn’t seem fair now, but you would not want to come anyway. “Captain Jones is an ancient, very boring man. I fear you would fall asleep during your first course and never want to come to dinner again,” Lady Abigail added, trying to make it seem less enticing.

“I don’t care, I still want to go,” Jackie grumbled.

“I know, my dear. Very soon you will and wish you didn’t have to.”

Lady Abigail would have been more than happy to stay the night in the nursery with the twins and let Jackie go in her place. Not only was Captain Jones incredibly unentertaining, he was also very long-winded.

It was going to be a very long night of pretending to be interested. Lady Abigail’s only hope was that at least one of the three lieutenants that would be joining the captain would be of some interest.

Lady Abigail was now nineteen years old and of a marrying age. She thought the prospect of finding a gentleman who would interest her very unlikely. They all wanted a quiet, prim, proper lady. That was not Abigail at all.

She much rather fancied the idea of marrying an officer instead. Though he might not have been one of the peerages, he was undoubtedly considered a gentleman. Men of this social standing would also be less likely to be put off by a less than gentle manner.

Lady Abigail had of course been bred to be an entirely proper lady by her parents, the Duke and Duchess of Wintercrest. They also had, however, given her the freedom to grow into her own personality.

Lady Abigail hoped to marry someday. She wished to find that love that seemed to defy any barricades of social standards, as her brother, the current Duke of Wintercrest, had done when he first met his wife, Isabella.

She, however, did not want to marry solely because social graces dictated that she do so. If she did marry, she had long ago determined it would be someone she loved dearly and who would care for her just as she would them.

Sadly, Lady Abigail was sorely disappointed with the night's dinner guests. Captain Jones had brought three of his lieutenants and a colonel. The colonel was much too old for Lady Abigail’s liking, two of the three lieutenants were already married, and the third betrothed.

Lady Abigail half wondered if her brother had purposefully only invited the otherwise unavailable to dinner that night.

The duke often had the high-ranking officers from the militia come to dinner when they were in the area. It was an important gesture for him to give, but it also allowed nostalgia for his own days in the Royal Navy.

The duke was aware that Abigail was now of the age when courtships became pressing and engagements were on the horizon. He rather overprotected her when it came to opportunities of meeting gentlemen.

“You know he did it on purpose,” Lady Abigail said softly to her sister-in-law after dinner.

The whole party was now seated in the drawing room. The men were by the fire talking politics while Lady Abigail, Isabella, the Duchess of Wintercrest, and the dowager duchess played a game of cards.

---

“I am quite certain he did do it on purpose,” the duchess agreed.

“What a rotten thing it is to do,” Lady Abigail said, setting down her cards rather exaggeratedly.

“What is it you two are whispering about?” Lady Abigail’s mother asked over her own hand of cards.

The dowager duchess was now deteriorating quickly in her older age. Lady Abigail suspected, with the loss of her husband a few years back, her mother had since lost much of the light in her life.

Lady Abigail’s parents could not have been more opposite creatures. Not only were they different in manners and personality, but there was a very vast age difference. For an outsider to look in on their marriage, it would have been assumed the arrangement was made for practical purposes.

It was well known, however, by all the late duke and dowager duchess’s children that their parents did, in fact, have a deep affection for each other.

“Abigail is not very happy to see that the gentlemen invited tonight are not of her preference,” the duchess explained to her mother-in-law.

“Your brother hopes better for you than a common militiaman,” Lady Abigail’s mother explained.

Lady Abigail didn’t like this response, nor did she look forward to the idea of her overly protective brother choosing dinner guests in the future.

“Don’t worry,” the duchess said, taking her sister-in-law’s hand and patting it softly. “Soon, the season will be upon us. You will have more suitors than you know what to do with.”

It was an accurate statement that, due to Lady Abigail’s beauty, she caught the eye of many potential suitors during her time in London each year. What was upsetting to her was that, so far, no one had caught her eye in return.

Lady Abigail brushed a rust-colored ringlet back from her shoulder. It was an act of irritation that both the duchess and Lady Abigail’s mother knew well.

“I have to say, I am surprised that His Grace is allowing you to go at all,” Lady Abigail said with emphasis on her brother’s proper title.

The duchess patted her belly that was beginning to show the swell of life beneath.

“ I have plenty of time before this little one comes. I have been away from London for so long, I could not bear to spend another season away. And as for the duke,” she said with a raised brow, “I did not ask. I merely announced my intentions.”

All three ladies laughed at this. They had become quite a close trio with all the time they had spent together over the last four years.

Though up until now the duchess had chosen to stay home with her young children, Lady Abigail and her mother had still attended the season at their lavish city house. They always came home in time to spend the remainder of the year with the duke, duchess, their ever-growing family, and the late Lord James Grant’s daughter, Jaqueline De’belmount.

“You will give my best to my sister, won't you?" Lady Abigail’s mother asked after they all contained their rather girlish giggles.

“Of course I will,” Lady Abigail assured her mother.

Lady Abigail rather looked forward to her time each year in London, less for the prospects and more for time with her favorite cousin, Lady Fortuna Rosh. She dearly loved this extension of her family and, in times past, had spent many weeks visiting with her uncle and aunt, the Marquess and Marchioness of Huntington.

“I do wish you would come though, Mother," Lady Abigail added.

“I am not feeling at all up to it this year. Plus, with all three of my grandchildren staying here at Wintercrest, I dare say I will be much happier to have them about than the ladies of the town.”

“I must confess, I am happy to have you here with them too,” the duchess added. “It will be my first time away from the twins. I didn’t think I could do it but knowing you will be with them brings me comfort.”

“Remember you said that, my dear, for when you return, you may find them entirely spoiled,” Lady Abigail's mother said with a happy glow around her aging face.

Lady Abigail couldn’t help but notice that, despite the wrinkles that now curled around her brown eyes and the large amounts of silver hair that glowed in the light of candles, her mother was still a gorgeous woman.