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FAITH WENT HOME WITH her aunt and uncle at her side, Evie stumbling behind them with a book open in front of her.
“Please, Evie, I know this isn’t the Cliff Walk but it isn’t safe to trip around as you do. You can read once we get to Conte de Fée.”
Uncle Will reached back and pulled Evie closer by her elbow, but she wasn’t paying attention. A wry smile twitched on his face, but he didn’t say anything else to Faith’s cousin as he led her along.
“Sarah and I told your father we had just the thing, and while he sounded rather tired, he couldn’t resist.”
Faith wasn’t sure what her aunt was talking about, but surely a visit from her aunts and uncles would help her parents. They were all so close, and that had led to the friendships she shared with her cousins as well.
As soon as they reached her home, she was distracted from the idle conversation between her aunt and uncle by a movement near the servant’s entrance.
“Johnny?” she said, mostly to herself, wondering what in the world he was doing lurking about there. As if he had heard her, even from that distance, he looked over and shook his head hard, like he had just come from the bath.
He wandered over, taking his time but clearly visible, although Uncle Will and Aunt Catherine acted as if they were surprised by his appearance.
In more ways than one.
“You look like a wet dog! Did you have a swim?”
Faith stared at Evie, who was the last person any of them expected to notice, but she had, stating the obvious.
Her brother only smiled, and Faith was relieved to see it.
And him.
He had been so distant, and while Faith knew he had friends to spend his time with, she didn’t know them well, and she herself was fortunate to have this regular arrangement with their uncle.
What would she do without it, at a time like this when she felt almost like an intruder in her own home, tiptoeing around her parents for fear of disturbing them?
“So observant of you, Evie. Yes, I did, but you know how it is. I’m hot again as if I never had set foot in the water.”
It was a problem they all understood, but in a few months, they would be huddled around their fireplaces to battle the brittle cold of the winter.
Evie squinted a little and shifted, adjusting the waist of the long pale green skirt she wore so her bone white shirt came a bit untucked.
“Have you read anything good lately?”
Their cousin’s question made both Faith and Johnny smile now, and Johnny fell into step with them as they headed to the side door of the house, answering Evie’s question with a quieter tone than he would normally use.
“Why don’t the three of you give us a little time? I know Evie hasn’t seen Johnny in awhile, so you can catch up a bit.”
Aunt Catherine was always direct, and while she was kind in her delivery, Faith felt a little sting, as if she had been reprimanded.
After all, they weren’t children anymore.
But the six of them had lives and relationships before she, her brother, and cousin were born, and it was one of those revelations she had several years ago that was as astonishing as it was true.
As she stood in the parlor with Johnny and Evie, she said a silent prayer that this time together would help them all manage their difficulties, but especially that it would give her parents some comfort over the loss of the child.
“Mr. d’Amici is very handsome, isn’t he?”
They had just sat down on the sofa, and Johnny in a chair, when Evie, hugging her book to her chest as always, slid her gaze towards Faith.
Johnny sat up straight, his focus much more obvious.
“Are you interested in a boy, Evie?”
He sounded incredulous, and Faith nearly laughed, keeping her amusement to a small smile. Her cousin noticed more than people thought she did as she hid behind her books, her mind working over the words just as it took in the glimpses of what went on around her.
A burst of laughter rang from the kitchen, and Evie smiled.
“Aunt Sarah.”
Uncle Sam and Aunt Sarah must have arrived earlier, and on foot as well since there was no carriage parked outside.
Whatever were they doing to make her laugh, and in the kitchen, of all places?
They couldn’t be baking in this heat, and definitely not with Aunt Sarah’s reputation not only as a terrible baker, but a dangerous one.
“I heard she almost set fire to First Steps once, accidentally, of course, and definitely in the kitchen.”
Johnny sat back, his expression one of forced calm that Faith knew well. His claim was a true one, Faith was sure, as she was certain that she had heard the same.
There were so many stories about her parents and aunts and uncles, and even a few about her grandparents. But all of them were funny, or heartwarming.
Rarely was one shared that was heartbreaking, like the one she and Thomas had learned from his parents.
But Uncle Will had mentioned to her that the courtship between him and Aunt Catherine had been difficult, and now, they were all happy, at least until now.
“What are you thinking about, Faith?”
Her brother tapped his foot on the floor near her own, and Faith blinked a few times, looking at him and then at Evie beside her.
“Oh, I’m sorry. It’s just . . . everyone has always been so happy, and we’ve never had anything bad happen before.”
She sounded plaintive, like a little girl, but she couldn’t help it.
Why would this happen when God was watching out for them?
Before Johnny or Evie could respond, a thin figure appeared just inside the doorway.
“Children, your parents have asked if you would like a dish of ice cream. You may eat in here if you wish.”
Lillian, their grandmother’s lifelong maid, clasped her hands in front of her in a picture of serenity. She didn’t leave their grandmother very often, and her presence was such a surprise that all three children, as she referred to them, only stared.
“Well, if you aren’t interested, I will let them know.”
She turned to leave, the thick gray bun at the nape of her neck visible now.
“No, wait. Please.”
Johnny stood up.
“Of course we’d like some, and thank you for asking. But really, is that what they’re doing, eating ice cream?”
Lillian lifted one shoulder.
“It’s strawberry, Arthur John. I seem to recall that you have an affection for strawberries.”
Only Lillian called him Arthur John. No Mister or Miss for any of them, as any of the other maids would say.
“Me, too, Lillian.”
Evie chimed in, and Faith echoed her response. As soon as Lillian was gone, the three of them stared at each other.
“So you do think Nico is handsome, don’t you, Faith?”
Evie’s sudden return to her prior question, using Nico’s first name, startled Faith, and Johnny leaned forward to stare at them both more closely.
“What’s going on?”
Oh, no, Faith nearly groaned. She was not going to tell either of them anything too personal, like her plan to ask her parents and grandparents if she could invite Nico for dinner sometime, after . . . she wasn’t sure when, but certainly not right now.
As Uncle Will had told her, there was plenty of time.
And from the way Nico looked at her, the way he held her when she fell after Thomas pushed him, she was sure he would wait.
“Yes, I think you do. I’m sure you’re daydreaming about him now, aren’t you?”
Johnny’s eyebrows rose quickly at Evie’s accusation, although Evie was smirking.
“I could write that story,” she continued, gesturing in front of her with her arm outstretched, palm flat, facing forward. “Beautiful heiress falls for Italian grocer, it was a love that could not be bought.”
“Ugh,” Johnny interrupted. “That’s awful. Is that the sort of drivel you read, Evie? I thought you and Thomas shared books, and I can’t believe he’d bother with such rubbish.”
“It isn’t rubbish, because it does happen in real life. Doesn’t it, Faith?”
Faith didn’t think she’d ever seen Evie like this, more like her older sister than herself.
Oh, Ruby.
Once Ruby was here, Faith was going to have a hard time of it. She’d tell Faith to march up to Nico and tell him how she felt.
Although she already had.
She wasn’t sure what had come over her, but the words slipped out, and Nico had not only seemed unsurprised, but pleased to hear them.
“See what I mean, Johnny?”
Faith stood up.
“Oh, just stop it, Evie. You know, I like the idea of a swim, Johnny, so I think I’ll go change and do just that. Will either of you join me?”
Evie grimaced. She had never been much of a swimmer, but it didn’t hurt to ask. Stranger things had happened, like the way she had been talking just now.
“Come along, Evie, let’s go. You can borrow one of Faith’s bathing dresses.”
Johnny reached out and grabbed Evie’s hand, pulling her up and hauling her toward the hall and grand staircase.
Faith followed, smiling a little at their play, and wondering what Thomas was up to.
On a usual day, he might be here with them, encouraging Evie to go with them into the water.
How long would he stay away, and when he returned to their meetings with Uncle Will, would things be different between them?
“Oh, Lillian! We forgot!”
The three of them quickly changed into bathing outfits, and found Lillian at the bottom of the stairs holding a tray. She was a bit slower than she had been during their childhoods, and their earlier banter had distracted them from the sweet concoction she now carried on the tray in her hands.
“I’ll set this outside on the table in the garden,” she explained, accurately divining where they were headed.
“No, thank you, I think we’ll manage.”
Johnny took the tray from Lillian carefully, and she relinquished it without protest, offering him a little nod before she turned away.
“I want to know what her story is,” Evie said, watching the maid leave before following Johnny and Faith outside, pushing the door open for Johnny as he held the tray.
The three small glass dishes on it were overfilled with ice cream, with strawberries poking deliciously through the creamy lumps.
Faith knew her grandmother would have a fit to see them eating so much, but she felt sure that no secrets were kept between her grandmother and her maid, so perhaps her grandmother had a hand in this as well as her parents.
Or instead of her parents.
Just as Evie wondered about Lillian, Faith began to wonder about her grandmother.
What kind of woman had raised her father and her aunts? A woman who saw her son marry a housemaid, one daughter marry an heir, and her youngest marry a boy who made deliveries on his bicycle?
Maybe, just maybe, it was a woman who would see her oldest granddaughter courted by an Italian boy who wore an apron and baked cookies with his younger brothers and sisters, who would help design one of the greatest skyscrapers in the country?