He shook his head. “Just out. Trying to escape cousins myself. Walter and Rupert seek to bring me into the fold of the church, and only half of the cousin husbands are sportsmen. Better to get a ride in before the snow gets any worse.”

“Isn’t there a hunt?” Elizabeth asked, propping one hand on her hip. “There’s always a hunt, and the snow isn’t treacherous. It’s Derbyshire, not Scotland.”

Edmund shrugged. “The hunt is not the same as a true ride, E. I never gallop there, and I do on a ride. Besides, Simms was saying the roads are growing nigh impassable both north and south. Mud and ice and snow, and carriages have been struggling. A single rider would be fine, but…” He smiled in a would-be eager manner. “Good thing all our blessed relations have arrived, isn’t it?”

“Huzzah,” the girls all responded in the same flat tone.

“Hmm,” hummed a familiar voice from the drawing room nearest them. “Why do I always grow suspicious when my children gather together?”

Elinor chuckled as she looked over at her mother, standing in the doorway, arms cradling a sleeping baby. “I haven’t the faintest idea, Mama. We’re all so innocent.”

“Is that what you call it?” she replied. “Interesting.” She shifted her gaze to her son. “Edmund, you’d best leave now, I know your father and James will want you to assist them this afternoon. Girls, Emma and Partlowe could use your help with the mistletoe and greenery. They’re encamped in the blue room with Alice and Anna, and I’ve just sent Hannah, as well.”

“Does anyone else wonder how Uncle James manages with Anna as his wife and Hannah as his daughter?” Ellen asked as they all did as their mother bid. “So very similar.”

Elinor gave her sister a bemused look. “They don’t live together, Elle. Hannah and Mr. Layton live in Bath.”

“Even so…”

Elizabeth huffed, ever the impatient one. “One could say the same thing about our family. Ellen and Elinor? Could be quite confusing.”

Ellen’s brow furrowed with surprisingly deep crevices. “But it isn’t. That’s quite clear.”

“Why do I bother?” Elizabeth asked Elinor, eyes widening yet again. “Why?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

Somehow, it seemed that the warmth of being with her cousins and other relations had yet to descend upon her. For the moment, she was still slightly disgruntled and wondering how long they were going to have to remain so completely surrounded by family and so utterly removed from anything resembling Society. Although both Louisa and Martha had managed to marry into the peerage, and Lord Winthrop had said his brother John might arrive for Christmas. And he might bring friends.

Letitia might get her husband after all.

But how exactly she would manage to accomplish that when the house was overrun with children at any given time was beyond comprehension.

A series of successive shrieks from above them emphasized that point rather soundly, and Elinor bit back another sigh. She didn’t mind children. Quite the opposite. In fact, she would much rather have been up in one of the nurseries playing with the children. They’d all be permitted down with the adults this afternoon until dinner, and it would be a blessed relief. None of them cared if Elinor ever married or not, and not one of them thought her association with the Spinsters ought to be commented on.