7. Moving to the country

I was surprised to find that my sisters took the news of our move to the country very well. Surprisingly well, in fact.

I had expected the departure from London - the Ton, as they call it, to the country to be greeted by dismay, after all, although it wasn't the Season there were still parties and dinners to be attended. But the house suddenly exploded in an excited chattering frenzy as outfits were selected and trunks were packed.

To avoid the worst of the preparations, I retreated to my study out of the way. And it was there that Hermione tracked me down.

I had not had a chance to talk with her since I spoke with her suitor, Mr Barthomley, and I assumed that she sought to rectify that.

This was, in fact, the case. Hermione wanted to know what I thought of him.

Hermione looks sweet and innocent, that is her stock in trade. Oh, for sure, she is definitely a Rogeringham, there is no mistaking that. She has my father's dark hair but the slim form of our mother and her eyes. Of all of my sisters you would look at Hermione and assume that butter would not melt in her mouth. She does not even try, but with her large eyes, and long hair which she rarely wears up, she has a positively angelic air about her. It has been that way since she was a small child.

However, as I discovered recently, Hermione is not all she appears to be. 'There is steel in that one' Charlotte had said, and talking to her it appeared that way. She was certainly astute, as she began with a question.

"You have misgivings about James?" She asked brightly.

"I will be completely honest with you - yes I do."

"Yet you have given permission for him to see me more?"

I nodded. "I take it that that is acceptable to you?"

It was her turn to nod.

"Will you explain something to me, Hermione?" She nodded again and I asked, "What do you see in him?"

Hermione smiled her radiant smile. "He is sweet, William. Oh, he is a twit, as you would put it, and he is pompous, but he has a sweet heart, and even with the obstacles that were put in his way, he continued his courtship of me."

It couldn't have been easy for the young man, especially with our father, "You genuinely like him?"

Hermione nodded once more.

"I see no reason then, why I should stand in your way. Be warned though, Hermione, there are few people on this earth that I bear as much affection for, as I do you. He only has to take one step out of line and I shall ..."

"Please William?" My youngest sister came and sat beside me and hugged me, "Do him no harm until I have had my chance ..."

I grunted my assent. "If you insist."

Hermione giggled and kissed my cheek. I find it hard to be out of sorts with her. Although I was still uncertain of the young man, Mr James Barthomley Esq would live - at least for a while.

With so many of us travelling, and because I wanted Helena to go ahead and start preparing for the Winter Ball, my mother would travel first in our landau with most of the girls. Barclay would follow along with them riding in a van with the staff that were going and all of the luggage. Charlotte and I would follow a day or so later in our brougham. Normally I would have ridden the distance from London to Buckinghamshire, but this time I chose to travel with Charlotte.

At one point Margaret complained that she and her twin could ride with me and that the landau would thus be less crowded.

"The plan has been made." I said firmly, using my 'tone of command' voice, "The four of you will travel with your mother, Charlotte and I shall be in the brougham."

For a moment I expected resistance, but despite a sullen cast to her mouth, Margaret said "Yes, William."

I kept my surprise to myself, and watched them into the coach. I wanted to wrap my mother in my arms and kiss her a tender goodbye. Instead, I settled for a peck upon her cheek and I waved them off.

Supper that night was just Charlotte and myself, and the dining room seemed huge compared to what it was normally. I sat in my now normal place at the head of the table and my sister sat beside on my right-hand side.

"So, brother." She asked after the soup dishes had been removed. "Why AM I the favoured one?"

I smiled at the question. "Mother went ahead to start planning for a winter ball, and faced with the incessant quizzing from the twins and Hermione or Caroline's meaningful silences, I chose you."

She laughed. "Ah! I am the lesser of the evils?"

"If you wish."

"Very well then. If you wish to have peace and quiet on the journey, I promise I will behave if you answer me a question tonight."

I looked at her, and cautiously nodded my assent. Henry supervised a new, younger footman as he served our main course, medallions of pork with potatoes and late vegetables.

"You do realise that I am only four years younger than you? To all intents and purposes, I am a grown woman?"

I nodded again, it was true, although I still tended to think of them as girls, all of them including Hermione were grown women, something, I realised, I was having problems acknowledging.

"So, in all our conversations about your experiences in the Peninsular, why is there so much you avoid talking about? We were always honest with each other as children, in fact we swore always to tell each other the truth, are we still children to you?"

I wiped my mouth on a napkin. "Forgive me, dear sister. There is much that is sordid and unpleasant and just plain ugly in the world outside of these walls. I merely sought to ..."

"Shield us? Protect us?" There was no heat in her questioning and she took my hand in hers. "That's always something that I have loved about you, William, you always look out for us. Father tried to do the same, I think, but instead he ended up jailing us here. Locking us away from the world, isolating us, because ... because ... who knows why?"

"Come now, you're not totally isolated." I reminded her. "You yourself told me that there were dances, and men who would come calling."

"I did," Charlotte admitted.

The young footman cleared the plates away. I did not care for a dessert dish, neither did Charlotte, so we went to sit in the parlour.

"There are many ways a person can feel isolated," Charlotte told me, "Not simply by being locked away in a remote tower."

"This is also true," I nodded, "But I suppose, if I am doing anything, it is preserving my vision of my beautiful and loving sisters, the slightly vexing young ladies, that I grew up with.

"And yet, as much as I want to do that, I know that some of you will want to go out from here into the world," I waved at the windows which fronted onto the street. "And I worry that you are not yet ready for that."

Charlotte was looking at me with a mixture of surprise and admiration, but also a hint of mischief, as she asked, "And what are you going to do to prepare your sisters for the world?"

I had to laugh, "Frankly Charlotte. I don't know. If you were part of a draught of new recruits, I would put you through your drills, and so discover what is missing in your knowledge; after that I would organise appropriate training for you all."

"Well!" Charlotte smiled, "Then it is a good thing that we are the sisters of a duke and not 'a draught of recruits', that all sounds awful."

"How very genteel you are, sister." I laughed. She nodded gracefully.

"How then shall we achieve this?" She asked. "Hopefully something more suitable than marching and drilling."

"I have ideas - the first of which is to discover what it is each of you really wants from the future. That is the key. Do you wish to find a husband? Or are you still considering the role of a kept wife in a harem?"

Charlotte waved the question away, as if to suggest that she had not yet decided which way she would go.

"Once that goal is clearly fixed," I went on, "We move towards it."

"I must admit William, you surprise me. That you care so much for us, unlike many men, who just dispose of sisters and daughters as they think fit without considering what the women think - that is no surprise, that is the you I have come to love," she said, "You have always thought of us before yourself. But that you are also prepared to ignore what is considered normal in this and do what you think is right by us, then that only makes me love you more, brother."

We spent that evening reminiscing about our childhood over a glass or two of a fairly decent madeira from my father's cellars - my cellars now. We talked about the people we had played with growing up, our tutors, and Nanny Quinn, who despite her ferocious bark, would happily - devotedly, sit with us all night if we were ill.

After that, the talk turned to past suitors, I talked about young ladies I had been interested in, and Charlotte about boys that she had liked.

It had turned nine o'clock and I was considering retiring for the night as I planned to depart for Rogeringham Hall early the next morning.

"Charlotte?" I asked, after some thought. "You asked me earlier about truthfulness - so I have a question, and I understand if you do not wish to answer ..."

"Am I a virgin?" She asked me.

"Well, yes, are you?"

"I'd ask you why you wish to know, but I know you have your reasons. I have no maidenhead. That was broken when I was younger, riding in the park at Rogeringham. But I have not yet slept with a man.

"I suppose it would be pointless to ask you the same question, William."

"But I shall still answer and say my virginity is long gone."

"And yet," she said thoughtfully, "There is no wife not even a fiancée. Is it true then, what we always wondered?"

"What was that?" I asked as innocently as I could.

"Mama?" she said simply.

"I don't know what you mean," I told her.

"Ahhhh - I think you do," she laughed. "The slow smouldering looks, the envy with which you watched father ... oh and the serenade the other night!"

"What of it?"

"We have often discussed it between us," she confided. "Oh, to be certain, we know you love all of us, but equally we know that you save a special place in your heart for mama."

"And if I did? What of it? It's not like anything would ever come of it ..."

"To be truthful with you William, why not? Mama is an attractive woman, and she has retained her looks well. And why should she not have pleasure after years of being married to father?"

"So, you're saying - if I have an interest in my mother - my step-mother, I should do something about it?" I asked innocently. "But what of the age difference?"

Charlotte waved it away, "What I am saying brother, is that she deserves pleasure too. We all do."

"Wait! You speak of pleasure, Charlotte, how are you aware of such things? Did you not say that you had not yet slept with a man?"

"Oh! Did I?" She said ingenuously. "Surely there are many pleasures to be enjoyed. And many of them do not include sleeping with a man.

"Heavens! Is that the time!" She said unexpectedly, "I should be away to bed, you did say that you wish to depart early, did you not?"