Page 1 of Twelve Drummers Drumming

Chapter One

“And so, wewould like to announce,” the young man said, his hair flying wildly around his face as he looked excitedly out at the family gathered in the room, “that we are engaged to be married!”

Cheers and sighs erupted all around the room as Dr. Stuart Walsingham looked at Caroline Forrest with adoring eyes.

Women in empire-line dresses moved forward to clasp Caroline’s hands in theirs, and Stuart was clapped on the back by his future father-in-law. All was merriment and laughter, joy and celebration.

There was, however, one person in the room not taken with this news.

Jemima Fitzroy smiled thinly, her lips pressed together in the only expression she could manage. She would not offend, not if she could help it. Her father wished them all to be a family, and she would not disappoint him for the world.

Probably.

As women cooed over the couple—the first of the family to become betrothed—Jemima watched from her seat by the window. It was like looking into another world, another family.

Not her own.

“The first Fitzroy wedding!” her father was exclaiming. “Goodness me, I shall have to hope you do not all wish to marry in the same Season, or I shall be ruined!”

Laughter echoed around the room. Jemima did not join them.

Well, he was not wrong, she thought irritably. Her father certainly had enough daughters.

As the eldest, and the only daughter of his first wife, Jemima considered herself her father’s keeper. She had not been amused when he had married Selina, a widow who came with two daughters of her own.

Caroline and Esther were all very well, as stepsisters went. Jemima had to admit that as their parents had married so many years ago, she could hardly remember her own mother.

But of course, it had not stayed three sisters for long. Her father and Selina had produced three more daughters, Arabella, Lucy, and Sophia.

More Fitzroys than the world knew what to do with, and that didn’t include their cousins…

Jemima pursed her lips as wisps of conversation floated around the drawing room.

“—such a handsome man—”

“—all saw it coming, of course—”

“—married by Michaelmas, if I have my way—”

Though her stepsister’s engagement was not a cause for celebration in her mind, as she looked around the room, she could see she was alone in that regard.

Jemima swallowed, but the words she attempted to swallow down poured from her mouth. “I wish you had not interrupted my talk with Father—I have been hoping to speak to him about the war for some time now. Hundreds of people, not just I, have signed it to support our soldiers in the continuing war in France, yet—”

Caroline’s eyes were bright with the excitement of all the attention, but she still managed to roll her eyes. “Again, Jemima? We have listened to this time and time again, and still, you will not quit your obsession with this war!”

“With peace!” Jemima spoke fervently, her hands clasped in her lap and her heart starting to patter with the passion of her words. “For it is peace I strive for and many others across the country! Why should the depths of human depravity be permitted to continue when so many are suffering? Why do we not support our men as they return, leaving them to suffer on the streets?”

Her half-sister Arabella smiled patiently, but there was no interest in her expression. “Jemima, please…”

“As long as I can remember, we have been at war with France!” Jemima spoke, certain she would one day help her sisters to understand. “Yet I am sure the people of France have no such wish to be at war at all! If only we, the people of Britain, could come together and—”

But her family wasn’t listening. They did not understand, not really.

They suffered, she knew, and she wished for that suffering to end. Could not the world live in peace, rather than continuously fight wars over lines on a map?

Her stepmother, Selina, was occupied with preventing tears from falling and bemoaning that not all her daughters were present to witness such a day.

“It is simply too bad poor Esther and Lucy departed not one day before this happy time,” Selina spoke petulantly. “They would decide to go to Bath, and determined as they were to enjoy all the fashionable treats of the coming Christmas season, they will be with their cousins Joy and Harmony now, though I cannot think the Bath Fitzroys will have news as festive as this!”

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