Chapter Text
Chapter One
"I swear, if one more person says you look like you have your hands full I will actually scream.” Daphne hummed in response, distracted by Eddie as she wiped at his blueberry-covered face. "Daph, are you even listening to me?"
Daphne tossed the cloth in the sink and lifted her son out of the high chair. "I am. Just multitasking." Eloise let out a noise of discontent but didn't say anything else on the phone. "Oh don't get stroppy. You of all people know what it's like to be doing all the things at once."
"I do, it's just..." Eloise sighed, giving up on the overflowing pile of dishes in her own sink. "I'll let you go. I'm sure the twins will be back from school any minute now."
"Just what?" Daphne prodded, depositing Eddie into the wooden baby pen that was slowly taking over her living room. As a fifth child, it was far easier to jail him than pick up the hundreds of choking hazards strewn throughout the house.
Eloise grunted, mostly to herself. "I used to have interesting thoughts. Impressive thoughts even. Now all I have time to think about is phonetics and football practice. My sole weekend plan is a bratty 9-year-old’s birthday party."
Daphne smiled into the phone. "It's cute. Super stepmum Eloise."
"It's something," Eloise muttered as she pulled out a loaf of bread to make jam sandwiches. "I love the twins and Phillip. Truly. But this isn't exactly what I pictured when I said yes."
"It's a big change. I'm seven years into being a mum and I still feel like I'm adjusting."
"Really?” Eloise asked quietly, looking around at the endless clutter in her kitchen. Off to the side sat her work, still unfinished for the day, and not for the first time Eloise wondered how many more deadlines she could miss without dire consequences.
"Yes." Daphne fished out a rogue piece of Lego from Eddie's mouth. "You're doing great. I promise."
Eloise cut Amanda's sandwich in half but left Oliver's untouched. "Sorry for moaning at you. You're...I can't talk to Fran about this, you know?"
Daphne sighed, watching as Eddie pushed his toys around in an attempt to build a tower of escape. "I know." Daphne made a mental note to message Fran after the kids were down. Even before the miscarriage and John's death, Frannie was hard to get on the phone, but now she was entirely text except for their weekly sister FaceTime with Daphne in Clyvedon, Eloise at Romney Hall, Francesca in Kilmartin and Hyacinth in Florence. "Tell me something fun. What sibling gossip have you got?"
“Gregory and Lucy got steamrolled into being the Bridgerton representation at the Smythe-Smiths Musicale this year."
"Thank god I have children to use as an excuse," Daphne said with a shudder.
"Amen." Eloise concurred, pouring the last of the milk into two cups. Yet another thing to add to the weekly shop, now three days overdue. "Ben told me Sophie is applying for teacher's college."
"She'd be great as a teacher," Daphne said warmly as she pulled a basket of washing from the sofa and began to fold. "Ant told me they’re redoing the upstairs bathroom."
"Again?" Eloise asked with a snort. "Kate sure is nesting hard this time."
"Oh yeah. He was knee-deep in linens when I spoke to him. "
"What's Hy been up to this week?" Eloise inquired, sitting back down in her home office, otherwise known as a laptop on the kitchen table. "She's gone radio silent on me."
Daphne paused, mid-sock sort. "I thought you talked to her?"
"Me?" Eloise asked in confusion. "No. Not since our last FaceTime."
Daphne frowned. "Mum told me that you were helping her with that job application. The museum one."
"Oh I did," Eloise said, logging onto her Facebook account. "But just over email and she submitted it on Monday. Haven't heard from her since." Eloise scanned the page, then moved to Instagram and TikTok. "She hasn't posted in five days."
”Five days?" Daphne said, sounding alarmed. "That's got to be some kind of record."
"She probably blocked me," Eloise explained in amusement. "Wouldn't be the first time."
"What did you do?" Daphne asked, tossing a freshly washed lovey into Eddie's pen.
Eloise laughed. "She blocks you too Daph. Probably too many tags on compromising pictures she needs to do damage control on." Eloise rotated through a large number of names in the search bar. "Yep. We're all locked out. Even Lucy. At least someone in this family is having fun."
"Agreed," Daphne said, hearing the sound of pounding footsteps as Augie and Bella raced up the stairs. "Well that's my cue."
"Mine too." Eloise sighed as Amanda and Oliver burst through the door already in a fight. "Still up for Sunday?"
"And miss the chance to relive my youth vicariously through Hyacinth? Not a chance." Daphne grabbed Augie’s shirt as he raced by and spun him around to reassess the front door. "August Basset, put your shoes in their proper place."
Eloise snorted, choosing just to kick her own children's shoes out of the way. "Talk to you then. Love you."
"Love you too," Daphne said as she abruptly hung up the phone to stop Bella from handing Eddie a bag of marbles.
"I don't think she's coming," Daphne announced as she sat in bed on Sunday night, dressed in comfy sweats for their scheduled FaceTime.
Eloise was at her kitchen table marking student papers. "Astute observation."
Fran rolled her eyes, sitting in her study dressed in one of John's shirts. "Are we cancelling this then?"
"No," Daphne said firmly. "The three of us can still talk." Eloise made a 'then talk' hand gesture, still distracted by endless corrections and Daphne floundered. While she messaged her sisters a lot, and called Eloise more than ever, without Hyacinth's endless chatter on the call it felt like a forced social intervention for Fran and not a casual catch-up.
Fran took pity on her. "Where is Hyacinth anyway? Last time I heard she was in Sicily."
Daphne furrowed her brow. "Sicily? She told Mum she was in Tuscany."
Eloise looked up, mid-scribble. "She sent Ben a picture from an art gallery in Rome."
"That's...a lot of travelling," Daphne said slowly,
Eloise nodded, looking decidedly less amused than before. She pulled out her phone and hit Hyacinth's name, putting it on speaker until it rang through to her Italian cell service voicemail. "Hyacinth, knock this shit off. I know you're screening calls and refusing to respond to messages. I don't care what you're up to, just need to know you're safe. Text me back in the next ten minutes or I'm calling Anthony." Eloise hung up the phone and Daphne nodded her approval.
"Maybe she doesn't have service?" Fran tried, but it sounded unlikely even to her ears.
Daphne and Fran waited while Eloise underlined section after section on a paper. After another minute of nothing but pen scratching, Daphne couldn't take it. "So El, how are your students?"
"Abysmal." Eloise summed up with an affronted sigh. "Can't string together a coherent argument. Far too fond of Marxist metaphors and post-capitalism as an inevitability." Eloise looked at the camera and caught Daphne and Fran's expressions. “Yes, I hear myself.” Eloise couldn't hide the way she kept checking her phone. "Maybe it's just me she's avoiding?"
"Not just you," Fran confirmed as her phone rang through to Hyacinth's voicemail for a third time.
"This seems a bit much, even for Hyacinth," Daphne admitted, feeling her stomach clench nervously.
"Far more Eloise’s style," Fran said, but the joke felt decidedly flat.
"I left a note." Eloise muttered, an automatic reflex at this point." Daphne scoffed. "I did. But regardless, I was only a half an hour from Aubrey Hall, not travelling in a different country."
Daphne looked like she very much disagreed with that logic but wisely kept focused on the current issue. "Do you think we should call Mum? Or Anthony?"
"No," Eloise said firmly. "I can assure you they will not be calming influences on the situation. I'm sure she's just off having a van adventure with some Italian hippie. We all did stupid things like that at 18."
"We did?" Daphne repeated in offence. "I do believe I married my fling."
"As did I." Fran cut in with little patience. "But as far as we know, Hyacinth is alone. We can't just assume she's fine."
Eloise sighed. "I know. But what's the alternative?"
"A welfare check," Fran said quietly. "We talk to the UK embassy and ask them to dispatch an officer to her house." There was no need to discuss the logistics of such a thing. In the aftermath of John's death, in between the Bridgertons' and Stirlings' many coordinated visits, there had been an entire six hours that no one could get ahold of Fran. Full of panic, Anthony had dispatched the Argyll police to break down Francesca's door. She had merely silenced her phone, needing a break from the endless condolences, but Daphne and Eloise would not soon forget that phone call from their mother.
“I'll do it," Eloise suggested, already pulling the information up on her laptop. “I'll call it in and let you know as soon as I hear anything."
Two hours later, Daphne paced her bedroom, trying to think things through. Eloise had successfully drafted an Italian police force to check Hyacinth’s room at the boarding house she was staying at in Florence. The room turned out to be empty, devoid of Hyacinth and her belongings, which was unsettling at best, and deeply terrifying at worst.
“Go Daph,” Simon said from the doorway, his eyes still full of sleep from when she had shaken him awake a few minutes earlier.
“What about the kids?" Daphne asked, glancing at the nursery door. "I don't know how long I'll be gone."
"We will be fine," Simon assured. stepping forward to give her a calming hug. "She's your sister. Of course you're going to go."
Daphne nodded against his shoulder. "I'm scared."
"I know," Simon said, holding her close. "But if there is anyone who can take care of herself it's Hyacinth. Even I'm terrified of her."
Daphne let out a watery laugh and then pulled back to look Simon in the eye. "You can’t tell Anthony. Not until I know what’s going on."
Simon nodded just as Eddie started stirring, due for a night feed. "Call your sisters. I'll get the baby. " Daphne watched as Simon left the room and then pulled out her phone.
Eloise picked up immediately. "I'm booking the first flight out of Heathrow."
"I'll meet you there," Daphne assured, heading towards her wardrobe to start packing. “Should we ask…”
Eloise sighed. “Yes. It might do her some good. A change of scene?"
"She's barely tolerated five minutes in a room with us." Daphne pointed out, not unkindly. It had been a particularly sore subject for Eloise when Fran had pushed her away alongside all the rest of them. "I just don't want to overwhelm her."
"We ask, she decides," Eloise stated fairly, zipping something in the background. "I'm heading out the door in ten. See you at departures."