Page 39

It was the screaming. Women, of course. Coming from outside somewhere. Duncan was still half-asleep as he tried to listen, unable to detect if the screams were brought from pain or joy.

“What in the world...” he mumbled as he stumbled from bed and then the room.

Through the house he went, waking himself up as he went, listening as the screams quietened considerably. They were replaced instead by laughter and cackles, loud conversation, the sense that there were dozens of people suddenly congregating outside of his home.

There were not dozens of people gathered outside his manor. Only three. Although the noise that they made might have challenged that fact.

“I still cannot believe you are here!” Isabella cried merrily, embracing her sisters in a two-arm hug.

“You told us to come!” Louisa said.

“Yes, yes, but I did not think you would.”

“I hate to interrupt but is there a washroom I might use,” Isabella’s older sister, Duchess Northwick asked as she cradled her swollen belly.

“When I told you to visit, I meant in due time. Not the next day!” Isabella continued, ignoring her pregnant sister.

“Oh, well, we can leave if you like.”

“No, no.”

“Please, a washroom...” the Duchess begged and grabbed a hold of Isabella's arm.

“Besides, you are so close!” Isabella’s twin decreed happily. “It really was no bother.”

“Oh, I am just so glad you came!”

“Less than a day and she is already bored!”

“I did not say that.”

“Unhappy.”

“I did not say that either.”

“Miserable beyond anything that you --”

“Washroom! Now!”

There were just the three of them. Standing down the driveway by the carriage, Isabella embracing her sisters lovingly as she began to lead them back toward the manor. Certainly not a calamitous gathering of what had sounded like dozens of people to Duncan’s still-tired ears. Even still...

The hysteria. The noise. The impending sense of doom that built inside of Duncan as he watched the three women march toward him, wrapped in one another’s arms, speaking faster than racehorses in full gallop; words tripping, voices rising, laughter crying out.

Duncan felt himself getting annoyed. What were they doing here? And why had he not been told! To be woken up like this, it was beyond infuriating.

As the women came toward him, Duncan watched them, no sense of joy about him, as cold as a winter’s morning.

“Your Grace!” Louisa cried when she spotted Duncan standing in the front door watching them. She hesitated at the sight of him, but then hurried forward and up the stairs and offered acurtsey. “It is a pleasure to see you again. And thank you in advance for your generous hospitality.”

He did not respond.

“Your Grace.” Lady Northwick did the same, albeit with more difficulty as she was forced to hold her belly. “A pleasure and thank you for allowing us in your home today. Might I enquire on where the wash --”

“I do hope it is agreeable that my sisters have come to visit,” Isabella explained as she began up the stairs and after her two sisters. “I extended them an invitation yesterday and they took hold of it with both their hands.”

“You told us to come and visit you as soon as we liked,” Louisa pointed out.

“I did not think it would be the next day.”